For the Monagles,
Ed and Peggy,
Maureen, Michael, and John
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
1 The Flower Girl
2 Other Weddings
3 At Ms. Colman’s House
4 Presents
5 Shopping
6 Secrets
7 The Perfect Dress
8 The Long Saturday
9 Hank’s Car Wash
10 Natalie’s Job
11 The Big Surprise
12 Caroline
13 Karen’s Problem
14 The Big Mistake
15 Karen’s Good Idea
16 Wedding Day
17 Kissing the Bride
18 Just Married
19 Ms. Colman Comes Back
20 Dear Karen, Dear Caroline
About the Author
Also Available
Copyright
The Flower Girl
Hello, it’s me again. Karen Brewer, remember? I am seven years old. I am in Ms. Colman’s second grade class. I go to Stoneybrook Academy in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. In one month, something gigundoly exciting is going to happen. My teacher is going to get married. Guess who is going to be her flower girl? Me! My mother and stepfather are very good friends of Ms. Colman and Mr. Simmons. (Mr. Simmons is Ms. Colman’s fiancé. He is the man she is going to marry.) I cannot wait to be a flower girl. I just love getting dressed up.
I love my teacher, too. And I love school. I am very lucky because my two best friends are also in Ms. Colman’s room. They are Nancy Dawes and Hannie Papadakis.
Here are some facts about my classroom:
We have a class pet. He is a guinea pig named Hootie.
We have a class bully. He is a boy named Bobby Gianelli. Once, Bobby and I almost got into a fistfight, but Mrs. Gianelli stopped us. Unfortunately, Bobby lives right down the street from my mother’s house.
My husband is in the classroom. He is a boy named Ricky Torres. Ricky and I used to be enemies, but then we got married. We got married on the playground one afternoon. (Of course, Ricky is not really my husband.)
The kids who wear glasses have to sit in the front row. This is Ms. Colman’s rule. (She wears glasses herself.) These people are the glasses-wearers: Natalie Springer, Ricky, me. I love Ms. Colman, but I do not like her rule. Before I got glasses, I sat in the back row with Nancy and Hannie. But then I had to move.
* * *
One Monday morning, Hannie and Nancy and I were sitting on some desks in the back of the classroom. School had not started yet. Ms. Colman was not even in the room. My friends and I were talking. (We call ourselves the Three Musketeers because we spend so much time together.)
“Hi, you guys,” said a shy voice.
I looked up. There was Natalie Springer. Natalie is not too sure of herself. She speaks quietly. (Also, she lisps. She goes to speech class three times a week.) Her socks are always falling down. She makes mistakes and then she feels bad. Sometimes she does not pay attention. She is a WORRIER. But she can be a very good friend.
“Hi, Natalie,” my friends and I replied.
“I have an idea,” Natalie told us. “I think we should give Ms. Colman and Mr. Simmons a wedding present. From our whole class.”
“We already did,” I said. “We played the special song.”
In school, my classmates and I had learned to play instruments. One of the music teachers, Mrs. Dade, taught us to play as a band. At the end of the band unit, we put on a concert. As a surprise, we learned how to play “Here Comes the Bride” for Ms. Colman. Even Mrs. Dade did not know we were teaching ourselves that song. Ms. Colman just loved her surprise. She even cried a little.
“I know,” said Natalie. “And the song was nice. But that was before Ms. Colman invited us all to her wedding. Now we really should buy a present for Ms. Colman and Mr. Simmons. Something they can open.”
I looked at Nancy and Hannie. My friends and I nodded our heads. Natalie was right. If we were going to the wedding, we should buy a present. When Mommy and Seth were married they got lots of presents. When Daddy and Elizabeth were married, they got lots of presents, too. I am sort of an expert on weddings.
Other Weddings
I have had some experience at being a flower girl. I was the flower girl in Daddy’s wedding, when he married Elizabeth. (Elizabeth is my stepmother.)
This is the interesting thing about my parents: First they got divorced, then they each got married again. See, a long time ago, when I was just a little kid, I had a regular family. I lived in a big house with Mommy and Daddy and my little brother Andrew. (Andrew is four now, going on five.) But Mommy and Daddy were not happy. They began to fight a lot. Finally, they said they were getting divorced. Mommy moved out of the big house. She moved to a little house. She took Andrew and me with her. (Daddy stayed in the big house. He grew up there.)
After awhile Mommy met Seth and they got married. And Daddy met Elizabeth, and they got married. So now I have two families right here in Stoneybrook, one in the little house, one in the big house. Andrew and I live in the big house every other weekend, and on some vacations. The rest of the time we live at the little house.
This is the little-house family: Mommy, Seth, Andrew, me, Rocky, Midgie, Emily Junior. Rocky and Midgie are Seth’s cat and dog. Emily Junior is my rat.
This is my big-house family: Daddy, Elizabeth, Kristy, Charlie, Sam, David Michael, Emily Michelle, Nannie, Andrew, me, Boo-Boo, Shannon, Goldfishie, and Crystal Light the Second. Kristy, Charlie, Sam, and David Michael are Elizabeth’s kids, so they are my stepsister and stepbrothers. Kristy is thirteen. I love her. She is the best, best big sister. And she is an extra good babysitter. Charlie and Sam are in high school. David Michael is seven like me. (But he goes to a different school.) Emily Michelle is my adopted sister. She is two and a half. Daddy and Elizabeth adopted her from a faraway country called Vietnam. (I named my rat after Emily.) Nannie is Elizabeth’s mother. That makes her my stepgrandmother. Nannie helps to take care of us kids. Let me see. Boo-Boo, Shannon, Goldfishie, and Crystal Light the Second are pets. Boo-Boo is Daddy’s cross old tomcat. Shannon is David Michael’s puppy. Goldfishie and Crystal Light are (what else?) goldfish. They belong to Andrew and me. Isn’t it a good thing the big house is so big?
I have special nicknames for my brother and me. I call us Andrew Two-Two and Karen Two-Two. This is because we have two of so many things. We have two houses and two families, two mommies and two daddies, two cats and two dogs. I have two bicycles, one at each house. I have two stuffed cats, exactly alike. Moosie stays at the big house, Goosie stays at the little house. And Andrew and I both have books and toys and clothes at each house. I also have my two best friends. Nancy lives next door to Mommy. Hannie lives across the street from Daddy, and one house down.
Andrew and I do not have two of everything, though. For instance, I have only one pair of roller skates. I have to remember to bring them back and forth between the little house and the big house. Another thing I do not like about being a two-two is that when I am at the little house, I miss my big-house family. And when I am at the big house, I miss my little-house family.
Still, having two families is fun. Being in my parents’ weddings was fun, too. That was why I was looking forward to being in Ms. Colman’s wedding. (Of course, I was looking forward to getting a new, beautiful flower girl’s dress, too.)
At Ms. Colman’s House
I am so, so lucky that Mommy and Seth have become good friends with Ms. Colman and Mr. Simmons. They eat dinner together often. Ms. Colman and Mr. Simmons come over to our house about once a week. So I get to see my teacher even when I am not in school. Plus, I was going to be in their wedding, of course. But do yo
u know what? I had never been to Ms. Colman’s house. Not until one afternoon when Mommy said to Andrew and me, “Finish up your snacks, kids. I want to get going.”
I had just come home from school. Andrew had been home from preschool for several hours, but he likes to have a snack with me when I get home.
“Where are we going?” I asked Mommy. (You never know what could be in store.)
Mommy smiled. “We are going to Ms. Colman’s house,” she replied.
“We are? Yes!” I cried. I had just left my teacher, and now I would get to see her again. More importantly, I would get to see the inside of her house.
Ms. Colman does not live in Stoneybrook. She lives away from town, out in the country. We drove by pastures and cows and horses and sheep and farmhouses before we came to Ms. Colman’s driveway. I liked her house right away. It is exactly the same size as the little house. It is surrounded by woods. It looks cozy.
We stood on Ms. Colman’s porch. Mommy lifted Andrew up so he could ring the doorbell. Bong-bong.
“Hello!” called Ms. Colman as she let us inside.
First the adults had to talk for awhile. Mommy and Seth are giving a party for Ms. Colman and Mr. Simmons a week before the wedding. See, neither my teacher nor Mr. Simmons has much family. And they do not have any family that lives right nearby. Ms. Colman’s mother lives in Chicago. Her sister and her sister’s husband and their daughter live all the way across the country in the state of Oregon. They cannot even come to the wedding. Ms. Colman is sad about that. She loves her sister. And she had hoped her niece would be her flower girl. (It is a good thing she has me, since I am an expert flower girl.)
Anyway, there was no family to give a party for the bride and groom. So Mommy and Seth said, “We would like to do that. The party will be our wedding present to you.”
Now Mommy and Ms. Colman were talking about the party. They were making lists: a list of friends to invite, a list of foods to serve, a list of things to buy or borrow.
Andrew and I grew bored. We wandered around the house. We looked at Ms. Colman’s things. She had lots of photos. Many of them were pictures of a girl about my age.
“Who’s this?” I asked Ms. Colman. I pointed to one of the photographs.
“That’s my niece,” she replied. “My sister’s daughter in Oregon. Her name is Caroline. She is seven like you.” Ms. Colman paused and smiled. “She likes to ride horses and play the piano. She is very quiet and sweet. I have not seen her in almost a year, though. I miss her.”
“It is too bad she cannot come to the wedding,” I said.
Ms. Colman nodded. “I know. But it is too big a trip for her family to take just now.”
Mommy and my teacher finished writing their lists. Then Mommy said, “All right, let’s talk about the dress Karen will wear.”
“The bridesmaids’ dresses will be pale blue,” said Ms. Colman, “so I think Karen’s should be, too. But it does not need to be long.”
“We should go shopping soon,” said Mommy.
We decided to go the following week. A shopping trip with my teacher.
Presents
Nancy and Hannie and Natalie and I were sitting on the desks in the back of our classroom. It was another early morning. School had not started yet. Ms. Colman had not even arrived.
“We should talk about Ms. Colman’s present,” said Natalie.
“We need the other kids,” I told her. “Hey, Ricky! Addie! Come here! Terri, Tammy, Hank! Everybody!”
My classmates gathered around us. By now, Natalie had told us her idea. And we all wanted to help buy a present. (Natalie was very pleased that we liked her idea so much.) But we had not talked about what to buy. None of us had bought a wedding present before.
“I think the present should be fancy,” said Natalie. “Wedding presents are usually fancy. Like gold or silver.”
“Or else they are big,” added Ricky. “They come in big boxes. Toasters and blenders and things like that. Big things for the kitchen.”
“When my cousin got married,” said Addie Sidney, “she got sixteen toasters. She had to return fifteen of them.”
“Maybe we should not get a toaster,” said Ricky.
“How many blenders did your cousin get?” asked Nancy.
“Just four,” Addie replied.
“Maybe we should not get a blender either,” said Ricky.
“How about a clock?” said Pamela Harding.
“Is that a good wedding present?” asked Nancy.
Pamela shrugged.
“Maybe some plates,” said Addie. “My cousin got these dessert plates and she really liked them. At least she said she would keep them.”
“Ms. Colman has plates,” I told my friends. “I saw them in her house.” (I liked being able to remind people that I had been inside my teacher’s house.) “She has plenty of plates,” I added.
“What would be really fancy?” wondered Natalie.
“A clock?” suggested Pamela again.
“She has two,” I announced. “I saw — ”
“I know, I know. You saw them in her house,” said Pamela crossly.
“Well, I did!”
“Hey!” called Hank Reubens from the doorway. “Ms. Colman is coming!”
“Secret meeting on the playground today!” I cried. Then we ran for our desks. We were sitting quietly by the time Ms. Colman entered the room.
* * *
After lunch, my friends and I met by the monkey bars on the playground.
“I have an idea about our present,” I said. “Maybe my big brother could take some of us shopping one day. Charlie could drive us downtown in the Junk Bucket.” (The Junk Bucket is his rattly old car.) “And maybe Kristy could come, too. She could give us shopping advice.”
“I wonder how much a present will cost,” said Natalie.
“I wonder how much money we have,” I said.
“I have two dollars!” called Hank.
“I have a dollar and eighty cents,” said Leslie Morris.
“Wait, wait. Someone should add this up,” I said.
“I will,” replied Hannie. “Everybody, tell me how much money you have.”
Hannie wrote the numbers on a piece of notebook paper. She wrote them in a long column. She took forever adding them up. When she was finally finished, she said, “We have nineteen dollars and eleven cents. I think. That is not very much.”
It certainly wasn’t. It was not enough for a fancy wedding present.
Shopping
I talked to Charlie. I talked to Kristy. They said they would help my friends and me look for a wedding present. They said they would take Nancy, Hannie, Natalie, and me downtown on Saturday.
We met at the big house.
Charlie sat behind the wheel of the Junk Bucket. The rest of us slid in after him. I sat in front between Charlie and Kristy. My friends sat in back.
“Seat belts!” called Charlie. We buckled up.
“Where do you want to go first?” Kristy asked me.
I turned around to look at my friends.
“The jewelry store,” answered Natalie. “They have silver stuff.”
Boy, did they ever.
“This costs more than two thousand dollars!” squeaked Hannie. We were standing in the store. She was looking at a silver bowl.
“These candlesticks cost eight hundred dollars!” cried Nancy.
“Maybe this was not a good idea,” said Natalie softly. “Maybe we cannot buy Ms. Colman a present. I did not know grownups pay so much money for wedding gifts.”
“They don’t,” said Kristy. “Not always. Come on, let’s look somewhere else. We do not have to get the present here.”
Next we went to a gift store.
“Here is a china picture frame,” I said. “It only costs nine dollars. We could buy it and have money left over.”
“Not special enough,” said Natalie.
“Here is a beautiful pen for twenty-four dollars,” said Nancy.
“Too b
oring,” said Natalie.
“Here is something not boring,” said Hannie. “It is so not boring I do not even know what it is.”
“Too weird,” said Natalie.
We left the gift store.
“Now what?” said Charlie.
I looked at Natalie. I thought she was going to cry.
“We have not seen a single good thing,” she wailed.
“I have an idea,” said Kristy. “Let’s go to Bellair’s.”
“The department store?” I asked.
Kristy nodded. “We will go to the Fine Gifts counter. You will see lots of pretty things that do not cost too much and do not cost too little. I have bought all kinds of presents there.”
So Charlie drove to Bellair’s, and Kristy led the way to Fine Gifts.
We looked and looked and looked. But we did not see the perfect gift. Not at first. Then a salesman asked if he could help us.
Kristy told him what we were shopping for.
The man frowned. Then he said, “How about this?” He held up a very beautiful silver cup.
“Ms. Colman could put it on her desk,” said Nancy.
“She could keep her pencils in it!” exclaimed Natalie.
“You could have it engraved,” added the man. “We could write your teacher’s name on it. Or anything else you want.”
My friends and I looked at each other. We smiled. Then I said, “How much is it?”
The man told us the price. With the engraving the cup would cost more than sixty dollars.
“Well,” said Natalie, “I guess we could raise some money.”
We had to leave the cup behind in the store. We hoped that the next time we came back, we would be able to buy it.
Secrets
“Secret meeting on the playground. Pass it on,” I whispered to Ricky.
“Secret meeting on the playground. Pass it on,” Ricky whispered to Bobby.
It was Monday morning. Our shopping trip was over and we had found the perfect wedding gift for our teacher. But we needed to earn a lot of money before we could buy it. So my classmates and I needed to hold another secret meeting on the playground. We had to be able to talk when Ms. Colman was not around. The play-ground is a good place for that, unless our teacher has playground duty. But Ms. Colman was not on duty that week. So we planned a secret meeting.