When Amelia and Resa arrived at Harriet’s house, still sweaty from tennis, they found the front door ajar. The unmistakable sound of a drum solo emanated from the second floor. Someone was whaling on their drums, culminating in a cataclysm of cymbals.
“Should we go in?” asked Resa warily.
“I’d knock first,” said Amelia, “but somehow I don’t think anyone would hear it.”
“Fair enough,” replied Resa. “So go ahead.”
“You first.”
“Why me?”
“This whole thing was your idea,” Amelia pointed out. “Plus, I beat you at sprints in warm-ups.”
“Only because you got a head start!” Resa protested.
But Amelia was already pushing her inside.
“Harriet?” Resa called, and then more loudly, “Haaaaarriet?”
“In here!” came Harriet’s voice from the kitchen.
Amelia and Resa walked carefully down the narrow hallway, paying special attention to where they placed their feet. They’d learned from experience that skinks could be anywhere in the Nguyen household.
Didi was standing at the kitchen sink, holding a green colander and looking nervous. She wore a knit winter hat pulled low over her forehead. Not one tendril of hair escaped from the hat.
“Nice skink armor,” Resa said, nodding at the hat.
“Fool me once…” replied Didi.
Harriet stood at the stove top, grunting as she stirred a steaming pot, which was almost half her size. She’d moved the white see-through scarf onto her ponytail and rolled up the sleeves of her gondolier shirt.
Amelia and Resa laid their backpacks and racket bags down and walked over to investigate. Huge plumes of steam billowed over Harriet’s face as she stirred. She inhaled deeply. “Great for the complexion!” she said. “Want to try?”
“I’m good,” said Amelia.
“Got enough pasta in there?” asked Resa.
Harriet bit her lip, looking concerned. “I think so. I mean, I used four boxes.”
Resa laughed. “I was kidding, Harriet. That’s the biggest pot I’ve ever seen—and my mom is a professional baker. How many people are you feeding?”
Harriet wiped sweat from her upper lip with the back of her hand. “My mom’s with a client downstairs, but she might eat some later. Dad’s working on a sculpture. For now, it’s just you all and my brothers. But you’ve never seen my brothers eat—especially my famous mac ’n’ mystery cheese.”
Harriet pulled the wooden spoon out of the pot and handed it to Amelia. “Can you take over for a minute?”
Amelia obliged, and Harriet headed to the fridge, where she rifled through the crowded shelves.
“Who taught you to cook?” asked Resa.
“Oh, I’m self-taught,” said Harriet over her shoulder. “My mom usually works nights at the salon, and my brothers are hopeless. They’ll crack open a super-size bag of potato chips and call it dinner. My dad can cook, but if he’s working on a painting or a sculpture, all hope is lost. He’ll completely forget to eat.”
Harriet found what she was looking for in the fridge—an orange hunk of cheddar and a Ziploc bag containing some kind of crumbled white cheese. “Heads up, Didi!” she announced as she chucked the cheeses at her.
Didi caught them both in the colander. “Hey, we just invented cheeseball!” She giggled as she looked at the food she’d caught. “This is cheddar, but … what’s this one?”
“I think that’s the mystery cheese,” Amelia chimed in.
It took the girls a while to figure out how to drain the super-size pasta pot, and there was a minidisaster when Zappa ambled in and Didi panicked and dropped a gallon of milk. But eventually, Zappa was apprehended, the milk was cleaned up, and dinner was served.
“Joe! Sam! Laaaaaaaaaaarry!” Harriet bellowed, trying to be heard over the sound of drums. “Food!” She stood at the kitchen table, spooning mystery macaroni into mismatched bowls.
The sound of drums was replaced by thunderous pounding on the stairs. A few seconds later, the Nguyen brothers rushed into the room.
Joe was the shortest of the bunch, but his hair was the longest by far. It hung down to his shoulders, covering one side of his face. When he sang, it gave him a brooding, mysterious look that his fans loved. Sam, the oldest, had a neat, classic haircut, with plenty of hair gel to keep it slicked into place. This, paired with his black rectangular glasses, made him look like a young businessman, though his T-shirt—bloodred with the words PANIC AT THE JUNKYARD on it—made it clear he was a rock and roller. Larry loomed over his brothers, so tall and thin that Harriet sometimes teasingly called him Larry the Scary-crow.
“Sam, the drums are sounding great,” said Harriet with a smile.
“Thanks, Harry,” said Sam. “What’d you make tonight?”
“Please don’t say hamburger-a-bob,” pleaded Joe.
“I like hamburger-a-bob,” protested Larry.
“Yeah,” said Joe. “But you have no standards.”
“I made mac ’n’ mystery cheese!” announced Harriet.
There was collective whooping as the boys grabbed bowls of food. Joe and Sam nabbed seats and started shoveling big spoonfuls into their mouths. Larry, ever thoughtful, dragged over extra chairs for the guests.
“You guys remember my business associates, right?” Harriet asked her brothers. She gestured to each girl as she named them. “Amelia, Didi, and Resa.”
“Hey, we want to thank you ladies,” said Larry. “It’s really cool of you to help us.”
“No problem,” said Resa. “After all, you guys helped us when we had our lemonade stand.”
“Plus,” said Amelia, “it would be mind-blowing to personally know one of the acts on American Supahstars.” She took a small, careful bite of the macaroni, bracing herself for something truly revolting. Instead, she was surprised to find that while the pasta was a little dry and bland, it was pretty good. Definitely not terrible. Which was more than anyone could say about her own cooking.
“Does it upset anyone else that they misspelled superstars?” Didi asked.
“They do that on purpose,” said Resa.
“Yeah, to trademark it,” Sam agreed. “Now they own that word.”
“Really?” asked Didi, adding some Parmesan to her food. “You can own a word?”
“Yeah, for sure,” said Sam. “That’s what it means when you see the little TM or R next to stuff. People can use the word superstars, but no one can use the word supahstars without paying them.”
“Smart,” observed Amelia. “But shouldn’t it really be supahstahs?”
“Ha!” said Harriet. “Yes!”
“So,” said Joe, pushing his empty bowl away and leaning back in his chair, “what can we do to help sell the merch? What do you need from us?”
“You just need to get the word out to your fans,” said Resa. “Like you did with the lemonade concert.”
Joe and Sam pulled cell phones from their pockets and started tapping and swiping at super speed.
“So,” started Resa, “if you could post something—”
“Done,” said Sam, placing his phone on the table next to his bowl.
“We’ve got”—Joe swiped at his phone—“thirteen … no, seventeen … hold on, twenty—who can keep up? We’ve got a lot of likes.”
Sam’s phone was dinging continuously and vibrating so much it was about to fall off the table. He picked it up and read the alerts. “Skinks 4Eva is freaking out. They’re begging us for deets.” He scrolled down on his screen and smiled.
Harriet sighed. It felt as if her brothers were glued to their phones most of the time—except Larry, who couldn’t keep a phone for longer than a week before he broke it or lost it. After the second replacement, their mom said he could get another phone just as soon as he could buy it himself.
Harriet had been begging for a phone for what felt like forever, but her mom wouldn’t budge: Harriet would have to wait until she was in high school. Her mom said it costs too much and liked to throw around the term digital zombies, but Harriet suspected part of the reason was she wanted her baby to be a baby for as long as possible.
“We have momentum,” observed Sam. “We should follow up right now with details.”
“We don’t even have a logo yet,” protested Didi. “I mean, I’ve been working on one, but—”
Joe waved his hand in the air. “We don’t need a logo to sell these shirts. Our fans will buy ’em sight unseen.”
“We just have to tell them how much, and who to give the money to,” said Sam.
“We were thinking,” said Amelia, “twenty-five dollars a shirt?”
Sam and Joe tapped a few keys, and instantly their phones started dinging and buzzing again.
Harriet was happy to see all her favorite people gathered around a table, working together. Didi, though, did not look happy. She was nibbling on her thumbnail, and she’d hardly touched her food.
“What’s the matter, Di?” asked Harriet.
“It’s just … that’s a lot of money,” Didi said. “What if people don’t like the design?”
“Fear not!” Harriet said, putting an arm around Didi’s shoulders. “Everyone’s going to love it. You’re the next Vincent van Gogh! Just, you know, with both your ears.”
Didi turned to the boys. “You guys should probably look at the logos I’m working—”
Joe stood. “For sure,” he said. “But right now, we gotta practice.” His phone buzzed again, and he looked at it. “People wanna know who to give the money to.”
“Me!” announced Harriet. “Tell them I’ll be in front of the high school every day this week at three fifteen. They know who I am.”
“Everybody knows who Harry is,” Sam agreed, ruffling the top of her head like she was a Labrador retriever.
“The hair!” Harriet protested, batting his hand away. She acted annoyed, but really nothing made her happier than when her brothers mussed her hair. The boys were always so busy with calculus and band practice and after-school jobs and the constant buzzing of their phones. She was thrilled to have their attention and their thanks.
“Oh, we wouldn’t want to mess up your precious, precious hair,” teased Joe. He reached over suddenly and put her in a headlock.
Didi, an only child, shot Harriet a concerned look. “Ummm—that looks … I mean … Hey, don’t hurt her…”
But Harriet was laughing hard, belly laughs that made it tough for Joe to get a handle on her. “Don’t worry, Di, my dear,” she panted in between guffaws. “They don’t call me Harry Houdini for nothing.”
And then, in one swift motion, Harriet slipped out of the headlock and kicked Joe’s leg out from underneath him. He went tumbling to the floor.
“She schooled you!” Sam laughed.
Joe stood with a proud smile. “She always does.”
Larry grabbed a yellow apron from a hook on the wall and slipped it over his head. It was covered in small pink roses and had a heart-shaped pocket on the chest. “You girls relax,” he said as he walked to the sink. “I’ll get the dishes.”
“We can work on the logo,” Didi suggested to the others.
“We cooooooould,” Harriet said, glancing up at the clock. “But it’s almost eight, and you know what that means!”
“Oooooh, American Supahstars,” said Resa. “Perfect. We can chill and do research at the same time. I love multitasking!”
“Yeah, but…” Didi started as Harriet threw her arm around Didi’s shoulders.
“You and I have been working over a hot stove all day,” she said.
Didi shrugged. “It wasn’t really all—”
“You know what they say,” Harriet said sternly, leading her down the hallway toward the television in the living room. “All work and no play—”
“Makes Jerry a dull boy,” Larry called from the sink.
“Jerry?” asked Didi. “Isn’t it Jack?”
Harriet smiled. “Oh, that’s just Larry. A genius on the guitar but hopeless with names.”