The next day, the four friends met up at Bella’s house. They went straight to the clubhouse and dumped their fabric finds on the big worktable.
“Socks?” Emily held one up, raising an eyebrow.
“And a drop cloth!” Sam added.
“I couldn’t find anything,” Bella apologized. “My parents donated a bunch of our old things right before we moved.”
“It’s okay,” said Sam. “We can share my socks. I’ll take the right one. You take the left!”
The friends laughed. Then Maddie got a better idea. “Hey, my mom has tons of extra fabric in her sewing studio! I’ll run home and look while you guys set up.”
After Maddie left, the others got to work. Emily gathered buckets, stirring sticks, and rubber bands. She also spread out newspapers to protect the worktable. Then Sam prepared the dye. “How about primary colors?” he asked. “Red, blue, and of course—”
“Yellow!” chorused Emily and Bella, giggling. It was Sam’s favorite color.
Bella used her computer to research and print out an article on tie-dyeing that included instructions and designs. Spirals, bull’s-eyes, stripes, rosettes—there were so many good options!
Meanwhile, Maddie arrived home and discovered that her mom was out running errands. She hesitated before going to the sewing studio.
Maybe I should wait until Mom comes back? she thought.
But then Maddie remembered what her mother had said about the tie-dye project in the first place: “So resourceful!” Maddie smiled, thinking of how fun it would be to surprise her mom by showing just how resourceful she could be. Besides, her mom had been so busy earlier. There was no way she would have time to help sort through scraps. Maddie had assisted in the sewing room so many times, she was sure she could figure out which odds and ends were up for grabs.
In a corner by the door, Maddie spied a shopping bag. Perfect! She grabbed the bag and quickly started filling it with fabric scraps. She also dumped her mom’s rag basket out and found some old clothing items that she knew her mother would not mind her taking. She would return the bag and any scraps they didn’t use later, but now she had plenty for Bella to choose from!
On her way out of the room, the drawing of the mayor’s suit caught her eye.
Did he ask for a boring suit? she wondered. She really hoped so, because it looked like that was exactly what he was going to get.
• • •
“Oh good, you’re back!” Sam said to Maddie. He and Emily were stirring buckets of dye. “Now all we need is—”
“Who ordered the salt?” sang Bella, returning from the kitchen.
“How did you know to add salt?” asked Maddie. Her mom had taught her that salt was the secret to making colors even brighter.
Bella pointed at the computer.
“Aha, I should have known!” said Maddie.
The rest of the afternoon flew by as the four friends pinched and twisted fabric, wrapped and rewrapped rubber bands, and dipped and dunked their creations into buckets of dye. At first they stuck to the designs they had read about, but then they began to experiment. What would happen if they did a bunch of rosettes in a pattern, like a heart or a star? What if they did two spirals on the same piece of fabric, but in different spots? They also combined some of the colors of dye. Now they had green, orange, and purple, too!
• • •
That night at dinner, the phone rang. Maddie raised an eyebrow. The Wilson family didn’t usually get calls this late. But when Maddie’s mom saw who was calling, she excused herself from the table, grabbed the phone, and stepped into the hall. Maddie could only hear snippets of the conversation.
“Okay, off-white, silk, French cuffs . . . ,” she heard her mom say. “I feel like I saw it in the bag, but I thought I had emptied it. . . . Yes, sir, I’ll double-check, of course. And if you find it, your office can send it over anytime. . . . Thank you, sir!”
Maddie’s mom hung up the phone and walked down the hall. When she returned to the kitchen a few minutes later, she looked puzzled.
“What was that all about?” asked Maddie’s dad.
“Oh, the mayor has a special shirt he wants to wear with the suit I’m making. There’s been a bit of a mix-up, though. His office was supposed to send it to me, but I just double-checked the sewing room and I don’t have it. And, apparently, neither does he.”
“Can’t he just wear another shirt?” asked Maddie.
Her mom shrugged. “Of course, as long as it goes with the suit I’m making.”
Maddie felt a stomach pang—and it had nothing to do with how hungry she was. She wanted to tell her mom what she really thought about the suit, but she couldn’t think of a nice way to do it. Her mom always said, “If you can’t say something nice, maybe you shouldn’t say anything at all.”
