Pizza Is the Best Breakfast (2 page)

“Mandy and Dennis, I'll wait,” Mrs. Spangle says, so I place my sticker book on my lap and fold my hands again on top of my desk. Dennis places his chin on his hands but still doesn't lift his head.

“Sit up!” I whisper-yell at him, and he does, but not even super-duper straight like he is supposed to.

“Okay, Mandy's group,” Mrs. Spangle finally announces. “You can grab your things from the cubbies and get in line.” I stand and hold my sticker book up in Anya's direction to make sure she has hers too, and she nods at me. Then I scramble to grab my lunch box and get in line as quickly as I can so I won't be all the way in the back, because Dennis always likes to be the caboose. And there is no way I want Dennis to ruin my appetite today.

*  *  *

“Why'd you steal Dennis's glue stick?” Natalie asks me when we reach our table in the cafeteria.

“I didn't steal it, I took it,” I explain.

“Isn't that the same thing?”

I think about this for one second. “No, because if I stole it, I can never give it back, like when
Dennis stole my gummy bears and ate them all. If I took it, I can give it back. I just don't want to yet.”

Natalie nods her head like this makes sense, and I am a very good explainer, I think.

I whip my sticker book onto the table and open to the center page, which has all of my favorite gel stickers in a row. “Aren't they beautiful?” I ask.

“They are,” Natalie agrees. “My mom said she would take me to the teacher store and look for more stickers this weekend.” Teacher stores are one of the best places for getting stickers, because teachers like to buy them almost as much as we do. I have never been to a teacher store, even though I have wanted to go to one my whole entire life. Mom says we do not have to go there because no one in our house is a teacher, but Mom doesn't understand important things like sticker collecting.

“I wonder if Paige has any stickers she would trade,” I begin. “Did I tell you she is coming tonight?”

“Only like a thousand times,” Anya answers. “I know, you're excited.”

“Who's Paige?” Natalie asks.

“Her cousin,” Anya answers for me. “Her
favorite
cousin.” She drags out the word “favorite” and wiggles her head back and forth as she says it.

“Why is she your favorite?” Natalie asks.

“Because she is fabulous. That is Paige's favorite word, you know—‘fabulous.' And that is what she is,” I tell her.

“But what makes her so fabulous?” Natalie asks.

“She has wavy hair that looks just like a yellow ocean,” I explain. “And she wears boots with little heels that click-clack on the floor. And she has more Rainbow Sparkle stuff than anyone in the universe, and she always draws a heart in her name above the
i
. Oh, and she does not have any brothers or sisters, and that is what I want to have.”

“You mean that's what you
don't
want to have?” Natalie asks, and sometimes I wish Natalie would stop listening so much to everything I say, so I sigh an enormous breath at her.

“You know what I mean,” I tell her. “Or maybe I would take Paige as my sister. That would be good too.”

“Why is she visiting?” Natalie asks.

“Her school is on vacation,” I explain. “She will be here for one whole week.”

“You're lucky to have a cousin your age,” Anya tells me. “All of my cousins are very old. Like, teenagers.” And I nod because I agree that I am lucky.

But if I could, I would definitely trade in Timmy and the twins to have Paige as my sister. Then I would be the luckiest girl of all.

EVEN THOUGH MOM SAYS THAT
Grandmom won't be bringing Paige over until after eight o'clock, I sit in the living room as soon as we finish dinner, my arms bent on the back of the couch with my chin in my hands, and I look out the window toward the street, waiting.

“A watched pot never boils, Mandy,” Dad says as he walks toward the stairs with sheets and pillows stacked high in his arms.

“I'm not watching a pot,” I tell him without turning away from the window.

“It's a figure of speech,” Dad explains. “It means that waiting for something you really want to happen soon doesn't actually make it happen faster.”

“I have been waiting forever to see Paige,” I say. “All the way since Christmas.” Paige lives many hours away—it takes at least two Rainbow Sparkle chapter books, four word search games, three rounds of “I Spy,” and twelve “Are we almost there?” questions to get to my uncle's house. In fact, we have not even been to Paige's house once since the twins were born.

“How about you come help me make Paige's bed?” Dad asks. “It will take your mind off of the waiting.”

“Fine,” I answer, but only because I do not want Dad snooping around my bedroom without me. There are still a couple bags of gummy bears that he does not know are hidden up there.

I follow him up the stairs and into my room, where Dad has already set up a poufy mattress on the floor next to my bed.

“Wahoo!” I jump onto it like a trampoline and then bounce up and down. “I think I will sleep here.”

“You're sleeping in your bed,” Dad says. “This air mattress is for Paige. Come on—help me put these sheets on.” I pull one corner of the stretchy sheet all the way to one side of the mattress. But just as I am pulling it down around the mattress corner, the doorbell rings.

“Paige is here!” I yell, and I let go of the sheet. I was holding on to it so tightly that it flies back toward Dad like a boomerang.

“Mandy, just a—” Dad calls after me, but I am out the door before he can continue. I run down the stairs as fast as my feet will take me, and I am just about to reach for the knob when
the front door swings open and nearly hits me in the head.

“Hey!” I try to yell, but I am pinned between the door and the wall, and all I can hear are everyone's voices but mine.

“Hi, Paige! Hi, Paige! I'm Timmy, remember?”

“Timmy, move back so Paige can get in the door. Come on in, Paige.”

“Look at all this grandchild sugar I'm about to get.”

“Wahhhhhhh.”

“Weeeehhhhh.”

Those last two sounds are from the twins, who start wailing of course, because all they know how to do is wail.

“Hey!” I call again, and I push the front door away from me so I'm no longer trapped against the wall. Grandmom, Mom, Timmy, the twins, and most importantly Paige are all gathered in
front of me, and Paige looks even more like a princess than I remembered her. Purple heart earrings dangle from her ears, and they match the stack of bangle bracelets stretching up her arm and the purple boots that are click-clacking across the floor. Her hair, which is thick and shiny like golden rainbows, falls down her back like a waterfall.

Paige is absolutely fabulous.

The group walks into the living room, and I run over to hug her around the neck. Before I reach her, Paige pulls one of the twins off of Mom's hip and begins to speak to her. And I stop running immediately, because I try never, ever to touch the twins.

“Shh, don't cry, Samantha. I'm Paige,” she coos in the twin's ear. “I'm so happy to meet you.”

Timmy hops up and down until Grandmom scoops him into her arms, and he leans way out
until his lips are against Paige's cheek for a wet kiss. Paige giggles at this, and she reaches out with her free hand toward the other twin. She is just about to tickle his arm when I yell “HEY!” for the third time, and I march right over to her. “You didn't say hi to me.”

“Amanda, hi,” Paige says. “I've just been busy meeting your new brother and sister. They sure are adorable.”

“The twins are not adorable,” I tell her. “And my name is Mandy now.”

“Mandy? Why?” Paige asks, and she still does not even hug me hello.

“Because Mandy has a
y
in it,” I explain. “So I like it better.”

“You don't look like a Mandy,” Paige tells me, which I think is rude. “Plus, I'm used to calling you Amanda.”

“But I hate Amanda.”

“Then I'll call you Manda,” Paige says, and she nods her head once with satisfaction.

“But I don't like—”

“Mandy, I'm waiting for you to give me some sugar,” Grandmom interrupts me, leaning down for a kiss, Timmy's arms and legs still wrapped around her like a chimpanzee. When Grandmom is just about to reach my mouth, Timmy slides his face down toward mine in a lick and a split, and he plants a slobbery kiss right on my lips.

“Blech, eww, gross!” I wipe the back of my hands over my lips again and again.

“I give you sugar!” Timmy says, and he looks pretty proud of himself.

“I don't want any preschool sugar,” I tell him. “Don't do that again.”

“Aww, come on, Manda, that was sweet,” Paige says. “Here, Timmy, you can give me some
more sugar.” She stretches her left cheek toward Timmy's face, and he plants another slobbery kiss right on it.

“Disgusting,” I say. “And it's
Mandy.
With a
y
.”

“But I think Manda sounds fabulous,” Paige tells me. “It's in between Amanda and Mandy.”

“That is cute,” Mom agrees, and I give her a not-nice look out of the sides of my eyes, but she does not even notice because she is too busy moving the crying twin to her other hip.

Paige has been in my house for less than five minutes, and I am already not sure she is my favorite cousin anymore.

*  *  *

Paige thinks it will be “fun” to help Mom give the twins a bath and put them to bed, and I am absolutely positive that these things are not fun, so I go to my room by myself and wait. Eventually, Timmy and the twins will have to
go to bed, and then I will get to have Paige all to myself.

I will show her my new Rainbow Sparkle stuff, and she will tell me all about hers. (I tried to see if Paige brought any of her own Rainbow Sparkle things by peeking in the green sequined duffel bag that Dad placed on Paige's mattress, but I couldn't see inside the bag without taking everything out first, and I did not think Paige would like that much.) She will tell me all about fifth grade, and about what it's like to not have any brothers or sisters, and maybe she will let me try on her click-clack boots. If she does, I will give her some of my gummy bears, because that only seems fair.

Plus, when I have Paige all to myself, I will explain to her that I want to be called Mandy and not Manda, because Manda does not have a curlicue
y
in it, so what is the point? I am sure
Paige will listen to me when those loud twins and Timmy aren't around.

“Mandy, are you in your room?” Dad's voice rings up the stairs.

“Yes,” I call back.

“Why are you up there by yourself?” he asks. “Come hang out with us.”

“I'm waiting for Paige,” I call. “Is she coming up soon?” I hear Dad speaking to someone downstairs, but he is talking too softly for me to understand.

“Okay, she's headed up now,” Dad finally calls back, and I hear faint footsteps on the stairs. Seconds later Paige appears in my doorway, and I bounce my behind on my Rainbow Sparkle comforter with happiness.

“It's about time,” I tell her. “I have been waiting all night. What color are your pajamas?”

“Um, I forget what I packed,” Paige answers. She kneels next to her duffel bag and begins
taking her stuff out. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I will wear whatever color pajamas you are wearing,” I explain. “And then we will look just like sisters.”

“Ooh, that's fun,” Paige says. “I've always wanted a sister.”

“Me too,” I say.

“You have a sister,” Paige points out. “Samantha.”

“That does not count,” I explain. “I only want an
older
sister, like if you were my sister. You know, I got click-clack shoes too, just like you, only mine are not boots. And I love the handbag you gave me because it has fringe and gemstones so I carry it to—”