After school we went home to clean up the house, because my mom and dad were coming home the next day. I mean, MY MOM AND DAD WERE COMING HOME THE NEXT DAY! All in capitals! Me and Tess were so excited, with a big, huge, humongous, capital E.
Aunt Flora started singing the song that Snow White sings when she’s cleaning up the dwarfs’ house. It’s the one that goes: “Just whistle while you work and hum a merry tune.” It has a lot more words; but we didn’t know what they were, so we just sang that over and over. We also did some tap dancing and some jumping on furniture, and it turned out that cleaning up can actually be sort of fun.
Tess was in charge of picking toys up off the floor, and I was in charge of putting them away. Aunt Flora was in charge of vacuuming and dishes and anything else she thought of. All of a sudden, between the singing and tap dancing and cleaning, I heard the doorbell ringing and ringing, so I ran and opened it a crack.
“Finally!” yelled Rosemary T.
“Just a second,” I said. “I’ll go tell my aunt I’m going outside.”
I shut the door and started to run to Tess’s bedroom, where Aunt Flora was vacuuming; but Rosemary T. pushed open the front door just like it was her own. “Quit slamming the door in my face!”
“Shut the—,” I started to say, but Miss Purvis was too fast. She dashed out the door. I ran outside, and Rosemary T. followed me.
For once in his life Charlie wasn’t practicing basketball in his driveway, and it was the one time I really wished he was.
I watched Miss Purvis trot down the block. “See which way she goes,” I ordered. “I have to let my aunt know what happened.” I ran back inside and yelled, “Aunt Flora! Miss Purvis escaped!”
Aunt Flora turned off the vacuum and came into the living room.
“What?” she asked.
“Miss Purvis escaped, and Charlie’s not around to help me catch her,” I said.
“I don’t think you can really catch a cat,” said Aunt Flora.
“Oh no.” I crumbled down onto the floor and felt sick to my stomach. “There must be something I can do. Would food work?”
“You could try,” said Aunt Flora.
We went into the kitchen and got a can of cat food.
“Here,” said Aunt Flora, “these might help too.” She slipped four of her bracelets on my arm, and I ran out the door.
“Now, are you finally going to talk to me?” asked Rosemary T.
“Now,” I said, “I’m going to find Miss Purvis. Which way did she go?”
Rosemary T. pointed, and I headed down the block.
“Here, Miss Purvis! Here, kitty!” I waved the can of food around, and the bracelets jingled.
Rosemary T. followed after me. “Do you have to yell? It’s so embarrassing.”
That stopped me in my tracks. “I’m doing this because you let Miss Purvis out!”
“I don’t mean just now,” said Rosemary T. “I mean like today at recess.”
“I had to yell to get you to stop talking.” I started to walk again and jingled the bracelets.
“And now you’re trying to be just like your aunt and wear tons of jewelry.”
I started to tell her again that I was doing all this yelling and jingling because of her, but instead I just said, “I will take that as a compliment.”
Rosemary T.’s mouth dropped open like I’d said something crazy. “Are you going to start wearing a crown and pretending to be the tooth fairy next?”
“Maybe,” I said.
That stopped Rosemary T. in her tracks, but I kept walking. I’d caught sight of Miss Purvis cleaning her paws a little ways down the block.
Rosemary T. caught up. “You’re joking, right?”
“No,” I said.
“But you’re not weird like her,” said Rosemary T. “You’ll go back to normal when your mom and dad get home.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “Weird people are interesting. I’d rather be weird than ordinary or boring any day.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Rosemary T. looked very shocked.
“Rosemary T.” I stopped and looked her right in the eyes. “I have been trying to ignore your meanness since the beginning of the year, but you have pushed me too far. Now it’s time for me to tell you what’s what.”
“Is that another one of your childish, made-up words?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “A what’s what is a real, true thing.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of it.” She put her hands on her hips and looked right back at me. “Half of the time I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“Well, I will speak slow and clear so you can.” And right then I felt like I was giving a Table Book Talk at school and not looking for Miss Purvis or having a what’s what at all. “I feel like your Main Theme this year has been to be mean. To give a few examples of this, you keep talking all about your clubs in front of kids who aren’t in them, and their feelings are getting hurt. You even made Kristy cry about the class party.”
Something was tickling my ankles, but Rosemary T. just stood there and didn’t say anything, so I kept talking. “You and Rosemary W. whisper all the time and make fun of people. You bug me about what I eat and some of the things I do too.”
The tickling was still going on, but Rosemary T. and I were in the middle of a stare down. “You called me names and said really mean things about my aunt and Miss Purvis too.” And then I realized the tickling was Miss Purvis, and I reached down and scooped her up. She rubbed her head under my chin and purred and purred. “And you can plainly see that this is not a spooky, black cat, just a very nice one.” I started walking home before Miss Purvis could get tired of being held and start to do a Halloween yowl.
“Well, I think your Main Theme this year is to be a baby.” Rosemary T. ran to catch up with me. “You don’t have pierced ears and you always lose shoes and you hold your mom’s hand! You even skip and sing with little kids.”
Miss Purvis squirmed a little in my arms, but I rubbed her side and kept walking.
“In fact,” said Rosemary T., “you’re so weird and dumb and babyish that I don’t want to be friends with you anymore!”
My feelings started hurting like the dickens, and I got tears in my eyes. There was no way I was going to let Rosemary T. see them, though. I buried my face in Miss Purvis’s fur and walked faster.
“Did you hear me?” she said.
Of course I’d heard her, but I had a big lump of sad in my throat, and I could not get any words by it.
“I’m serious!” she said very loud.
And I believed her. We passed her house, but she kept walking with me.
“I am officially kicking you out of all my clubs! If we’re not friends anymore, I don’t want you in them!”
I thought about reminding her that I wasn’t in all her clubs, but then I figured out that it didn’t really matter. We made it to my front door, and Rosemary T. stood there with her hands on her hips waiting for me to say something.
The lump of sad in my throat was still there, but it was smaller and I could talk a little bit now. I couldn’t think of anything to say, though, so I just said “Oh.”
“Oh!” she shouted. “That’s all you’re going to say?”
My front door opened, and Aunt Flora stuck her head out. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “Our what’s what got a little loud is all.” I handed her Miss Purvis, and she nodded and shut the door.
Rosemary T. kept her hands on her hips and made mean stink eyes at me.
“We’ve been friends since we were babies,” I said. “It would be weird to stop.”
“It would not be weird,” she said. “I’m never weird.”
“Well, it might be awkward then.”
“It will not. I just won’t talk to you.”
“I thought not talking was babyish,” I said.
Rosemary’s stink eyes got even stinkier. She made a big, huge, unicorn harrumph noise and huffed off down the block.
