Picture Perfect #5 (8 page)

“Where's everyone going?” Gracie asked when she got back downstairs. The lunch table had been cleared, and Mari was busy putting her coat and hat back on. The twins were halfway out the door.

“Robert and Jon are going down the street to see if that girl they like is home,” Mari replied.

“They both like her?”

“Of course,” Jimmy put in. “They do everything together.”

“What about you? Where are you going?” Gracie asked Mari.

“To build a snow fort in the front yard,” Mari said. “Want to help?”

“Definitely!” Gracie went over to dig her snow boots out of the pile of shoes near the door. “That sounds fun.” And relaxing. A snow fort wasn't a race, or a contest, or a huge family activity. A snow fort meant that
she and Mari would have lots of time together making blocks of snow . . . and talking.

Mari was already outside by the time Gracie had finished bundling up. The yard wasn't too big, but there were at least two feet of snow on the ground, and the drifts near the cabin were even higher than that. A light snow was falling, which made everything shimmer. Mari had a shovel, and she was building a hill between two tall pine trees.

“Should I start shaping the walls?” Gracie asked, tromping through the snow to her best friend. “It will be good packing snow because of the fresh powder.”

“Yeah! I want to make the main wall on this side, facing the driveway, and we need to build it up high so nobody can attack us with snowballs,” Mari said.

“Oh. Is someone going to do that?” Gracie asked.

“I don't know,” Mari said with a laugh. “But it's kind of the point of a snow fort, to have something to hide behind during a snowball fight.”

“My dad and I usually just build them so he can work on what he calls his ‘architectural skills'—which he totally doesn't have,” Gracie said. “It's the same with sand castles. He always wants to try making these big, elaborate things, but they always fall apart.”

Mari grinned and tossed another shovelful of snow
toward the growing pile. Gracie got down on her knees and began scooping and patting snow into a mostly smooth wall. She was right; it
was
good packing snow.

“I'm happy we're doing this, Mar,” Gracie said. “I keep trying to tell you about something.”

“What?” Mari asked.

“It's kind of embarrassing. But you know that guy from band, Alex?” Gracie felt herself blush just from saying his name.

“Alex Young?” Mari said.

“No. Alex Parker,” Gracie replied. “Well . . . I kind of—”

“Think fast!” Jimmy yelled, and a snowball came whizzing toward them.

Mari screamed and ducked, and the snow pelted Gracie in the face. “Oh my gosh,” Mari cried. “I'm so sorry! Gracie, are you okay? I didn't mean for it to hit you.”

“Why didn't you duck?” Jimmy asked, looking at Gracie like she was nuts.

Gracie sputtered, wiping snow from her eyes. “I didn't even know you were out here,” she replied, annoyed.

“Of course he's out here. He's the one who wanted to build a fort,” Mari said. “Robert and Jon definitely didn't want him tagging along on their flirting mission.”

Gracie sighed. So much for having alone time to talk about Alex. “I guess I thought Jimmy was inside with your parents. I didn't know he was hiding somewhere waiting to attack us.”

“I said to think fast,” Jimmy argued. “I warned you. Mari ducked.”

Gracie glanced at her best friend. Mari shrugged. “I have fast reflexes.”

“You have a lot of siblings,” Gracie said. “You have to have fast reflexes.”

Mari gave her a half smile. “I guess that's something else for your school paper. Only children don't develop a killer instinct in snowball fighting.”

“The fort is too short,” Jimmy said. “I threw that snowball right over it.”

“We only started building it two minutes ago,” Gracie pointed out.

“Well, it's lame. It needs a tower and some notches on the top where you can see out,” Jimmy said. “And it needs to be taller than me.”

“How are you going to see out if it's taller than you?” Gracie asked.

Jimmy's eyebrows drew together in confusion, as if he'd never thought about that before. Mari shot Gracie an annoyed look. “We'll build you a snow platform
inside it that you can stand on,” she told Jimmy.

“Yeah, that's a good idea,” Gracie said quietly, hoping Mari would forgive her for being harsh to Jimmy. He was only a little kid, so she shouldn't have gotten annoyed with him. “We could even make steps up to it for you.”

“Cool!” Jimmy cried happily.

Mari smiled and handed him the shovel, which was almost as tall as he was. “Bring us more snow and we'll work on making the fort taller.”

“Okay.” Jimmy turned away and began struggling with the shovel and the snow. Mari came over to help Gracie with the main wall. She worked on the outside, while Gracie stood inside, with her back to the two trees. That way, she and Mari could talk to each other over the top of the wall—at least until they made it too tall for that.

“I didn't realize that Jimmy was going to be with us all day,” Gracie said. “Don't you get tired of having him tag along all the time?”

Mari shrugged. “That's what little brothers do. Kat never got mad at me for tagging along.”

“But you can't talk about things with a little kid around,” Gracie said, frustrated. “You have no private time.”

“I guess not. I never really thought about it.” Mari
grabbed a double handful of snow and plopped it on top of the wall, and Gracie patted it into place. “What were you saying about Alex Parker?”

Gracie glanced over at Jimmy. He was ten feet away and completely focused on trying to pick up snow. Plus, he was six. He wouldn't care about her having a crush on a boy. Maybe she could still talk it over with Mari even though they weren't alone.

“Who's Alex Parker?” Jon asked from behind her.

Startled, Gracie spun around to see Jon standing behind one of the pine trees. Robert stood behind the other one.

“Gracie, get over the wall!” Mari yelled, just as Robert flung a snowball. This time Gracie moved fast, jumping over the wall and crouching down next to Mari. Mari was already packing a snowball with her gloved hands. “Here,” she said, thrusting it at Gracie. “Get them!”

So Gracie inched up above the wall, spotted Jon near the tree, and hurled the snowball at him. It hit the tree, and she ducked back down. Mari popped up and threw a ball at Robert. She got hit in the shoulder before she could get down again.

“I'll make ammunition!” Jimmy called, grinning as he slid on the ground in between them. “You guys throw!”

Gracie automatically took the snowball Jimmy shoved at her, but she felt too annoyed to do anything with it. A minute ago, she'd been having a nice time with her best friend, and now she was back in the middle of a sibling competition. Didn't the O'Hagan kids ever get tired of one another?

“I thought Robert and Jon were at the neighbors',” she grumbled.

“Hey, that's right! What happened to your
girlfriend
?” Mari called to her brothers in a teasing voice. “Did she kick you out?”

“She wasn't home,” Robert replied, throwing another snowball. Gracie was crouched down, hidden entirely by the wall, but the cold, wet snow landed on her head anyway.

“Ugh,” she cried, dropping her own snowball to swipe the snow off her hat.

“Did I get you?” Robert called. “All right!”

Mari grabbed Gracie's snowball before it totally fell apart, stood up, and pelted Robert with it. “Right in the heart!” she cried. “You're dead!”

“I'm not!” Jon threw a ball as Mari dove behind the wall again. Jimmy thrust another snowball into Gracie's hands, and this time she used it. Robert was still fighting too, so apparently being dead didn't matter.

“I'm making a pile of snowballs right here,” Jimmy announced, his little hands working fast to pack them. “That way you guys can just grab them off the top when you need them.”

“Hey, why are you with the girls?” Jon yelled. “You're a boy, Jimmy! Get over here and make supplies for us.”

“No way!” Gracie cried. “This isn't girls against boys, it's singles against twins!”

“Nice one,” Mari said, laughing.

“Hold up. Cease-fire,” Robert called. One more snowball came sailing over the wall.

“Sorry, my bad. I threw it before I heard,” Jon said.

“Let's stop the fight until we fix the fort,” Robert suggested. “You didn't make it tall enough.”

“Well, you attacked us before we could finish it. We only just started,” Mari protested.

“Yeah, they were going to build me a platform with steps,” Jimmy said.

“Why do we need to make it bigger now?” Gracie asked. “We're already fighting. The wall works fine.”

“But it's not a challenge,” Robert said. “I can reach right over it.”

“Yeah, we can stand here and just drop snowballs on your heads,” Jon agreed.

“Then stay farther away,” Gracie said.

“We should make it have towers, like a castle,” Mari put in. “And then we can make shorter walls along the sides.”

“Why? The boys are in front of the main wall. If they attack from the sides, they'll hit us because the walls are too short,” Gracie replied, exasperated.

“I know, but it will be cool,” Mari told her. The twins were already scooping up snow to make the main wall taller, and Jimmy had pulverized his pile of snowballs to turn it into the start of a side wall.

Gracie blew out a frustrated breath. She'd tried to go along with the surprise snowball fight, but now it had turned into something totally different . . . as usual. Every time she thought she knew what was going on, the O'Hagans changed things. And the worst part was that Mari didn't seem to care. They had been in the middle of talking about Alex Parker, but Mari obviously didn't remember that. Or maybe she just wasn't interested.

“Gracie! Help Jon with the other wall,” Jon said.

“Oh, come on, Jon. Stop with the twin switching,” Gracie groaned.

“Fine. Help Robert with the other wall,” he corrected, making a face at her.

Gracie glanced over at Robert and the new side wall. There would be no way to talk to Mari with all
three boys around, but maybe she and Mari could sneak off while the boys were busy building the fort and get some alone time. “I'm not in the mood. I think I'm just going to go inside and have some hot chocolate.” She smiled at Mari. “You want to come? You love chocolate as much as I do.”

“Not until we're done,” Mari replied, giving her a strange look. “We can all have cocoa later, together.”

“Okay. Maybe I'll work on my paper, then,” Gracie said. She turned and headed toward the cabin door, half expecting Mari to follow her. But Mari stayed where she was, letting Gracie go in alone.

I guess she'd rather hang out with her brothers than with me,
Gracie thought. She was starting to wonder if she'd ever get to have that talk with Mari—or if Mari even cared.

Only Child vs. Multiple Children: A Case Study

Big Differences, continued:

       
— Multiple siblings compete more often (maybe?). Or is it that only children don't compete because they never have to? ***Need to do more research about this because of what Juliana said.***

       
— Is there a physical difference in reflex speed because having siblings means people are always
throwing things at you?

       
— Multiple siblings don't mind spending all their time together. Only children don't like being part of a crowd all the time.

“Or maybe that's just me,” Gracie murmured, putting down her pen. She could hear the shouts and laughs of Mari and her brothers outside. It sounded like they were having a great time, and meanwhile she was all by herself, doing homework.

She sat up on her top bunk and peered through the window. The snow fort wasn't that much bigger than it had been when she had come in an hour ago, but next to it stood the most gigantic snowman Gracie had ever seen. The thing was at least six feet tall, and the bottom part had to be four feet around. Its arms were made of two long, thick tree branches instead of regular little twigs, and the buttons on its chest looked as if they were made of tennis balls instead of lumps of coal. The eyes were two huge apples.

“This carrot is too small!” Jimmy's voice reached her through the window glass. He sat on Jon's shoulders with a whole carrot in his hands, trying to reach up to the snowman's huge face to put its nose on. Jon was having trouble getting close enough to the snowman
without knocking into it, and the ground was clearly slippery. Gracie gasped in alarm as he almost fell, taking Jimmy with him. But the other O'Hagans didn't seem too worried. Mari had a huge grin on her face the whole time.

Finally Jimmy shoved the carrot into the snowman's face, about two inches to the left of where it should be. He was right, it did look too small, and it was completely off-center . . . and it was hilarious.

Gracie burst out laughing. That snowman was awesome!

“Gracie? What are you doing in here all alone?” Mr. O'Hagan asked, sticking his head up into the bedroom. “Shouldn't you be outside playing with everyone else?”

“I guess,” she said. Why
was
she in here? She hadn't really gotten much done on her paper. She'd been too distracted by feeling upset at Mari, and meanwhile Mari was outside having a great time.

“Well, I'm about to call everyone in for dinner,” Ms. O'Hagan called from the kitchen. “So don't bother getting all bundled up now, Gracie.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Gracie called back. She closed her notebook and moved over to the edge of the bed, waiting for Mari. Maybe now that Mari had gotten enough time to play with her brothers, she would finally feel
like spending some time with her best friend. Maybe she'd finally be willing to just sit and talk. Maybe she would have thought that it wasn't much fun without Gracie for this past hour.