“And for dessert, make-your-own fruit kabobs.” I showed Daddy Bo the dishes of strawberries and pieces of melon and apple and pineapple and pear, waiting to be stabbed onto fancy skewers shaped like pirate swords.
“What a creative birthday party, Pearl,” said Daddy Bo.
“Lexie and Valerie and Lindsey are going to help out,” I told him, “and they’re not even getting paid. They just wanted to come.”
The doorbell rang then and I answered it to find James Brubaker the Third standing in the hall holding a present that was pretty much shaped like a book.
“Happy birthday!” he said.
“Thank you. Come on in. Look at all the stations.”
JBIII had helped me plan everything for the party, but he hadn’t seen the stations in the family room yet, except if he had tried to spy from across the street.
I set his present on the floor by the couch. The doorbell rang again and this time Valerie and Lindsey had arrived. Perfect. I wanted to make sure they knew how to help out with the crafts. Lexie too. I was introducing them to the stations when Bitey jumped up on the treasure box table and landed in a pile of pink and blue feathers.
“Perhaps Bitey should spend the party in your room, Pearl,” said my mother, and she carried him away, feathers drifting off his back as they passed by.
Daddy Bo sat down on the couch then and said, “Now, what time is the party due to start, Pearl?” and suddenly I remembered Thanksgiving with the Lebarros. But before I could get too worried, the doorbell rang for a third time, and then a fourth and a fifth, and soon all the rest of my guests had arrived. Mom brought Daddy Bo a cup of coffee and he sat on the couch with a smile on his face.
At first my guests seemed a little uncertain. Leslie stood in the doorway of the family room, biting her thumbnail and gripping Elyse’s arm. Kenny and Greg huddled together in front of the windows, laughing about something private. And Elena sat by herself at the opposite end of the couch from Daddy Bo, looking like she might cry.
But then JBIII announced, “Okay, everybody. Time for the crafts. Kenny and Greg, why don’t you decorate T-shirts? I’m going to make a bracelet.”
Kenny and Greg looked shocked as they watched JBIII sit on the floor with a needle and a tin of red beads and get to work. But then I began to paint a pirate skull on a T-shirt, and before I knew it, Kenny and Greg were copying my design. When I looked around the room a little while later I saw Leslie and Elyse gluing sequins to wooden boxes. And at the sand art station sat Elena and Daddy Bo, each making a sculpture.
“What a treat!” I heard Daddy Bo say, and Elena smiled at him.
It took a long time for everyone to make every item, and when Mom said, “Who wants to take a break for bagels?” no one raised their hand. Kenny was only halfway done with a yellow and green bracelet, I was in the middle of writing TREASURES on a box, Greg was taking his turn at sand art, JBIII was sketching a portrait of Bitey (from memory) on a T-shirt, and the girls were having their faces decorated by Valerie, who had brought face paints as a surprise.
Later, though, when everyone had made one bracelet and one T-shirt and one sculpture and one box, I stood in the middle of the family room and said, “And now it is time for make-your-own bagels!”
Lexie and Valerie and Lindsey had cleared the family room table and spread out the bagels and the toppings. My guests each took a plate and set to work. JBIII was the only one who put lox on his bagel. He said lox tasted just like the ocean and made him think of the beach. I watched as Elena spread peanut butter on her bagel and made a face with jam. Greg dropped a little of every single topping except the lox onto his bagel. Kenny scooped a huge mound of tunafish onto his bagel and called it the Eiffel Tower.
No one said anything about wanting pizza.
After the bagels came the fruit kabobs. I think my guests liked the pirate swords more than the fruit, but whatever. By then Elena was laughing, and Leslie and Elyse had stopped clinging to each other, and Kenny and Greg had asked Valerie if she would paint their faces.
JBIII suddenly got a funny look, like he’d had some sort of idea, and he left the family room. He returned carrying Bitey. “Presenting the pirate king!” cried JBIII. He set Bitey on the couch, which he called a pirate ship, and tried to get him to pose with a fruit kabob sword, but Bitey took a flying leap off the couch and escaped from the room by way of the food table. He knocked the lox and the rest of the pineapple onto the floor, and Dad said, “Ahem,” and JBIII said, “Sorry,” and then all the parents started to arrive anyway.
The party was over.
“That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time,” announced Daddy Bo as the door closed behind JBIII, who was the last to leave.
“Me too.” I looked at the stack of presents my friends had given me. I would open them later, after we had cleaned up the family room.
I helped Mom and Dad get everything back in order and then Daddy Bo and I took a little nap before dinner. We sat on the couch with The Wizard of Oz playing on TV and pretended we were awake, but really we were not.
Later, when our nap was over, I gazed fondly at the tower of presents. I wanted to open them right away, but Mom and Dad wanted us to have dinner first. I waited about six more minutes and then I wailed, “Please don’t make me wait any longer!”
So everyone gathered in the family room, I settled on the floor with the gifts from my friends, and Mom sat at the table with a pen and a pad of paper so she could keep a list of the thank-you notes I would have to write. I tried not to look at her. There is nothing like watching someone keep a list of work you’ll have to do while you’re trying to enjoy opening presents.
All of my friends had brought me art supplies, except for JBIII, who had gotten me a book about pirates. It came with a pirate map and included songs about pirates and information on pirate clothing. I was taking a good look at the costumes when suddenly my mother stood up and said, “Oh! I almost forgot.” And she left the family room and hurried into her office. When she came back she was holding a small wrapped package. “This is from Dad and me,” she said. “An early birthday present.”
The box wasn’t big enough to be either a computer or a cell phone, but that was okay. I untied the ribbon and lifted the lid.
Inside the box was a key.
“Is it to our apartment?” I asked, hoping Mom wouldn’t say, “No, it’s the key to me,” which would have been horribly disappointing.
Mom nodded.
“Really?” I jumped up, ran to the front door, opened it, and tested the key. It worked.
“Here’s a key chain,” added my father.
I hugged my mother and my father and Daddy Bo and Lexie. Then I hung my very own key and key chain in the kitchen next to everyone else’s personal keys.
Before I went to bed that night I sat at my desk, pulled out the comparison chart, and studied it. On the “Interests” line I added “art” underneath “stuffed animals.” Then I got out an eraser. On the “Has Own Key to Apartment” line I erased the “no” in the Pearl column and replaced it with a “yes.” I thought about how on Monday when I went to the lobby to pick up our mail, I could use my new key. I would be sure to show it to John. And of course to JBIII.
I slid the chart into my desk drawer, called good night to Lexie and my parents, and crawled into bed. A moment later I felt a thump as Bitey landed on my chest. “Night, Bitey,” I said, and he began to purr loudly.
Lexie Pearl
Age 13 going on 14 9 (just barely)
Full Name Alexandria Pearl
Interests violin stuffed animals art
ballay
gymnastics
soccer
knitting
school
baby sitting
Room neat sloppy
Friends Valerie (best friend) Justine (neighbor/ first-grader)
Sophia, Polly
Chloe, Emma B. James Brubaker the Third (boy)
Emma F.
Boyfriend Dallas Bitey
(cat)
Lipstick yes no
Awards yes no
Chews Gum no yes
Pest no yes
Wears a Bra yes no
Has Had Apendix Out no yes
Has Thrown Up in a Taxicab no yes
Has Own Key to Apartment yes yes
Stuck up yes no
Has Thrown up in Own Bed yes no
Cavities 4 0
A FEIWEL AND FRIENDS BOOK
An Imprint of Macmillan
TEN RULES FOR LIVING WITH MY SISTER. Copyright © 2011 by Ann M. Martin.
All rights reserved. Printed in August 2011 in the United States of America by
R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company, Harrisonburg, Virginia. For information,
address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
mackids.com
Book design by Elizabeth Tardiff
Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
eISBN 9781466801677
First eBook Edition : September 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Martin, Ann M.,
Ten rules for living with my sister / Ann M. Martin.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Nine-year-old Pearl and her popular, thirteen-year-old sister, Lexie,
do not get along very well, but when their grandfather moves in and the girls
have to share a room, they must find common ground.
[1. Family life—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction.
3. Individuality—Fiction. 4. Grandfathers—Fiction. 5. Apartment houses—
Fiction. 6. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M3567585Ten 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2011009166
First Edition: 2011
Ann M. Martin, Ten Rules for Living With My Sister
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