The door was closed, but we could see through the large glass window. It was mostly black, with tons of cords and wires and boxes with dials everywhere. The light was on in Mom’s kitchen set.
“They’re still in there,” said Alex.
“We can’t go in yet,” I replied flatly. “The red ON AIR light’s still lit.” I pointed to the light panel above the door.
Alex kept glancing at me as I thumbed through some magazine article about the plight of the polar bear, snapping the slick pages so hard I ripped one.
Glaciers could move, polar ice caps could melt, but there would be no moving my sister. No changing her mind.
“I don’t get you, Stevie,” said Alex. “Why are you so mad at me? You weren’t even the least bit happy for me when I decided to go out for the play —”
“Yeah, like you ever weren’t going out for the play,” I said in a snotty voice.
Alex looked hurt. “What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. All that stuff about It’s a stupid musical and Ooh, I can’t sing!” I said sarcastically. “You knew all along you were going out for it. So don’t pretend like you didn’t.”
I knew I was being bratty, but I couldn’t help what I was feeling. Anger. Frustration. Resentment.
There are no rules for feelings.
“OK, first of all, stop yelling. They’ll hear you in there. Second of all, since when do you care if I do or don’t go out for a play? You hate acting. You’re the one person in our family who doesn’t give a flying burrito about any of this stuff.”
“Ha! You think you’re the only one . . . never mind.” I stared a hole through the polar bear in the magazine. One polar bear became two, four, six as my eyes blurred with hot tears. I tried my hardest not to think of things that would make me cry.
“Wait a minute,” Alex said, pointing an accusing finger at me. “Hold everything. You . . . you wanna . . . you’re going out for my play!”
That’s when I lost it. I flew into a rage. All I wanted to do was reach over and rip out a giant hunk of her dark, curly hair.
“Yes, OK? So you know my secret. I’m trying out for the play!” My voice rose. “That’s right. The same play. The lead. Same as you.” I had started out shrill, but now I was practically screaming. “Why do I always have to be the one who hates acting? I like plays as much as anybody! I was good that time I had to be Beauty for you. And you said you weren’t trying out —” My voice cracked, and I started to hiccup. “Why’d you have to go and ruin everything?”
“Me? Ruin everything? Look who’s talking!” I took a step back, but Alex just moved closer to get in my face. “How dare you! All this time I was talking about the play, and you go and stab me in the back. My own sister.”
The studio door flew open. “Girls!” Mom said sharply. “Alex. Stevie. What on earth —”
“Mom, sorry, I was trying to talk to Stevie and she just went off on me —”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Mom said angrily. “This is my place of work.” She lowered her voice. “I’m on thin ice around here as it is. You can’t just come in here and start screaming in the halls. I can hear you in the soundproof studio, for goodness’ sake.”
“Mom, I can explain,” I started.
“Where’s Dad?” she demanded.
“In the car with Joey.”
She pointed down the hall to the front door. “Outside. In the car. Both of you. This instant.”
BITTEN BY THE BUG
Starring Alex
Me: Stevie is such a fink.
Sock Monkey: You’re just upset because she’s going out for the play.
Me: All of a sudden, just like that, out of the blue, she wants to act in plays. I don’t get her.
Sock Monkey: Maybe she got bitten by the bug. Like you.
Me: But acting is MY thing. You know she’s just doing this to spite me. I mean, if she’s going to do it, why go out for the lead?
Sock Monkey: So you’re mad you might have to share the limelight?
Me: Of course I’m mad. She’s my sister. I have enough competition with girls who aren’t in my own family.
Sock Monkey: What’s so bad about Stevie sharing some of the spotlight?
Me: Have you heard that girl sing? Her voice is ten times better than mine. She can sing do-re-mi and it makes you feel all gooey inside. Even if the song is some stupid oldie from the radio, to hear her sing it, it breaks your heart and makes you want to cry.
Sock Monkey: Don’t you think you’re exaggerating?
Me: Ha! I can hear her practicing scales and stuff when she goes down into the basement. She thinks nobody can hear, but her voice comes straight up through the heating vent.
Sock Monkey: If you open the vent all the way, put your ear up against it, and listen really hard, you mean.
Me: Well, yeah!
Sock Monkey: So you’re afraid she’ll get the lead, because she’s so good at singing?
Me: Duh! What have I been saying? Have you even been listening to a word I said?
Sock Monkey: Sorry. Just asking. Well, she may be really good at singing, but you’re really good at acting, right? So, do your best. You have the acting thing down, now you just have to work on your singing. Practice a lot and stuff.
Me: You’re right. I’ll just have to work really hard at it. Come to think of it, I did see a sign up at school about a voice coach. Maybe I could get him to help me, give me some tips.
Sock Monkey: That’s a great idea! But even if you work really hard and do a good job, would it be so bad if Stevie got the lead?
Me: Yes!
Sock Monkey: Because she’s your little sister and she beat you at something? Because it means you don’t win? Or because you think you won’t be special anymore?
Me: (Quiet.) No comment.
Sock Monkey: Remember: you’ll always be you. Nobody can take that away.
Me: How’d you get so smart?
Sock Monkey: Hanging around you, I guess.
Me: You must be a firstborn in your sock monkey family.
Sock Monkey: I guess that’s it!
The next day, Alex and I stayed mad at each other. It was all I could think about the whole day at school. By the time I got home, I was bouncing off the walls. I had to do something. Anything to quiet the emotions ping-ponging inside me. Run around the block? Maybe. Yell at Alex some more? What good would that do?
There was only one thing I could think of doing. One thing that always calmed me down. Not because it took my mind off things, but because I could put all my feelings into it.
Cupcakes.
I like making cupcakes way more than eating them. I love dreaming up new ones — not just the ingredients and recipes, but names for them that match the way I’m feeling in the moment. I even like measuring stuff — it gives an order to things that feel jumbled in my head. Beating the eggs and mixing the batter is the best part — a great outlet for when I am mad at Alex.
I thumbed through the chocolate-fingerprinted dessert cookbook. Aha! Flour, sugar, butter, cocoa, milk, vanilla, eggs. The perfect recipe for a perfect batch of I-Hate-My-Sister cupcakes. Devil’s food cupcakes with dark chocolate buttercream frosting. A classic.
I measured everything but the eggs into a bowl and started mixing. I beat and beat the buttery mixture by hand, stirring and whipping the fluffy batter into a frenzy. Who needed an electric mixer when my own arm was a buzz saw of swirling and whirling motion?
Just as I was finishing up beating my cake batter into a tornado, the phone rang. It was Olivia. I stretched the not-cordless phone on the kitchen wall over to the counter so I could fold in the eggs. Next I started scooping batter into muffin tins.
“So, you’re really and truly going out for it, huh?” Olivia asked. “Princess Winnifred, I mean.”
“Why shouldn’t I? Give me one good reason —”
“Alex.”
“I know, but, it just bugs me, I guess. I mean, all this time, I’ve been too afrai
d to get up onstage, then I finally do it as a favor to Alex and everything, and now it’s like she’s mad that I might like acting.”
“What a Fink Face.”
“When I wasn’t into acting, all she did was bug me about how great it is to be in plays and how I didn’t understand anything and how I was like a traitor to my own family because they’re all into acting.”
“I guess she’s just worried,” said Olivia.
“But why?”
“You know. She wants to be the only one good at it. And now you come along . . .”
“I guess. But who says I’m even any good? Maybe I stink.”
“You didn’t stink in Beauty.”
“Yeah, but that was only one scene.”
“You’re great at singing. Maybe she’s just scared that you’ll steal the one thing she’s good at, you know, like the thing that’s hers.”
“But I’ve spent my whole life always doing the opposite of Alex on purpose. I mean, where’s the rule that says I’m not allowed to like acting? Maybe I only said all that stuff about hating it because it was always Alex’s thing, and I wanted to find my own thing. Be my own person. I don’t see why just once I can’t forget about Alex and do something I’d really like to do.”
“See? You said it yourself. It’s like you broke a rule. A Reel rule.”
“A real rule? As opposed to a fake rule?”
“No, a Reel rule. As in a Reel family rule.”
Alex was the Actor in our family. Joey was the Reader, and Writer. And I was . . . what? The Singer? The Good Cook? End of story?
More to the point, I was the Peacemaker. My role had always been to keep the peace, and suddenly I was doing just the opposite — stirring things up.
Like some freak of nature, I had upset the balance.
“But do you think I’m crazy to be doing this? I mean, I’m fine with the singing, but the thought of acting still makes me feel like throwing up. And don’t forget, it means competing against Alex and everything.”
“You know what I always say.”
“Never watch a scary movie alone?”
“Not that. Some rules are made to be broken.”
While the cupcakes were cooling, Joey came to me, making hound-dog eyes and puppy-dog paws, begging me to read Little Women.
“Later.”
“That’s what you always say. Never mind. I’ll just read it myself.”
Joey clomped up the stairs before I could stop her. In twelve seconds flat, she was back in the kitchen. “It’s gone!” she said, pointing upstairs. “Little Women. It’s not on the shelf over my bed, where I always keep it.”
I’d known all along I couldn’t put off reading Chapter 40 forever, so I was prepared. “Never mind, Duck. I just happened to see a different copy of Little Women at my school library, and I checked it out for us. It was supposed to be a surprise.”
“But where’s . . . I mean, what about the one we were reading?”
“Just go upstairs and get my backpack,” I said, sounding as bossy as Alex.
Joey shrugged and trudged upstairs, then came trudging back down, dragging the backpack behind her. “This thing weighs ten tons,” she said, handing it over.
“Can I help it if they give us ten tons of homework?” I dug through my pack and wrestled the library book out of the bag.
“Ta-da!” I half sang, trying to make it sound like a whoop-de-do big deal. “Here’s the one I found at the library. It’s a much cooler version of Little Women. See? It’s not all musty-old like the one we’ve been reading.”
“But I like the one we’ve been reading. It was Mom’s copy when she was a girl. And before that, it was Gram’s. It’s like a tradition.”
“Yeah, but we don’t even know where that one is, so how about we start a new tradition? This can be like our own Little Women. Yours and mine.”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t look right.”
“They just made the print bigger so it’s easier to read. See? I’ll be able to read way faster now.” I opened the book to a random page. “‘What do you hate most?’ asked Fred. ‘Spiders and rice pudding.’ ‘What do you like best?’ asked Jo. ‘Dancing and French gloves,’” I said, reading super-fast.
“But look at Jo. That doesn’t even look like her. She doesn’t wear a pink dress like that, and her hair is darker.”
“Joey. It’s just a drawing. Jo looks however you want her to look — in your imagination.”
“Well, it doesn’t even look long enough. What if they cut something out and I miss a part? I don’t want to miss anything. It says ‘abridged edition.’ What does abridged mean, anyway?”
Sheesh. I hadn’t counted on Joey being Little Miss Picky. “I think it just means they added notes to help explain stuff,” I said, trying my best to convince her. “Like a bridge, to help you with hard words, you know, stuff like that.” Before Joey could protest any more, I started to read:
“The pleasantest room in the house was set apart for Beth, and in it was gathered everything that she most loved — flowers, pictures, her piano. . . .”
The chapter went quickly, probably because I was nervous and reading so fast. Or maybe it was the abridged thing. Every time I glanced up at Joey, she was hanging on every word of the story, hugging Hedgie to her. Luckily, she seemed to have forgotten all about the other Little Women. The real one, where Beth kicks the bucket. In this one, they skip the part where Beth quietly draws her last breath in the dark hour before dawn and all that.
When I was finished, Joey sat back quietly, without saying a word.
Phew. My switcheroo of the Little Women books had actually worked. I hadn’t been sure I could fake Joey out, but she didn’t even seem to suspect that anything was wrong. “Did you like that chapter?” I asked.
Joey nodded. She did not even beg me for one more chapter, like she always did.
I was in the kitchen frosting cupcakes when Mom got home. “Hmm. Looks like another Reel Family Kitchen Cupcake Invasion,” Mom joked.
“Taste,” I said, handing over a bite.
“Mmm, good,” she said, licking her fingers. “You should make these for the cake-off.” A good sign. I have to admit making cupcakes was a bit of a bribe, hoping maybe she’d forgotten about me going banshee at her place of work.
“Where’s Dad?” she asked. I tilted my head toward the next room, where he was watching the news. Mom went into the family room to find Dad.
I could hear them talking in low voices. I leaned my head out of the kitchen and listened at the doorway. “Alex has to realize . . .” “But Stevie just wants to . . .” They were talking about Alex and me.
Alex shuffled into the kitchen, wearing her fuzzy Uggs over her flannel pajama pants. “What are they saying?”
“She speaks!” I said. When Alex is mad, she never talks to me when we’re alone in a room.
My sister looked at me like I was weird. “What are these?” she asked, leaning in to take a whiff of my cupcakes.
“Just a batch of I-Hate-My — um, I mean, just cupcakes. Devil’s food.”
“So, how mad are they?” Alex asked, nodding toward the family room.
“On a scale of We Didn’t Do Our Homework to We Burned Down the House, I’d say halfway in between.”
“Are we in trouble?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know yet. I wish some people would just turn off the TV to make it easier on us eavesdroppers,” I said.
“I know,” Alex agreed, taking a swipe of frosting right off the top of a perfectly iced cupcake.
“Hey!” I said, swatting her hand, and for a second it was just like nothing had happened between us.
“They’re still talking about us, you know,” she reported.
“I know.”
“We’re going to have to face the music.”
“I know.”
“Any minute they’re going to put on the Hat and start making an announcement or call a family meeting or something.”
“I know.” r />
“Let’s be the ones to go in there first.”
“Good idea. Maybe we’ll get points for going to them for once, instead of them coming to us.”
Alex smiled at me to distract me from her taking another swipe of icing. She headed into the family room. I followed her.
“Kids,” Mom started. “About last night at the studio, we didn’t get a chance to talk —”
“We know, Mom,” I said.
“And we already said we’re sorry,” said Alex, not sounding very sorry. I shot her a don’t-make-it-worse glance.
“Look, girls,” said Mom. “We know you’re sorry, but you have to promise us that this kind of thing isn’t going to happen again.”
“Especially not at Mom’s place of work,” said Dad, the worry lines deepening in his forehead. “She’s got enough to deal with at the studio already.”
Mom massaged her forehead as if she were trying to smooth out her own worry lines. “I just wanted to say, I know I didn’t handle the situation in the best way. But I’d had a long day, and the station manager was on me because our ratings are down.”
“Are they really thinking of canceling the show?” Alex asked, licking the last traces of chocolate from her finger.
“Cool,” said Joey, coming downstairs. “Then we’d be poor like Jo in Little Women.”
“Joey, get a clue,” said Alex.
“Never mind that now,” said Mom. “As I was saying, I know I haven’t been available much lately, and I know I expect a lot from you kids, but I need to know that you girls are not going to be at each other’s throats night and day over this play. Stevie, I want you to apologize to Alex. And Alex, if Stevie is serious about trying out for this play, I want you to support her, or to at least let us know that you’re OK with her decision.”
“OK, I am sorry, Alex,” I admitted. “I mean, I didn’t mean to yell or get us in a fight. But I think I have just as much right as you to be in the play.”
“I guess,” said Alex.