Claudia and the Genius on Elm Street (4 page)

"Yes?" I answered, running down the hall to her room.

She was sitting at her desk, writing in a workbook. When I came in, she looked up and asked, "Do foxes hibernate?"

"Um . . . well, uh . . . I'm not sure," I said.

She squinted at me, as if she thought I was fooling her. "Didn't you take third-grade science?" she asked.

"Yes, but — "

"Did you pass it?"

"Yes!" I tried not to shout. "I just don't remember."

Rosie snorted a laugh through her nose. "I never forget the things I learn."

"Sorry," I said with a shrug. I wanted to kill her.

That afternoon was one of the longest in my life. I tried and tried to be nice and to get to know Rosie. We even went for a walk. I took the house keys and left a note for Mrs. Wilder — and Rosie corrected my spelling.

Corrected my spelling! Seven years old!

By the time Mrs. Wilder got back, I felt about three inches tall. I smiled. I said thank you. I said good-bye to Rosie.

But all the way home, I had only one thought.

Never again. Never in a million years.

Chapter 5.

A million years took two days. On Thursday I went back to the Wilders' house as planned. And you know what? I felt good. At our Wednesday BSC meeting, I had told everyone about Rosie. Practical Kristy had made a great suggestion. She thought I should treat the job as a project. Each day I could try to set a few simple goals to make things go easier.

So Thursday was Day One of Operation Rosie. These were my simple goals:

1. To keep myself in a good mood, no matter what.

2. To finish two sketches while Rosie was practicing for her audition.

3. To call Janine if Rosie really needed help with her homework. (I had asked Janine about it, and she said it would be fine.)

Thursday was a perfect spring day, warm and breezy. I arrived at the Wilders' house just as a blue minivan pulled into the drive-

way. Mrs. Arnold, a BSC client, was driving Rosie home from school. Her twin daughters, Marilyn and Carolyn, were in the backseat with Buddy Barrett. Rosie was sitting in the front passenger seat.

"Hi, Claudia!" Mrs. Arnold called.

"Hi, Claudia!" Marilyn, Carolyn, and Buddy chimed in.

"Hi!" I yelled back, waving.

I guess Rosie figured there had been enough "Hi's" said already. She stepped out of the van and began walking silently toward the house.

As the van drove away, I said, "I got here just in time, huh?"

Rosie pulled a set of keys out of her backpack. "I'm early. I told Mrs. Arnold to drop me off first because I have so much to do."

"I know," I said. "With your audition practice and all ..."

"Rehearsal," Rosie said, pushing the front door open.

"What?" I asked.

"It's called a rehearsal, not an audition practice. You practice for lessons. You rehearse for an audition or a performance."

I nodded politely and said to myself: Smile, Claudia, smile.

We walked inside, and Rosie plopped her backpack on the kitchen floor. In the center of

the table was a note on yellow legal paper, which said:

"Your morn says there's tuna salad," I said, heading for the refrigerator.

"I can read," Rosie replied.

I let that comment go. I kept my cool.

The tuna salad was in a covered glass bowl next to a container of washed lettuce. I found the plates and made two helpings. "Looks great," I said, putting the plates on the table.

"Actually I like chicken salad better," Rosie said, "but eating fish helps prevent blood cholesterol."

Cholesterol? She was worried about cholesterol at age seven? I didn't even know what

the word meant at that age. I still don't!

We ate a few bites, and I was all set to ask Rosie about her school day, when she reached into her backpack and pulled out what looked like a big pamphlet. On the cover were a man and a woman in top hat and tails.

"What's that?" I asked.

Rosie rolled her eyes, giving me that I-can't-believe-she-doesn't-know look. "Sheet music," she said. She held it up to me.

"Oh," I said. "Is that your audition song?"

"Mm-hm." She pressed it open on the table. Then she took a bite of tuna salad and began humming. Soon her body was moving in rhythm, as if she were practicing.

I waited awhile, then said, "I thought you knew it just great the other day." With a big, complimentary smile, I added, "I can't even imagine why you'd need to practice — I mean, rehearse."

Rosie swallowed her tuna salad and said, "You don't know, Claudia. When you go to an audition, you're up against dozens of other kids with just as much talent as you. Not only do you have to be perfect, but you have to bring a special something to it. Something that sets you apart. And the only way you can do that is by rehearsing."

Rosie said that speech as if she had memorized it. She probably had, too. I was sure

some agent or director had told her that. Maybe even Ginger Wilder.

"It's the same way with art," I said. Then I thought of a joke Stacey's father once told us in New York City. "Hey, Rosie, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?" I asked.

Rosie scrunched up her brow. "Well, you take the train to — "

"Practice!" I said.

"Huh?"

"Practice," I repeated. "That's how you get to Carnegie Hall. You practice." (For a moment I thought I might be using the wrong punch line. Was I supposed to say "rehearse"?)

Rosie gave me her famous stare. Then she put on this huge, fake smile and said, "Ha, ha, ha. Very funny."

And that was when I figured out why her smile looked familiar. In my mind I could see that same smile, but on a slightly younger girl, with one tooth missing. The girl had spilled a glass of chocolate milk, and her mom was going crazy over the stain on their rug.

"Rosie," I said, "were you in a TV commercial for a carpet cleaner?"

"Up 'n' Out Cleaner," Rosie said with a nod. "My dad says if s my college tuition."

I tried to figure that one out. "I don't get it."

"Residuals," Rosie whined. "You know . . . you get a check for every time the commercial airs, and it gets put in a trust fund. Then, when it's time to go to college, you have tons of money."

"Oh," I said.

Suddenly I wasn't hungry. Rosie was the girl on that dumb commercial! Not only did she have talent and brains, but she was rich . . . and famous. For spilling chocolate milk and smiling!

Rosie had already done more in her life than I probably ever would. She had even set aside money for college.

With a sigh, Rosie closed the music and got up. "I have to do science homework before my rehearsal." She took her plate to the sink. "Can you help me? It's a lot of work."

Maybe I could have helped her. But I didn't even want to try. The first words out of my mouth were, "I'll call my sister, Janine. She's a ge— she's really smart in science."

Rosie shrugged. "If you want. I think I'll do it on the front steps. It's stuffy in here."

As she walked toward the front door, I called home.

Fortunately Janine answered. "Kishi residence."

"Hi, Janine, ifs me," I said.

"Hi, me," answered Janine. That's her idea of humor.

"Remember that favor we talked about yesterday?" I asked.

"Yup," Janine replied. "What's the address, 477 Elm?"

"Yeah."

"I'll be right over."

Thank goodness for Janine. Sometimes it really pays to have a brain for a sister.

I took my backpack and headed for the porch slo-o-o-o-wty (I hoped Janine would arrive soon and I wouldn't be stuck answering questions).

Rosie was sitting on the stoop, hunched over a textbook. She had put on a pair of tortoise-shell glasses that made her look even smarter than usual.

An old wicker chair was off to one side. I sat in it, pulled out my sketch pad, and began drawing.

Rosie didn't even look at me. Obviously she had given up thinking I knew anything.

Janine showed up around four-fifteen. I hopped out of the chair and said, "Rosie, this is my sister, Janine."

"I know," said Rosie. (I knew she'd say that.)

"Hi," Janine said shyly.

"Hi," replied Rosie. "You're good in science?"

"Pretty good," said Janine.

That was an understatement! "She's won all kinds of awards," I blurted out.

"Yeah?" said Rosie.

Janine sat down next to her. "Sort of. What do you need help in?"

For the next forty minutes or so, I felt as if I were in a foreign country. Finally I returned to my chair. I couldn't understand half of what was being said. Janine, in her glasses, was explaining things about animal migration and habitats. Rosie, in her glasses, was nodding and asking intelligent-sounding questions.

And Claudia Kishi, with no glasses, was drawing half a Twinkie. I felt about as useful as an oar on a speedboat.

You'd think even geniuses would get tired of talking about homework after awhile. Not those two. No joking around, no chatting, no fun at all.

A little before five o'clock, I heard Rosie say, "That's the last question."

I looked up from my Twinkie. Janine was still sitting up straight, with her hands folded in her lap. "Is there anything else I can help you with?" she asked.

"Uh-uh," said Rosie, shaking her head no. She closed her book, looked at her watch, and said, "I have to start getting ready for my rehearsal now."

Janine stood up stiffly. "Okay."

"You guys work everything out?" I asked cheerfully.

"Yeah," Rosie said. She turned to go inside, then called over her shoulder, "Thanks."

"You're welcome," said Janine. " 'Bye."

" 'Bye/' answered Rosie as she disappeared inside.

I looked at Janine. She looked at me. "She's bright," said Janine.

"I know," I replied. "Thanks for helping me out."

Janine smiled. "It's okay. See you later."

"See you," I said as she walked away.

Oh, well, so they didn't become best buddies. At least I got a break from Rosie. And I think Janine really helped her.

When I went inside, Rosie was already clattering around in the basement with her tap shoes.

Pretty soon her teachers arrived. First came Mr. Bryan, her tap teacher. He was at least as old as my dad, but he had a body like a teenager's — not an ounce of fat. Then came Ms. Van Cott, the voice teacher. She had long blonde hair and a huge voice that echoed in the room when she spoke.

I was thrilled to let the two of them have full charge of Rosie for the next hour.

I went straight to the den with my sketch

pad. For awhile, though, I was distracted by the sounds downstairs. Ms. Van Cott began honking and bellowing, and Rosie would imitate her — some kind of voice exercises, I guess. Then the tape recording started. I could hear the click-clacking of tap dancing. Rosie's steps sounded something like this:

Tip-tip-ti-tap-tap-sssscrape-tip-tip!

Then Mr. Bryan would stop her, shouting, "Okay, okay, not quite! Give it more of a lift, like this ..." His dancing sounded like clackety-dack-click . . . stomp-stomp!

It was pretty obnoxious. But after awhile I was able to tune it out. I returned to work on the Twinkie and managed to give it a kind of personality. I began feeling better. After: twenty minutes or so I switched over to the Milk Duds drawing.

By that time the sounds from downstairs had grown awfully loud. Rosie was singing at the top of her lungs, not at all as nicely as she had sung the day before.

"Rosie dear, get it up into the mask!" Ms. Van Cott was shouting. "The soft palate! Lift the soft palate!"

"It's shuffle-shuffle-/flZflp-step!" Mr. Bryan added.

"More head, less chest!" said Ms. Van Cott.

"You're getting behind on that double time step!" said Mr. Bryan.

Whoa. Poor Rosie! I never thought I'd feel sorry for her, but I did. The two teachers were getting carried away.

Fortunately (for Rosie), the lesson seemed to end soon afterward. I could tell because the music stopped and the teachers' voices grew quieter. Ms. Van Cott was telling Rosie to "warm down" (whatever that means), and Mr. Bryan kept saying, "And stretch . . . and stretch!" (Even with my small brainpower, I figured that meant he was leading her in stretching exercises.)

Before long the teachers bounced happily out of the house, calling good-bye to me.

I listened for Rosie, but I didn't hear her. For a moment I thought she might have collapsed with exhaustion.

Finally I heard her footsteps on the basement stairs. "Rosie?" I called. "How did it go?"

"Fine," she answered.

Her voice sounded hoarse, and that made me feel even worse for her. When she entered the den, she was drenched in sweat and her face was red.

"What a workout!" I said.

"Yeah," answered Rosie. Her eyes went from me to my sketch pad, which I had put on the coffee table. "Can I see?" she asked.

I was shocked. Rosie the Great, showing an

interest in ray drawings? I held up my pad. "Sure."

Rosie stared at the Milk Duds for a long time without saying anything. Then she flipped to the Twinkie. "I hate these," she said.

"The drawings?" I asked.

"No, Twinkies." She flipped through some more drawings. "You erase a lot."

"Well, they're only sketches," I said. "I'm going to make paintings of them."

"Of candy?" she said with a little sneer.

I shrugged. "Why not? It's fun."

Rosie didn't answer. She kept flipping the pages, staring at each drawing.

"The Ring Ding is better than the others," she said.

"Thanks." It wasn't a rave review, but I had to take what I could get.

Rosie looked at all the sketches, then handed the pad back to me. "I like to draw sometimes," she said.

"Really?" I asked. I supposed she was going to say her art was appearing in a New York gallery.

"Yeah," she said. "A little. Well, I'm going to change and start working on a project before my mother comes home."

"You're done with homework?"

"Yup. When Janine was here."

"Okay." I decided to be daring. "Hey, if

you like to draw, how about working here with me?" I asked. I figured as long as we had something in common, there was hope.