Karen's Bully

  “You don’t scare me!” I said.

  Bobby and I faced each other.

  “Fight, fight!” chanted the boys. They had gathered on one side of the yard.

  The girls (and Andrew) had gathered on the other. “Go, Karen!” they cried.

  “Okay, Karen. You are going to get it!” said Bobby. He raised his fists.

  I raised my fists.

  And two hands clamped down, one on my head, one on Bobby’s. I looked up in surprise. I dropped my fists.

  “What is going on here?” asked a grown-up.

  It was Mrs. Gianelli. I guess she had seen us from a window.

  Bobby and I glared at each other. “Nothing,” I answered.

  “Yeah, nothing,” said Bobby.

  The kids in the yard started to leave. Nobody said anything about a fight. “We were just playing,” I added.

  Mrs. Gianelli looked like she might not believe us. But all she did was frown and let go of our heads. Then she told Bobby to go indoors.

  I ran home. I had not won the fight. But at least I had not lost it.

  S’mores

  “Amanda’s coming!” I sang. “Amanda’s coming! Amanda-panda-sanda-tanda-danda-fanda-banda — ”

  “Enough, Karen,” said Daddy quietly. “I know you are excited, but the rest of us are trying to talk. You are making it difficult to hear.”

  “When is Amanda coming?” asked David Michael for about the ninetieth time.

  “Tomorrow-borrow-sorrow — ” Then I paused. I lowered my voice. “Tomorrow in time for lunch,” I answered. “By this time tomorrow night, Amanda and Nancy and Hannie and Melody and I will be starting our sleepover.”

  “Goody, goody, gumdrops,” said David Michael.

  I eyed him. “David Michael, you are not going to ruin my party, are you?” I asked.

  “He most certainly is not,” Elizabeth answered for him. “Now please eat your dinner, Karen. You too, David Michael.”

  “Okay.” I did go back to my dinner. But I was thinking about my party.

  I wanted it to be perfect.

  On Saturday morning, I got up early. I ran to the kitchen. I began to check through the cupboards. We might need to go to the grocery store.

  “What are you looking for, honey?” Nannie asked me.

  “Stuff for s’mores,” I answered. “We are going to make them tonight at the party. Let me see. Here are graham crackers and here are marshmallows. Nannie, we do not have chocolate bars!” I cried.

  “Indoor voice,” Nannie reminded me. “Karen, calm down. I will go to the store today. I will buy chocolate bars. Please don’t worry.”

  “Okay,” I answered. But I did worry a little bit. First I worried about food. Then I worried about Hannie. I knew she did not really want to come to the party. She was just being polite. I thought of a slumber party I once had when Nancy would not come because we were fighting. Now maybe Hannie would change her mind and stay at home. I decided to call her.

  “Are you still coming?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Hannie replied. She did not sound like someone who was looking forward to a slumber party. She sounded cross.

  But I said, “Good. See you tonight.” Then I called Melody. “When should I bring Amanda over?” I asked.

  “After lunch.” (I could tell Melody was excited.) “And guess what. I cleaned my room for Amanda! I hope she likes it.”

  “Where Is My Fish?”

  “She’s here! She’s here, Karen!” called Andrew.

  “Yes!” I cried. “All right!”

  I ran downstairs so fast I almost tripped.

  “Slow down, Karen,” said Daddy.

  But I could not slow down. Amanda had arrived. We had not seen each other forever. Didn’t Daddy understand how it is with old friends?

  I raced outside. Amanda and her father were getting out of their car. “Amanda!” I shouted. “Amanda!”

  Amanda and I hugged. Then we took her things to my room while Daddy and Elizabeth and Mr. Delaney talked.

  Later, after Mr. Delaney had left, Amanda and I ate lunch. We ate it in the backyard. We had a picnic, just the two of us.

  “When can we see my house?” Amanda asked.

  “As soon as we have finished our lunch,” I told her.

  Amanda ate fast. She gobbled up her apple. She gobbled up her sandwich. Then she drank her entire glass of milk without stopping.

  “Okay, I am finished,” she announced.

  I was not finished, but I stood up anyway. “All right. Let’s go.”

  Amanda and I stood at Melody’s front door. We were waiting to be let in. “Something looks different,” said Amanda. She was frowning. “Hey, I know! They painted the door. It used to be blue. Now it is yellow.”

  Melody opened the door then. “Hi,” she said. She looked nervous.

  “Hi!” I answered. “Melody, this is Amanda, who lived here first.”

  Melody smiled at Amanda.

  Amanda said, “Why did you paint the door?”

  Melody shrugged.

  “Um, let’s go inside,” I said. “Amanda wants to see her old room.”

  “I cleaned it up,” said Melody as we were climbing the stairs. “Just for you, Amanda. I hope you like it.”

  “Oh, I will like it. I just loved my room. I still like it better than — ” Amanda stopped talking, right in the middle of her sentence. She leaned over the banister. She looked down to the front hallway. “Just a second,” she said. “Where is my fish?”

  “What?” replied Melody.

  “Where is my fish? Where is the fountain?”

  A fish fountain used to be in the hall when the Delaneys lived in the house. The fish stood on its tail. Water spouted out of its mouth.

  “We had to take the fountain out,” said Melody. “It scared Skylar. She is my baby sister. I guess the fountain is at the dump.”

  “The dump!” exclaimed Amanda. “You took my fish to the dump?”

  Uh-oh. I thought maybe it was time to go home then. But Amanda would not leave. She wanted to look at everything in the house and yard. As we walked around, she kept crying things like “You painted my room, too?” and “How come you put a different fence around the pool?” and “Where is the tennis court? What happened to it?”

  We were in the backyard by then. “We took the tennis court out, too,” said Melody. “Daddy is making a vegetable garden there.” I could tell Melody felt awful. And she wanted Amanda to feel better. So she said, “I know. Let’s play Lovely Ladies.”

  Amanda whirled around. “Karen!” she cried. “You taught her to play Lovely Ladies?”

  “Well, yes,” I replied. “I taught Nancy and Hannie, too. You know that.”

  Amanda shrugged. She looked at the ground. “Let’s go back to your house, Karen,” she said.

  Lucky Duck

  I was just an intsy bit worried about my slumber party. Not about little things like the food. Nannie had driven to the grocery store. She had bought the chocolate bars. But I hardly cared about s’mores or supper or what movie we watched.

  I was worried about my friends.

  I knew Hannie did not like Amanda. I did not think Amanda liked Melody. And now Melody probably did not like Amanda, either.

  This was not a good way to start a slumber party.

  At least everybody came to the party. By suppertime Nancy, Hannie, Amanda, Melody, and I were sitting around the playroom at the big house. We were going to eat and sleep in the playroom. It was ours for the night. We could even close the door and be private.

  Guess what we ate for dinner. Chinese takeout. It is my new favorite food. Daddy let me order it over the phone by myself. I ordered egg rolls, sweet and sour chicken, sesame noodles, and extra fortune cookies. When the food arrived we ate on the floor in the playroom. We put our plates in our laps.

  Melody poked at a piece of chicken. “It is covered with orange stuff,” she said. “Bright orange stuff. It is the color of my raincoat.”

  “That stuff
is sauce,” said Amanda. But I noticed she did not eat any.

  Hannie noticed the same thing. “Try the sauce, Amanda,” she said sweetly.

  Amanda gave Hannie a Look.

  I felt like crying. “I guess Chinese takeout was not a very good idea,” I said.

  “Now see what you guys did?” spoke up Nancy. “You made Karen feel bad.”

  “We did not!” said Melody.

  “You did too!” I said.

  “She started it!” Amanda pointed at Melody.

  “She is named Melody!” cried Hannie. “Get some manners, Amanda.”

  “Why don’t you? Anyway, at least I have good taste.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean that when I lived across the street, the fish fountain was running like it is supposed to. And the front door was blue. Nice normal blue. Who ever heard of a yellow door? That is stupid.”

  I thought Melody was going to yell, “It is not stupid!” But she did not. Instead she looked around the room at Nancy and Hannie and Amanda and me. A tear trickled down her cheek. Then another and another.

  I glared at Amanda. “Now see what you did?”

  Amanda hung her head. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “It’s just that … that she — I mean, Melody — gets to live in my house. I never wanted to move. I wish I were still living across the street. Moving is really hard. Melody is a lucky duck.”

  “Why?” replied Melody. “I had to move, too.”

  “Yeah, but now you live in my old house.”

  “But I wish I lived in my old house. That is why I asked Daddy to make a vegetable garden. To remind me of the yard at our old house.”

  “Oh,” said Amanda. “Well … well … I think you will like your new house after awhile. I always liked it.” Amanda smiled then. She smiled at everybody. She smiled like she meant it.

  “You know what?” I said. “I think we should skip dinner. I think we should just eat dessert instead. Who wants to make s’mores?”

  “I do!” shouted my friends.

  We took the Chinese food downstairs and put it in the refrigerator. I knew Charlie would eat it later. He will eat anything.

  Then I got out the marshmallows and graham crackers. I was looking for the chocolate bars Nannie had bought, when the phone rang. “I’ll get it!” I cried.

  “Is Your Toilet Running?”

  I grabbed the phone in the kitchen. “Hello?” I said. “Karen Brewer here.”

  A voice said, “Hello? Is your toilet running?”

  The voice was deep, like a man’s voice. Maybe it was the plumber. I decided to show Daddy and Elizabeth that I can be responsible when I answer the phone. (Sometimes they say I am not responsible.) So I put on my best grown-up voice. I said, “Yes, sir. Our toilet is running just fine.”

  “Then you better go catch it!” said the caller. He laughed and hung up.

  “Hey!” I cried.

  “What?” asked Nancy. (She had just found the chocolate bars.)

  “That was not the plumber! That was Bully Bobby Gianelli. He asked me if our toilet was running, and then he said to go catch it.”

  “What a dope,” said Hannie.

  We forgot about Bobby. We made our s’mores. (Kristy helped us toast the marshmallows on the grill. You have to be gigundoly careful around fire.) We each ate two s’mores. (Except for Kristy who only ate one.)

  “Yum,” I said. I was licking my fingers when the phone rang again. I dashed for it. Maybe a radio program was calling to tell me I had won a million dollars. It could happen, you know.

  “Hello? Karen Brewer here.”

  “Hello. I’d like to order two large pizzas with everything.”

  “This is not the pizza parlor,” I said.

  “And four sodas,” the caller went on. “And please deliver it.”

  “This is not the — Bobby? Bobby Gianelli? Is that you?”

  Bobby laughed and hung up.

  “Darn old Bobby!” I cried.

  Bobby called us all night. One time Kristy answered the phone.

  “Hello,” said Bobby. “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”

  “No,” said Kristy. “And I cannot talk to you right now. This is Mrs. Brewer, Karen’s stepmother. We are waiting for a very important call. From the phone company. The operator is going to tell us what to do about people who make goof calls.”

  “Oh,” said Bobby. He hung up. He did not call back.

  But my family was already mad at me.

  “Sherry was supposed to call me,” said Charlie. (Sherry is Charlie’s new girlfriend.) “She probably got a busy signal all evening.”

  “I wanted to call the department store,” said Sam. “Now I will have to wait until tomorrow. The store is closed.”

  “It is not my fault that Bobby is a bully and a pest!” I yelled.

  “Indoor voice, Karen,” Daddy reminded me.

  I turned to my friends. “Come on, you guys. Let’s go back to the playroom,” I said. “Let’s play Truth or Dare.”

  We returned to the playroom. But we did not play Truth or Dare. We talked about Bobby, the Pest of All the World.

  “He is a pill,” said Nancy.

  “He scares Andrew,” I added. “Andrew hardly ever plays outside now.”

  “Plus, Bobby got you in trouble tonight,” said Amanda.

  “I am glad he doesn’t live on my street,” said Melody.

  “You know what?” I said finally. “I am going to take care of Bobby once and for all. I declare war on Bobby Gianelli!”

  The Underwear War

  On Sunday, everybody went home. Hannie and Melody ran across the street to their houses. Mr. Dawes picked up Nancy. And Mrs. Delaney pulled into our driveway to get Amanda.

  “Good-bye, Karen!” called Amanda as she and her mother drove away. “I had fun. Thank you! Remember to tell me about … you know what.”

  “I will! ’Bye, Amanda! Thanks for coming!”

  “What is ‘you know what’?” Andrew wanted to know.

  “It is sort of a secret,” I answered. “I cannot tell you yet.”

  “Oh, okay,” whispered Andrew.

  Later that day, Andrew and I went back to the little house. As we rode across town I thought about my war. During dinner I thought about my war. After dinner I thought about my war. It was not going to be a war with guns or bombs, of course. But I needed a way to get back at Bobby.

  Just before I fell asleep I got a great idea.

  * * *

  My idea was about laundry. The Gianellis’ laundry. I had to wait until I saw it drying on the line in back of their house. I finally saw it when Mrs. Dawes was driving Nancy and me home from school one afternoon.

  “Nancy? Did Bobby say what he was doing today?” I asked her.

  “I think he is going to Ricky’s house. Why?”

  I shrugged. “Just wondering.”

  When we reached home I told Nancy I could not play with her. Then I went to Bobby’s. But I did not walk down the street. No, I snuck to the Gianellis’ house. I tiptoed there through backyards. I hid behind trees. I ducked behind bushes. I do not think anyone saw me.

  At the edge of Bobby’s yard, I crouched behind a pile of wood. I looked at the laundry drying on the clothesline. I saw socks and jeans and shirts and underwear. The underwear was what interested me. I could pick out Bobby’s underwear easily. It was not the big underwear. That was his parents’. It was not the little frilly panties. Those belonged to his sister. The medium-sized underwear was Bobby’s. I darted from behind the woodpile. I ran to the line. I snatched one pair of Bobby’s underwear. Then I raced home.

  I hoped I was not stealing. I did not think I was stealing. I planned to return the underwear to Bobby the next day.

  When I went to school in the morning I wore my backpack. Here is what was in the backpack: my lunch, a reading worksheet, a sweater, Bobby’s underwear.

  I walked into Ms. Colman’s room. I pulled out the underwear. I waved it around. I hel
d it over my head.

  “Look, everybody!” I shouted. “Look what I have!”

  “What?” asked someone.

  “Bob-by’s un-der-wear!” I sang.

  Bobby leaped out of his chair. “Hey, that is mine!” he cried. “Where did you get it? Give it back, Karen! Give it back, Karen Tutu!”

  I did not give it back. All the girls crowded around me. “I see Bobby’s underwear!” shrieked Pamela.

  “GIVE IT!” shouted Bobby. (He did not seem like such a bully just then.)

  “Hey, nice shorts, Bobby!” said Hank Reubens.

  “SHUT UP!”

  “Ahem,” said Ms. Colman as she entered the room.

  Quick as a wink, everyone ran for their seats. Bobby grabbed his underwear from me. He stuffed it in his desk.

  “You better watch out, Karen Tutu,” he warned me.

  Minnie Mouse

  Bobby was so, so embarrassed. Hannie and Nancy and I could not stop talking about him. Nancy and I were still talking about him on our way to school the next morning. (We talked softly so Seth would not hear us.)

  “Bobby’s face got red!” said Nancy.

  “It was red almost all day.”

  “Bobby is gigundoly dumb.”

  “Totally.”

  When Seth dropped us off at school, we ran through the gate. Bobby was standing by the front door. He was grinning at me.

  I did not like the look of that grin.

  Nancy and I ignored Bobby. We walked inside. Bobby followed us. He was hiding something behind his back. We ran into our classroom.

  And everybody began to laugh.

  I nudged Nancy. “Why are they laughing?”

  Before she could answer, I heard a yelp from the back of the room. Hannie squealed, “Karen! Look!”

  I turned around. Bobby was parading between the desks. He was waving a flag. No, not a flag. He was holding a stick. Tied to one end was a pair of … my underwear. And not just any underwear, my pink ruffled Minnie Mouse underwear. My Baby Minnie Mouse underwear. It is the most embarrassing underwear I own. I wear it because Nannie gave it to me, and I love Nannie.