The next day, while DiDi went to Welcome Night at Hill on the Harbor Preparatory (the best private school in the universe), I spent the evening sitting on the sofa, studying.
When I heard a creeeeak! out in our hallway, I looked up from my book. There are two apartments above the salon where we live. Ours and Kenneth’s. He’s our landlord, and our doors face each other in the little hallway at the top of the stairs. There’s a sign on the front of our building that says it’s Historical (which is just a fancy word for old). That means the doors have brass knobs and the ceilings have curly molding and if you step on the top step wrong, it gives a big old creeeeak! On the bright side, I told DiDi it was a built-in Burglar Alarm. She answered, “Too bad we don’t have a built-in Kenneth Alarm, too.”
Now, poor Kenneth wouldn’t hurt a fly, but the second that stair creaks, he comes scrambling out of his apartment. Then just stands there, fidgeting and blushing and trying to figure out a way to say hi to DiDi. I’ll just say it straight. DiDi is what people call a Real Beauty. I’ll just mention that those same people call me a Real Brain and leave it at that.
The door opened a crack and DiDi came backing in.
“Well, this has sure been fascinating, Kenneth. But I got GiGi here and she needs help with her homework.” Which is the biggest laugh ever, seeing as DiDi only finished up to eighth grade.
She slipped inside and shut the door behind her, shaking her head. “That man needs to loosen up, and I don’t just mean that sad old ponytail of his.” She was still holding the Twinkie Pie. It hadn’t even been touched.
“What happen—I mean, hey, Double D…” I kind of waved.
“Hey, Double G.” She went straight into the kitchen. “Saving the pie for later. There was already so much food, I guess it just got—shoved to the side.”
I watched her put it in the fridge and start pacing around. I could see she had her Planning Hat on. DiDi gets like that whenever she wants to make some big pronouncement about my future. “Did you study? Caught up and ready to go? You know how important this is.”
“Yes, DiDi. I know, I know.”
Our conversations always go something like that. I mentioned how DiDi called me brainy. Well, truth is I’ve never gotten a grade below an A+. Or a paper lower than a 100. DiDi says it’s because I do everything 150%. She calls it my Recipe for Success. Now that I was about to start in this fancy new private school (which the brochure informed us was fondly referred to as Hill Prep by everyone), she said I’d have to work even harder. I had all the ingredients already. I just had to follow the recipe. Which is why I was studying before school even started.
DiDi kept pacing back and forth. I just waited.
“Double G,” she said finally. “You know that big fancy party the school’s having in November?”
“Sure,” I said. “The weekend right before our birthdays—hang on!” I shuffled through a little pile of brochures on the table by the sofa. “Here it is—the Founder’s Day Gala. In celebration of the day the school was ‘founded.’ Why can’t they just say ‘found’? It sounds funny.”
She stopped pacing. “I don’t know, G, but I can tell you what I found.”
“What?”
DiDi put a hand on her hip. “I found myself a position as the head of the Refreshment Committee for that Gala.”
“Get out!” I said, which is what I always say when she tells me something too good for words.
DiDi grinned. “If you let me back in.” Which is how she always replies.
“Can I—would you let me help?” I asked. I just knew if DiDi made Mama’s beautiful recipes, everyone would love them.
“Really? You want to?” DiDi looked pretty emotional for such a small thing.
I nodded. “We can make it like our own personal Birthday Gala!”
“I’d love that, G. I’d really love that. But we’ll do it right this time. We’ll make sure we really do it right, okay?”
She didn’t have to worry about me. I’d keep my ideas to myself and let her do everything the exact way she wanted. DiDi never lets me on the camera side of the cooking show, but if she’d let me be her assistant just once, that was worth keeping my trap shut. “It’s a deal, then.” I held out my hand and we shook. “You and I are partners! We’ll make it the best Gala ever! What should we put on the menu? Were they excited you wanted to do it?”
“Oh…” DiDi paused and bit her thumbnail. “Well, they were a little—You know, who cares? There’s plenty of time to figure out all the details.” She looked me right in the eyes. “GiGi, I think we’ll love it here. We can decorate the apartment real nice. The school’s so close, you can walk. Just think of all the money we’ll save on gas. It just feels like the right time for the right change in our lives.”
“I know it, DiDi.”
That’s when I realized it was also the right time to finally bring up something I’d been wanting to talk about since we got here. I cleared my throat. “D?” I said. “I wanted to discuss something with you that’s super-important.”
DiDi nodded, still in her planning place.
“I think—I mean, I have decided that—I want to change my name for the new school.”
DiDi snapped out of her blank stare. “Change your name? Why? When? Where? How?”
I sighed. DiDi always gets like this when she panics. I call it Getting Grammatical. “Easy, DiDi. It’s no big deal.”
She started pacing again. “No big deal? Since when is changing your name no big deal?” She stopped and narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t about those idiot boys still, is it?”
Back in third grade, these boys in my class, Jakey Renssler and Joey Feldman, overheard DiDi and me calling each other Double D and Double G, and they told everyone that we were named after bra sizes. I was so mad, I called them darn liars and marched right into the neighborhood JCPenney that afternoon after school and snuck into the ladies’ underwear department. Well, not only did I find out that we were named after bra sizes—we were GINORMOUS bra sizes. Everyone called us The Bra Sisters for the next three years. And seeing as how it doesn’t look like I’ll be needing any kind of bra anytime soon, there was no way I was starting the new school on that foot. As DiDi would say, gossip’s got legs.
I searched around for a way to explain. I’d thought about it long and hard. When you have a big old strange name like mine—which I never say out loud—it’s hard to come up with pretty little nicknames. And seeing as DiDi and Lori were the ones who started calling me GiGi, I never even had a say in the matter. But after playing around with it in my head, I’d come up with a pretty good fit.
“You said it was the ‘right time for the right change,’ D—all I want is a new nickname. You have to admit my real name is the single most embarrassing name in human history. I know Mama had her reasons for picking it, but…”
No response. DiDi just sat there looking hurt.
I took a big breath and plunged ahead. “Well, I was thinking: What about… Leia?”
DiDi shook her head. “I don’t like it.”
My face started to run away from me, but I caught it. “Give it a chance, DiDi.”
“Lay-ya? Like that snotty princess with the big hairy earmuffs from that old space movie?”
“DiDi, stop it. I’m serious. Please.”
She threw her arms up. “Okay, fine. But there is no way I’m going to remember, G—see? It’s only been three seconds and already I don’t know who you are. How are you going to do it?”
I didn’t answer.
I figured it wasn’t exactly the right time to tell her that changing my name was only the beginning.