Never Wear Red Lipstick on Picture Day: (And Other Lessons I've Learned) (5 page)

“Well, see how you like them once they're on your feet,” Mom says. “If they hurt, we're not getting them.” The salesgirl with the whole ear of earrings comes back then, and she straps the shoes onto my feet. I stand up and take one step, and I hear the heel click-clack against the floor. My face spreads into an enormous grin, and I prance around the store happily.

“I will take these,” I say to Mom.

“So that's it,” Mom confirms. “No other shoes.”

“Right,” I answer.

“And you'll wear your periwinkle dress on ­Picture Day? With no complaints?”

“Yes,” I agree. “No complaints.”

“Are you sure?” Mom asks. “How about this adorable pair?” She points to a plaid shoe that does not even have a heel on the bottom. “I think they're really sharp.”

“These are sharper,” I say, pointing to my feet, and then I throw my arms around Mom's waist so that she knows that I mean it.

“All right, then,” Mom says.

“Wahoo!” I call out, pumping my fist in the air. “Thank you! These are the best shoes ever!”

“We'll take them,” Mom tells the earring girl, who smiles at me like we are sharing a secret.

“A girl always needs a good pair of fancy shoes, huh?” she says to me.

“Fancy-dancy ones,” I agree. “They're even better than my sunglasses.”

CHAPTER
7

Glittery Disaster

I SPEND ALL DAY ON SUNDAY TRAIPSING
around my house in my new shoes. Dad says I need to stop clumping my heels so loudly against the tile floor in the kitchen, but I like the way they sound, so I do not listen. And Mom says I need to go outside and scrape the bottom of the shoes against the sidewalk so they are not so slippery, but I don't want to give them even one scratch, so I do not listen.

Then Grandmom comes over and says to me, “My, those are just about the most beautiful shoes I have ever seen,” and this is why I love Grandmom.

Plus, Grandmom likes to give me presents, and I love presents. So I am very happy when she starts digging in her handbag with a smile on her face.

“It's not new, I found it in my room,” ­Grandmom tells me. “Just goes to show that you can find some wonderful items in your own closet.” She pulls out a scarf that glitters and shimmers and shines in the light.

“Thank you!” I take the scarf from Grandmom and reach up so I can hug her tightly around the neck. “This is the best scarf ever.”

“Not bad for a leftover, huh?” Grandmom asks.

“No, because it is not a leftover to me,” I explain. “It is new.” I run my fingers up and down the scarf and practice wrapping it around my neck, and then around my hair, and then around my wrist. I love it so much that I do not know what to keep my eyes on more: the scarf or the shoes. So I wrap the scarf around my ankles so that I can see both at the same time.

“Mandy, you're going to fall down. Untie that,” Dad instructs me. “We don't need any more broken toes around here.”

“But I like to look at both of them at the same time,” I explain.

“I'm so glad you like your new accessory,” Grandmom tells me. “But how about, if you want to look at your shoes and scarf together, you sit down to do so?” And I think this is not the greatest idea, because then I cannot make click-clack sounds with my heels, but I do not argue with Grandmom because she just gave me this glittery scarf, so she is pretty much my most favorite person in the world right now.

“I am wearing my new scarf to school tomorrow,” I announce from the couch. “And my new shoes, too.”

“I thought you wanted to save those shoes for Picture Day,” Mom says, “so you can show them off with your matching periwinkle dress.”

I consider this for one second. “Okay,” I say. “But I am bringing the scarf.”

And I just know that this scarf is too special for Natalie to ever figure out how to copycat it.

On Monday, I wear my scarf around my neck all the way to school, and everyone on the bus oohs and aahs over it, which I like a lot. When I get off the bus, I skip over with excited feet to my class's line in the gym, and I search the crowd for Anya's wispy blond curls.

“Anya!” I yell when I spot her. “ANYA!” Anya turns around.

“I LOVE YOUR SCARF,” she yells back instantly.

“Me too,” I say. “Do you think this is an outdoor accessory?”

“Hmm.” Anya considers. “No, I think you can probably wear it in the classroom. Mrs. Spangle sometimes wears scarves inside.”

“Good.” I nod with satisfaction. “That's what I thought too.”

“Ugly scarf, Polka Dot.” Dennis appears behind me. “It matches your face.”

“Quiet, Dennis,” Anya says, defending me. “No one's talking to you.”

“Yeah, quiet, Freckle Face,” I agree. “My scarf is beautiful.”

“Nah,” Dennis says, and he reaches out to touch it, even though I never gave him permission to touch my things. “Eww, and it's scratchy, too.”

“QUIET, Dennis,” I yell louder, and I unwind the scarf from around my neck. “I hope it scratches your nose.” I grab my scarf by the end and whip it toward Dennis's face, then I pull it back real fast so he cannot try to grab it.

“Excuse me,” I hear from over my shoulder, and Anya gasps. And Anya gasping is never a good sign, I've learned.

I turn slowly and see my scarf—my beautiful, glittery, wonderful scarf—covering someone's face. And not just anyone's face: a grown-up's face.

The grown-up reaches his hand up to pull the scarf off of him, and that's when I see the person I have hit in the head: Principal Jacks.

Oh no.

“Mandy, right?” Principal Jacks asks me, but I am only able to stare back at him, my eyes so wide that they cannot even blink. I pull my scarf back into my own hands quickly.

“Yep, that's her name!” Dennis calls out when I do not answer. “Mandy Berr.”

Without another word, Principal Jacks reaches out his right hand toward me, and for a second I think that he wants to shake hands, so I reach my own right hand out to do so. But Principal Jacks does not crack one smile.

“The scarf, please,” he says. “This is going to live in my office for a while, until you learn not to use it like a weapon.” I feel myself letting Principal Jacks take my scarf away, and even though I want to shout about it, or cry about it, or scream about it, my mouth is dry like cotton balls, and I say nothing.

And then I hear Dennis snort with laughter.

“Dennis Riley,” Principal Jacks scolds him. “I have a feeling you weren't innocent in whatever the problem was here, so watch it. Remember what we discussed.” Dennis's mouth falls into a serious straight line.

“Come to my office at the end of the week for your scarf, Mandy,” Principal Jacks says to me. “And I hope you and I don't have to see any more of each other before then.”

“Are you okay?” Anya asks me as Principal Jacks walks away, my glittery scarf trailing out of his hand and onto the ground.

“No.” I shake my head. “I am not.”

“What happened?” Natalie appears next to us, and she is just about the last person I feel like talking to right now. That is, except for Dennis.

“Mr. Jacks took away Mandy's new scarf because she hit him in the head with it,” Anya explains, and I give her a dirty look about this. “I mean, it was an accident. It was all Dennis's fault.”

“Was not,” Dennis pipes up. “I'm not the one who brought the ugly scarf to school.”

“You touched it,” I remind him. “You are not allowed to touch my things.”

Dennis shrugs. “You snooze, you lose, Polka Dot,” and he walks to the back of our classroom line, because Dennis always likes to be the caboose.

I see Mrs. Spangle come into the gym then with the rest of the second-grade teachers, so I stand in line between Anya and Natalie. Natalie whispers in my ear, “I'm sorry about your scarf. Dennis is terrible.” And I just nod my head sadly because that is the truth.

“Happy Monday!” Mrs. Spangle calls down our line. “Let's all scoot in and make our line the straightest in all of second grade. One head in back of the other.” And I stare at the back of Anya's hair, my lips drooping lower and lower down my face into a frown.

Mrs. Spangle begins to walk down our line as the other second-grade classes file out of the gym. She stops when she gets to me.

“Why are you looking like such a sourpuss today, Mandy?” she asks. “It's Picture Day week, remember? Time for us all to practice our smiles. And I know how excited you are about Mr. Jacks's lunchtime contest.”

I try to smile at Mrs. Spangle, because I do not want to tell her about my problem with the scarf or about getting in trouble with Principal Jacks, or else she might not like me anymore. And Principal Jacks not liking me anymore is bad enough.

Also, there is absolutely, positively no way that I would ever want to have lunch with the principal now, because thinking about him taking my scarf away makes my face feel hot and embarrassed, so the contest is not even fun anymore. I wish I could rewind my day to yesterday, when I had my click-clack heels on my feet and my glittery scarf around my neck, and the whole week was not already a big disaster.

CHAPTER
8

How to Say “I'm Sorry”

“HI, MANDY,” MOM GREETS ME
in the kitchen after school. “I'm surprised you're not wearing that scarf you love so much.”

I nod my head slowly, because I do not really feel like talking about it. When I don't answer, Mom looks at me like she is suspicious. “Did something happen to your scarf?” she asks, and I almost wish that the twins were awake so that Mom would not be paying such good attention to me.

“It is a long story,” I reply. “I will have it back at the end of the week.”

“But where is it now?”

“I told you, it is a long story,” I repeat.

“Well, I would like to hear this story.”

I sigh a big gust of breath then and look toward the twins' room, hoping that one of them will begin wailing immediately. When that doesn't happen, I say, “It is missing right now.”

“What do you mean, it's missing?”

“I do not have it.”

“Did you lose it?”

“No.”

“Did someone take it?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

I pause and think about how to answer this. “Principal Jacks,” I finally confess.

Mom narrows her eyes at me. “Why did Mr. Jacks take your scarf?”

“Because I hit him in the head with it,” I say. “But it was an accident—I was trying to hit Dennis.”

Mom mumbles words under her breath that I do not think I am supposed to hear. “You hit your principal in the head? Mandy, for goodness' sake, what are we going to do with—”

“It was
Dennis's
fault,” I say. “He was touching my scarf, and he is not allowed to touch my things.”

“No matter.” Mom waves her hand in front of her face, like she is batting away my comment. “I mean, Dennis should not be touching your things, yes, but when he does, you should tell a teacher about it. You need to stop trying to handle everything yourself. You're only making things worse.”

And I do not say anything then, because I know that Mom is a little bit right.

“Maybe I'll write a note to Mrs. Spangle, ­apologizing for letting you go to school with all of those things,” Mom says.

“Accessories,” I correct her.

“What?”

“They are not things, they are accessories,” I explain. “
Things
are boring;
accessories
are amazing.” It is a very important difference, and Mom needs to understand it.

“Whatever they are, they're not working out too well for you, are they?” Mom says. “Should I write Mrs. Spangle a note?”

“No. She doesn't know about the scarf.”

“Where was she when you hit Mr. Jacks in the head?”

“It was before school in the gym,” I explain. “She did not see.”

“Then you are going to write an apology note directly to Mr. Jacks,” Mom tells me. “I should have thought of that in the first place.”

“No, thank you,” I answer, and I am polite and everything.

“I'm not asking, I'm telling, Amanda,” Mom says, and she uses my A name, so I know she means business. “There's stationery in the junk drawer. Get to work.”

I yank open the junk drawer and pull out piles of chip clips and rubber bands and magnets before I find Mom's seashell stationery, which is not even good stationery to have. If I had my own stationery, I would make sure Rainbow Sparkle was on it. Or at least some periwinkle polka dots.

I take a red pen out of the drawer too, even though I am not usually allowed to write with pen. (I wrote with purple pen on my seatwork the first day of second grade, until Mrs. Spangle made it a rule that we could not write with pens in the classroom. She put it on the rule chart and everything. It is not one of my favorites.) I shove twin stuff off to the side of the kitchen table and sit down to write.

Dear Principal Jacks
, I begin.
I am sorry you took my glittery scarf. From, Mandy Berr.

“I'm done!” I yell to Mom. “I need an envelope.”

“Let me see that first,” Mom says. She lifts up my note, takes a fast glance at it, and then rips it in two pieces. “Absolutely not,” she says. “Try again.”

“Why? I said I was sorry.”

“You said you were sorry for something that happened to
you
,” Mom explains. “Good apologies work only if you say you're sorry for what you did to someone else.”

“I do not know what you're talking about.”

“You said that you are sorry that Mr. Jacks took your scarf,” Mom says.

“Right, that is what I'm sorry about.”

“That is not an apology,” Mom says. “An apology would be, ‘I'm sorry I hit you in the head with my scarf.' Understood?”

“Ughhhh,” I groan, and get up to grab another sheet of stationery out of the junk drawer.

Dear Principal Jacks
, I write again.
I am sorry I hit you in the head with my scarf
.

“You can't write just one sentence, by the way,” Mom calls from across the kitchen, as if she is reading over my shoulder. “You need to be more sincere than that.”

It was not my fault, though, because Dennis was trying to touch it. Dennis Riley. You know him because he is always in trouble. From, Mandy Berr.

“Done!”

Mom comes over and takes the paper from my hand. Before I can stop her, the paper is in four pieces.

“I don't understand why you're making this so difficult,” Mom says. “Here, I'll sit with you until you get it right. Grab another sheet of stationery.”

I give Mom my “You are driving me bananas” face, but I do like that she is sitting with me, with no Timmy and no twins, so I do not argue about it.

“What are you going to write first?” she asks.

“Dear Principal Jacks, I am sorry I hit you in the head with my scarf,” I say.

“Sounds good,” Mom says. “Write.” I do so, as neatly as possible because Mom is watching, and then I look back up at her.

“What can you write next?” she asks. “Remember, you want to sound sincere.”

“What's ‘sincere'?”

“Like you mean it,” Mom says. “So what can you say?”

“It was an accident,” I begin.

“Okay, then what?”

“But I should not have been throwing my scarf at Dennis,” I finish. “Even though he was trying to touch it.”

“How about just ‘It was an accident, but I should not have been throwing my scarf'?” Mom asks.

“Fine,” I say, and I write that sentence down. I do not make any mistakes either, so it doesn't matter that I'm writing in pen and cannot erase it.

“Good,” Mom says. “How can you end it?”

“From, Mandy Berr.”

“Not yet,” Mom says. “You need a closing sentence.”

“Hmm.” I think. “How about ‘I will try not to do it again'?”

“Excellent,” Mom answers. “Only no ‘try.' Write ‘I will not do it again.' Because you will not, right?”

“I will try.”

“Mandy,” Mom says with a warning in her voice.

“Fine, I will not,” I say, and I write out the sentence. “Can I end with ‘From, Mandy' now?”

“Yep,” Mom answers. “Then reread your work and make sure you haven't made any mistakes. I'll get you an envelope.”

I finish my note, read the whole thing all over again, and then write Principal Jacks's name on the envelope. I fold the letter three times until it fits inside, and then I run my tongue over the sealer.

“Am I done now?”

“You're finished,” Mom says. “Go stick that in your book bag so you don't forget it tomorrow. And make sure you bring it to Mr. Jacks's office first thing.”

“I will,” I promise. “Can I go to my room?”

“Okay. In thirty minutes, though, we're going to get started on homework,” Mom tells me. “Unless you want to get it over with before the twins wake up?”

“No, I need a break,” I tell Mom very seriously, and this makes her smile a little in the corners of her mouth.

“Okay, thirty minutes,” she tells me, and I scoot into the living room and place my note in my homework folder. “Hey,” I call back over my shoulder. “Do you know how to snap?”

“Snap what?” Mom calls.

“Your fingers,” I answer, walking back into the kitchen just as Timmy appears from the toy room. And before I know what is happening, Timmy lifts up his right hand, pinches his fingers together, and makes a huge, loud, enormous snap.

“I do,” he says, and I feel my eyes grow as wide as pancakes. “Daddy taught me.”

“How come Dad never taught
me
how to snap?” I ask Mom.

“I'm sure he'd be happy to show you,” Mom answers. “And if he doesn't, I will. Or how about . . .” She raises her eyebrows then like she has a great idea. “Timmy can teach you.”

“No, thank you,” I answer. I cannot have a preschooler teaching me how to snap—that would just be humiliating. But Timmy has already grabbed my hand and is pushing my fingers together.

“This,” he says, pointing to my thumb. “And this,” he continues, pointing to my middle finger. He puts his own thumb and middle finger together, and—pow!—he snaps. “You do it.”

I place my middle finger on my thumb, and I rub them back and forth against each other. Nothing.

“Fast,” Timmy instructs.

I try again, and my middle finger just slides into my palm with no sound at all.

“Fast!” Timmy repeats, and he snaps again, which only makes me mad.

“You are not a good snapping teacher,” I tell him, and I turn around and march toward the stairs. When I get to my room, I dig under my pillow for my bag of gummy bears, and then I reach far under my mattress until I find Mom's lipstick. I walk over to the mirror hanging on my closet door, untwist the lipstick tube, and spread the lipstick onto my lips. I will have to remember to take it off before Mom sees me, but I like wearing it now, just for me.

I bounce onto my bed and stick a gummy bear inside my mouth. Because I think gummy bears are the only ones besides me in the whole world who do not know how to snap.