Don't Give Up, Mallory

  “And what?”

  “After the meeting today, Kristy had another one of her great ideas. And she decided that the BSC should help Buddy and the kids make the instruments for their marching band.”

  “Wow, things move fast around here,” I said with a low whistle. “I mean, we were only thinking about talking a few of the kids into joining Buddy.”

  Jessi chuckled. “Now we have a full-fledged band. All we need to do is make the instruments.”

  “But how, and when, are we going to make these instruments?” I asked.

  “Kristy has that all figured out,” Jessi explained. “Claudia is gathering the supplies. We can pick them up at her house. Kristy suggested we all work on the instruments when we’re on our next sitting jobs.”

  I nodded, even though I was on the phone. “Good idea — as usual.”

  “All we have to do is make drums and stringed instruments,” Jessi continued.

  “All?” I repeated. “I hope the supplies Claudia’s giving us come with instructions.”

  Jessi giggled. “Me, too.”

  I checked my watch. I’d been talking for five minutes. Break time was over. I wanted to finish my homework. I said good-bye to Jessi and hurried back to my room. But instead of my homework, I found two little girls with big blue eyes sitting on my bed.

  “Mal, it’s story time,” Claire announced with an ear-to-ear grin.

  Margo scooted sideways to make room for me and patted my pillow. “You promised.”

  I looked wistfully at my stack of books and the open notebook sitting on my desk. My homework could wait. After all, a promise is a promise.

  But just to kill two birds with one stone, as they say, I grabbed a Maurice Sendak book and settled in between my two sisters.

  I opened the cover, and the girls giggled as they looked at the little boy in the white costume with the pointy ears and big feet.

  I pointed to the words and read the first line. “ ‘The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another …’ ”

  “You’re a good reader,” Claire said, looking at me with adoring eyes.

  Margo squeezed my arm. “The best!”

  That night, visions of Max and his wild things danced through my dreams. The images were still vivid when I walked into Mr. Cobb’s class the next day.

  The bell had barely finished ringing before Mr. Cobb asked the first question.

  “The title of Maurice Sendak’s book is Where the Wild Things Are,” he said, facing our group. “So where exactly are the wild things?”

  I was the first to raise my hand. Behind me I heard someone whisper, “Miss Know-it-all,” and I quickly lowered my hand. But then I remembered Mr. Cobb’s plan to grade on participation, so I shoved my hand in the air again.

  Mr. Cobb smiled vaguely at me, then scanned the room as several more hands shot up. He pointed to Randy Rademacher. “Yes, Randy. Where are Sendak’s wild things?”

  “Well, Sendak says they are a day and a night away. So I’d say they’re on the other side of Max’s world.”

  “The other side, huh?” Mr. Cobb scratched his chin.

  “Yeah, like a good and a bad world,” Craig Avazian piped up. “In the good world, he’s a regular kid. But in the bad, he’s a wild king.”

  I frowned. I didn’t agree with Craig or Randy at all. I thought the wild things were in Max’s imagination.

  My arm was still up, and it was starting to tingle. I was about to switch arms, but something made me hesitate. Mr. Cobb seemed so enthusiastic about what Randy and Craig were saying that I started to think maybe my idea was wrong. I lowered my arm.

  “This is great,” Mr. Cobb said, rubbing his hands together. “Now on to the next question. Why doesn’t Max stay in the Land of the Wild Things?”

  I raised my hand again. So did Jen Corn and Megan Armstrong.

  “I think Max decided he couldn’t be all bad,” Jimmy Bouloukos called out without raising his hand. “There has to be a balance. So Max decided to come back to the good world and be a good kid for a while.”

  I had a very different opinion. This time, I switched arms. But Robbie Mara and Benny Ott started talking about the wild rumpus dance, and the subject was changed before I could be called on.

  Chris Brooks and Liz Cohen had a heated discussion about dreams versus reality. I really would have liked to be in on that, but Mr. Cobb didn’t seem to notice me.

  About halfway through the class, Mr. Cobb said, “What do you say we all take a five-minute break? Stand up. Stretch. Have a drink of water, whatever.”

  I looked at the classroom clock. A lot of time had passed and I hadn’t said a word. I’d raised my hand at least ten times, but Mr. Cobb hadn’t called on me once.

  At the water fountain, Sandra Hart whispered to me, “Isn’t Craig Avazian a major babe? Did you hear what he said about the rumpus dance being a jungle rite? Totally cool.”

  I swallowed the water and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Yeah, but I really think that this whole story takes place in Max’s imagination. Maybe it’s even a dream.”

  Sandra took a sip of water and looked at me sideways but didn’t say anything.

  After the break, Mr. Cobb walked to the portable bookshelf in front of the board and withdrew a book. “It’s now time for us to read and discuss. This is the on-the-spot analysis portion of our class.”

  My insides tightened. I wasn’t sure I could analyze something just like that. What if my opinion was wrong?

  Mr. Cobb held the book in one hand and looked out at the class. I watched him pause at my row. I slumped down in my seat, trying to blend in with the other students.

  “You there,” he said, pointing right at me. “You in the third row. What’s your name?”

  I pointed to myself and croaked. “Me?”

  Several of the kids giggled.

  “Yes, you. What’s your name?”

  “Just call her the Brain,” Benny muttered from behind me.

  I cleared my throat. “Mallory. Mallory Pike,” I said in a tiny voice.

  Mr. Cobb cupped his hand around one ear. “Valerie?”

  Now there was snickering all around me.

  I was about to correct him when he stuck the book in front of my face and said, “Why don’t you read us this book, Valerie?”

  I looked at the book and read the title in a shaky voice. “Green Eggs and Ham.”

  “Louder!” Megan called from her place in the front row.

  I took that to mean faster. My words tumbled out in a tangled rush.

  I’m usually a good speaker, with a loud, clear voice. But not that day. I could barely read, let alone talk.

  “ ‘I do not like them in a house,’ ” I continued reading. “ ‘I do not like them here or there.’ ”

  Mr. Cobb, who had been standing behind me, cleared his throat and interrupted, “Valerie, you skipped a line.”

  I stared down at the page, confused. How could that happen?

  I reread the page, this time very slowly, to make sure I didn’t miss any words. Behind me I could hear Benny Ott making snoring sounds, as if I were putting him to sleep.

  My ears, my cheeks, my freckles — my entire body was flaming beet red. I could hear a rushing sound in my ears.

  While my mouth was reading the words, my brain was screaming, “Please, take the book from me. Give it to someone else!”

  Rrrrring!

  I froze in midsentence. Was that really the bell or had I just imagined it?

  All around me kids were standing up. Mr. Cobb was walking to the front of the room.

  The bell had rung. Hooray!

  I bolted from my seat and charged for the door. I should have returned the Seuss book to Mr. Cobb. But I left it on my desk. I knew if I spent one more second in that classroom, I’d scream.

  Once out of the room, I raced to the girls’ bathroom and splashed water on my face. How could so many things go wrong in one class?

  First, Mr. Cobb hadn?
??t even noticed me. Then when he did, he got my name wrong, which was humiliating. The kids had teased me about my good grades. But when I was asked to read out loud to the class, something I’ve always been good at, I choked.

  I raised my head and looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink. “Valerie Pike,” I murmured to my reflection. “It fits. Valerie, the-totally-mixed-up Pike.”

  Stacey wasn’t exaggerating. About the music. Or the wild night. Of course, every night at the Barrett-DeWitts’ is pretty crazy. They’re a big, blended family. You see, Mrs. Barrett had three children — Buddy, who’s eight, five-year-old Suzi, and two-year-old Marnie. When she married Franklin DeWitt not long ago, the family more than doubled in size, because he had four children: Lindsey, who’s eight; Taylor, six; Madeleine, four; and Ryan, two.

  This was the first evening that Kristy’s plan, to baby-sit for kids and build musical instruments at the same time, was to go into effect.

  Claudia had loaded a red wagon with cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes, while Stacey had brought several items from her recycling bin — old plastic bottles, toilet-paper and paper-towel tubes, and newspapers.

  Stacey was dressed in a “Let’s build something” outfit — jeans with rolled-up cuffs, an oversized blue denim work shirt, and a painter’s cap turned backward.

  Claudia wore shorts and a rainbow tie-dyed T-shirt. Her hair was pulled into a thick ponytail held by a matching tie-dyed scrunchie. Since this was to be a work party, she sported her favorite work shoes, red high-top sneakers.

  When Stacey and Claudia rolled up to the front door of the Barrett-DeWitt house, Madeleine met them at the door. “Wook evwe boddee,” she mumbled through a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly. “It’s a pawade.”

  Stacey whispered to Claudia, “Translation — ‘Look, everybody, it’s a parade.’ ”

  Claudia waved to Madeleine. “You ain’t seen nothing yet! What we have here is a wagon full of gen-u-ine magical music makers.”

  Madeleine raced back inside, shouting, “Hey, there’s magic! Stacey and Claud brought magic!”

  Word spread fast about the magical music makers.

  Stacey and Claudia grinned at each other as they listened to the sound of feet pounding toward them from every direction in the house.

  Buddy was the first to appear. He spotted the supplies in Claudia’s wagon and his face lit up. “All right!” he cried. “You brought the instruments!”

  Stacey stared down at the pile of cardboard boxes and plastic jugs. “That’s some imagination!”

  “Come on in!” Buddy grabbed the wagon and tugged it over the threshold into the living room.

  Mr. and Mrs. DeWitt were just coming down the stairs. Madeleine, Marnie, and Ryan were jumping all around them like excited puppies.

  “A parade!” Madeleine cried. “We’re going to be in a parade!”

  Mrs. DeWitt looked up at Stacey and Claud in surprise. “Is this true? Are all the kids going to be in the Memorial Day parade?”

  Claudia nodded at Buddy. “It was Buddy’s idea. He thought the kids should form a marching band.”

  “You thought of this?” Mrs. DeWitt asked Buddy.

  Buddy blushed and dug the toe of his sneaker into the carpet. “Uh, I guess so.”

  “You see, Buddy doesn’t think it’s fair that only organized groups like the Scouts are allowed to march,” Claudia explained. “He thinks any kid should be able to participate —”

  “And so do we,” Stacey put in. “So we’re turning your house into a musical-instrument workshop.”

  Mr. DeWitt looked alarmed. “You mean, with saws and drills?”

  “No,” Claudia giggled. She gestured to the wagon full of supplies. “This workshop will only use tape, glue, and blunt scissors.”

  Stacey and Claudia watched Mr. DeWitt relax. “Well, I know the kids are in good hands,” he said with a relieved grin.

  As they were leaving, Mrs. DeWitt whispered, “Try not to make too big a mess. We finally managed to clean the house today.”

  Claudia whispered back, “We’ll be the clean machine.”

  Two minutes after the front door closed, the house looked like a bomb had exploded. Cardboard, string, and tape were strewn everywhere. And everyone was shouting.

  Taylor ran for the wagon and grabbed a round oatmeal box. “I want to make a drum,” he shouted.

  Buddy rifled through the boxes until he found the other round oatmeal box. “Me, too!” he yelled.

  “Me, too! Me, too!” Ryan cried, trying to pull the box out of Taylor’s hands.

  “Here.” Stacey reached for the nearest item — a toilet-paper tube — and shoved it into Ryan’s hand. “You can make a trumpet.”

  But Marnie wanted the toilet-paper tube. “Me first!” she shouted. “Give it to me!”

  While Stacey hunted for another tube, Claudia tried to show Buddy and Taylor how to make a drum.

  In the meantime, Suzi Barrett was carefully picking over the rest of the supplies. She grabbed some string, three or four boxes, and a long paper-towel tube and carried it all to the far corner of the room.

  “Hey!” Madeleine cried, folding her arms across her chest. “Suzi took all of the best stuff.”

  “Did not!” Suzi shot back.

  “Did, too!”

  Claudia left the boys with the drums and raced to do damage control with the girls. “There are still plenty of supplies left, Madeleine. Look, here’s a fun jug.” Claud held up a plastic milk jug. “You can blow in it and make noise.”

  Madeleine wasn’t happy. “That’s just a stupid old milk jug.”

  “Not if you decorate it.” Claudia held up some felt strips and a glue stick.

  Madeleine reluctantly accepted the felt and glue. And for one second a truce was declared. Then Lindsey came into the living room.

  She walked to the wagon and carefully chose a tissue box, a paper-towel tube, a handful of rubber bands, and some tape.

  Buddy looked up from where he was working at the coffee table. “Wait a minute. What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “I’m making a guitar,” Lindsey replied.

  Buddy jumped up and grabbed the tissue box. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not in this band.”

  “She can be in the band if she wants to be,” Taylor cried, leaping to Lindsey’s defense.

  “No way!” Buddy shouted. “Lindsey’s going to march with the Brownies. She can’t do both.”

  Stacey covered her ears with her hands and cried, “Stop it! Both of you. Stop shouting.”

  The room went silent.

  Stacey lowered her hands and spoke in a calm voice. “There. That’s better. Now, this was supposed to be a fun evening, but we seem to be totally off course.”

  “I’ll say.” Claudia gestured to the living room littered with art supplies and pieces of cardboard. “It looks like we’ve been hit by a tornado. Remember what your mother said? Don’t mess up the house.”

  Stacey suddenly held up one hand. “Wait a minute. Did you hear that?”

  The children froze.

  “Hear what?” Buddy whispered.

  “That sound.” Stacey tiptoed to the front window and peered out through the curtain. “I thought I heard a car. What if it’s your parents? And they’ve forgotten something.”

  The children stared at Stacey with big, unblinking eyes.

  “Oh, no,” Madeleine gasped.

  Claudia whispered, “What will they say when they see this mess?”

  Suzi spoke first. “They’ll say we’re in big trouble.”

  Claudia nodded solemnly. “That’s right. So what should we do about it?”

  The kids cried, “Clean up!”

  “Good idea!” Claudia replied. “I’ll help you guys pick this mess up —” She looked over at Stacey, who was still pretending to look through the curtain. “Stacey?”

  “Yes?” Stacey whispered dramatically.

  Claudia winked at her. “You stand guard.”

  “Right!”


  Minutes later, the supplies had been picked up and put away. The children were gathered around either the coffee table in the living room or the dining table, happily building their instruments.

  Buddy finished his instrument first and held it up for everyone to see. He’d taped paper to the top of the oatmeal box and glued star stickers around the sides. “Here’s my drum. Listen.” He thumped on it a few times.

  “Way to go,” Stacey declared.

  “Here’s my guitar!” Lindsey held up her tissue box with rubber bands stretched across the hole. “If there’s a kid in your band who doesn’t have an instrument,” she told Buddy, “he can use mine.”

  Buddy gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Thanks, Lindsey,” Claudia said. “That was really thoughtful.”

  Suzi looked up at Stacey with a quivering chin. “Something’s wrong with mine.” She’d taped two toilet-paper tubes to the side of a box and tried to wrap string around them. “I don’t even know what it is.”

  Stacey held the weird contraption in the air, twisting it right, then left. Finally she announced, “Look, everybody, Suzi has invented a new instrument!”

  “What’s it called?” Taylor asked.

  “It’s a …” Stacey squeezed one eye closed, trying to think quickly. “A google-blaster.”

  “A google-blaster!” Taylor clutched his sides and rolled on the rug, laughing.

  “Look!” Stacey hummed into both tubes. “And it really plays!”

  “Stacey!” Marnie cried. “What mine?”

  Stacey circled the table to look at Marnie’s invention — a milk jug plastered with tangled-up tape. “This is most definitely a snorkaphone.”

  “I want to make a snorkaphone!” Madeleine squealed with delight. In seconds she’d wadded up tape and stickers and attached them to her milk jug.

  Taylor dove for the tape and circled his entire drum with toilet-paper tubes. When he was finished, he leaped to his feet and yelled, “Tadah!”

  Claudia clapped her hands together. “It looks great, Taylor. What are you going to call it?”

  Taylor scratched his chin, staring at his instrument. Finally he raised his head and declared, “This is a hum-drum. See? You can hum into the tubes and drum on the box.”