“GUESS WHAT?” I YELL TO mom the moment I bang through our front door.
“What?” Timmy calls from the living room floor. He is playing with blocks because he likes dumb baby toys.
“Guess what?” I yell even louder to Mom.
“WHAT?” Timmy answers.
“I’M NOT TALKING TO YOU!” I say in my loudest voice ever, and this finally gets Mom’s attention.
“What’s going on in there?” Mom appears in the doorway to the living room with no twins attached to her body for once.
“Guess what?” I repeat.
“What?” Mom asks.
“Natalie is an Anya thief,” I tell her, and Mom looks at me for a second like I am not making any sense.
“What do you mean, she’s an Anya thief?” she asks.
“She is trying to steal Anya from me,” I explain, even though I think “Anya thief” is a very clear description of her.
“How is she trying to steal her?” Mom asks.
“Mrs. Spangle made Anya be Natalie’s buddy, and—”
“I thought you were Natalie’s buddy,” Mom interrupts.
“That did not work out,” I tell her. “So now Anya is her buddy, which is not fair at all, because Anya is my friend. And also, Natalie should not need so much help.”
Mom crosses her arms and looks at me like she knows something I do not.
“Why didn’t it work out with you being Natalie’s buddy?” she asks. “I thought you and Natalie were getting along better.”
I shake my head back and forth very quickly. “She did not like how I autographed her cast.”
“How did you autograph it?”
“With my left hand,” I explain.
“And?”
“And it was big,” I say.
“What was big?”
“My name. On the cast.”
“Why did you sign it so big?”
“Because Natalie is not polite,” I tell her. “She thinks she is in charge, and she is not.”
Mom uncrosses her arms then and puts one of her hands on her forehead. “You know, Mandy,” she tells me, “you need to let other people be the boss sometimes. It can’t always be you.”
“I do!” I say “do” extra loud so Mom knows I mean it. “But Natalie thinks that she is the boss of everything.”
Mom shakes her head slowly. “I think we’re going to have to practice you letting other people be in charge,” she says. “We can’t have you acting like a B-R-A-T.”
“A brat!” Timmy fills in, and he looks pretty proud of himself.
“We’re going to start now,” Mom says. “You’re going to sit with Timmy, and he is going to tell you all about what he’s building. What are you building, Timmy?”
“A city!” he answers.
“Great,” Mom says. “You can tell Mandy all about it.” She motions for me to sit on the floor.
“But—” I begin.
“No buts,” Mom says. “And no brats. Sit there and play with your brother for at least twenty minutes. Timmy, you’re in charge!”
“Yay!” Timmy calls out.
“That is not even a good exclaim,” I tell him. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Wahoo!’ ”
“Mandy . . . ,” Mom says with a warning in her voice. “Timmy is in charge. Not you.”
I slump my shoulders toward my shoes and collapse with a loud “Humph!” on the floor. Because the only person who is worse at being in charge than Natalie is Timmy.
. . .
The next morning I wake up with the perfect plan to stop Natalie from thinking she is the boss of everybody. I am so excited about it that I leap out of bed even before Mom comes in to wake me.
I am going to create my own sling for my arm, so that I cannot use it all day in school and Mrs. Spangle will have to make Anya my buddy. It does not matter that my wrist is not really broken, because as long as it looks like it is hurt, Mrs. Spangle will be tricked. I am a genius.
I scurry under my bed and root through all of the things that I am not allowed to have in my room: the green tray from the kitchen with the holes that I use to sort my gummy bears, the bag of makeup that Mom does not know is missing from her bathroom, and most importantly, my jump rope. Dad took away my jump rope the last time I used it in the house because I knocked over a lamp, but I found its hiding spot in the garage and brought it back inside. (It was not even very hard to find because Dad is no good at choosing hiding spots. He put it under my bicycle helmet on the bottom shelf of our storage cabinet. If I were hiding a jump rope, I would put it somewhere that no one else could ever find it—or at least on the top shelf.)
I shimmy out from under my bed and try to tie the two ends of my jump rope together into a knot. I do not really like to tie knots, not even on my shoes, which is why I always ask for shoes with no laces. I weave one end of the rope around the other and pull tightly, and a knot forms in the middle, which is not where I wanted it. I try again, weaving the ends together twice this time before pulling it, and I make a knot right where I need it, turning the jump rope into an enormous circle.
I put the jump rope over my head and pull it down to my belly button. Then I twist it in the middle and try to pull it back over my head again, but it is too short and my nightgown gets tangled in it. I stomp my foot and tug the rope back over my head.
“I don’t need you, rope,” I say, throwing it down, and I march over to my bed and pick up a pillow. I flop my Rainbow Sparkle pillowcase up and down, holding the corners, just like I see Mom do when she changes the sheets. It takes a lot of work to get the pillow out, but when I do, I take the pillowcase and try to tie the corners together into a knot. Tying this is even harder than tying the jump rope, and I am running out of time.
I toss the pillowcase back on my bed and run over to my closet. I take out a pink zippy sweatshirt, which I try never to wear because I hate pink. I place it on my bed, pull the sleeves up in the air, and tie them together at the wrists. Then I hang the sweatshirt over my shoulder like a handbag and put my right arm through the opening. It still doesn’t feel right, so I pull the tied sleeves over my head and hang it on my left shoulder.
And then my sling is perfect!
It would be more perfect if it were covered in glitter and had a periwinkle cast inside, but it is still pretty great.
I am standing in front of my closet door, admiring my new sling in the mirror, when Dad barges into my room.
“Good morning, Man—” he starts to say, but then he stops short right past my doorway. I turn to see what he is looking at: the jump rope.
Oh no.
“How did this get in here?” he asks, and he walks over and scoops it into his hand, which I don’t think is very nice.
“Why aren’t you at work yet?” I ask. Mom always wakes me up for school, and she doesn’t care about jump ropes being inside the way Dad does.
“Why do you have this jump rope in your room after I said it wasn’t allowed?”
“I needed it for something,” I tell him honestly.
“Is she up?” Mom appears in my doorway behind Dad.
“Oh, she is indeed . . . ,” Dad answers her. “Give me a kiss before I leave, Mandy. And I’m taking this jump rope with me. To work this time.”
I try to cross my arms to show that this is not fair, but my right arm is stuck in my sling. Dad kisses me on the forehead and walks out the door.
“Good luck with that,” he mumbles to Mom on the way out, and she looks me up and down, squinting her eyes.
“What do you have going on there?” she asks, motioning to my sling. I whip it off my shoulder and over my head and try to untie the sleeves quickly.
“I think I will wear this today,” I tell her. I cannot tell Mom the plan about the sling, but if I can bring this sweatshirt to school, I can remake it on the bus, before Mrs. Spangle sees that my arm is not really hurt.
“I think you will not,” Mom tells me. “Your arm isn’t broken. You don’t need a sling.”
“But—”
“No,” Mom says flatly. “Now pick out something else that you want to wear today, or I’m picking for you. You have five minutes to get dressed. No funny business.”
Mom takes the pink zippy sweatshirt out of my hands and turns to walk out the door.
“Plus,” she calls over her shoulder, “I thought you hated pink.”
. . .
At school Anya has to help Natalie put away her book bag, take out her pencil case, hand in her seatwork, check out a book from the library, and unpack her whole lunch box. She is so busy helping Natalie all morning that she barely says anything to me, and this is very much not okay. Especially because Mrs. Spangle is making me miss recess again today, so I cannot even talk to her then.
Kids who have to miss recess stand by themselves under a tree, which is no fun at all. I lean against the tree and watch Anya push Natalie on a swing, and I feel my face get hot from anger.
“Anya!” I call across the playground, but Anya doesn’t hear me.
“ANYA!” I try again. Nothing.
“ANYA VALENTINA ZOLIN!” I yell her full name, and finally, Anya turns around. My voice is going to get worn out from all of this yelling if people do not start listening to me. I gesture for her to come over to my tree, and Anya shakes her head.
“COME HERE!” I yell.
“I can’t!” Anya yells back. “I’ll get in trouble!” But Anya was never so worried about getting in trouble before she was Natalie’s buddy. Natalie is allergic to trouble, and if I don’t fix this problem soon, she is going to ruin Anya forever.
I am stuck here by this tree until recess is over, so the only way I can get Anya to come over to me is if I have to go inside to the nurse. The aides make you take a buddy with you when you leave the playground, so I can make Anya be mine. I look down at the ground, which is kind of sandy right under the tree. I reach my right hand down, and when my fingertips touch the sand, I lift up my left leg and try to fall forward. When nothing happens, I try to kick my right knee with my left foot to knock myself down.
Still standing.
I lift the top of my body back up again and try to fall down more quickly, but I only land on my hands and knees. I stand again and try to fall sideways, but my right knee hits the ground first and ruins the rest of the fall. I walk three feet forward and drag my left toes over a tree root to trip, and I barely even stumble.