The author gratefully acknowledges
Stephanie Calmenson
for her help
with this book.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
1 The Rice Mess
2 After the Divorce
3 The Goops
4 Mr. Peabody’s School of Dance and Charm
5 Ribbons and Bows
6 The Cookie Mess
7 “No Burping Allowed!”
8 The School of Charm
9 “May I Have This Dance?”
10 “May I Have These Pants?”
11 Karen the Teacher
12 Pig
13 For Girls Only
14 The Pudding Mess
15 The Tea Party War
16 Karen’s Perfect Brownies
17 Party Dress
18 Here Come the Boys!
19 The Bad-News Boys
20 One, Two, Three
About the Author
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Copyright
The Rice Mess
“We’re here!” I called. “We’re here!”
Where were we? At the big house. That’s what we call my daddy’s house. It was late Friday afternoon and Mommy had just dropped us off.
Who are we? I am Karen Brewer. I am seven years old. I have blonde hair, blue eyes, and some freckles. Oh, yes, I wear glasses. Andrew is my little brother. He is almost five. He looks a lot like me. But he does not wear glasses.
Daddy came to the door and gave us big hugs.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“We thought it would be fun to make dinner together tonight. Everyone is inside,” answered Daddy.
I dropped my knapsack and raced into the kitchen. I didn’t want anything fun to happen without me.
“I want to help! I want to help!” I said.
“Hi, Karen,” said Kristy. “You can help me make the salad.” (Kristy is my big stepsister and one of my favorite people in the whole world.)
“Thanks,” I said. “But I want to make something by myself.”
“We are having chicken, rice, and salad,” said Elizabeth. “I don’t think anyone’s making the rice yet. Would you like to do that?”
“Sure!” I replied. The rice was the second most important part of dinner. I felt gigundoly important.
“You can make the rice by yourself,” said Daddy. “But one of us will watch you when you are at the stove.”
“Uh-oh. Karen is cooking. No rice for dinner tonight,” teased my stepbrother, Sam.
“Just wait. I am going to make the best rice ever,” I said.
I found the box of rice. The directions were on the back:
Step 1: Bring four cups of water to a boil. I learned in school that when water boils you can see big bubbles. I poured the water into a pot. Daddy watched me turn on the stove. Then I waited and waited. I watched and watched. No bubbles. I could not wait forever. So when the water looked hot enough to me, I went to the next step.
Step 2: Add 2 cups of rice, 2 tbsps. of butter, and 2 tsps. of salt. Hmm. This recipe had secret codes. What did tbsps. and tsps. mean? No problem. I measured 2 cups of rice. Then I added a stick of butter and half a shaker of salt. This rice was going to be delicious!
Step 3: Cover tightly and simmer over low heat about 20 minutes. I never heard the word simmer before. But it sounded a lot like swimmer. I decided that meant you should let the rice swim around awhile. So I did.
Step 4: Let rice stand 1 minute until it is fluffy and dry. “Okay, rice,” I said. “Stand right where you are. Do not sit down.” I thought that was pretty funny. Then I waited for one minute, and called, “The rice is ready!”
“Karen, are you sure?” asked Elizabeth. “That seemed awfully fast.”
“I’m a fast cooker!” I replied.
I picked up the lid of the pot. “Ta-da!” I said proudly.
What a mess! The rice was not fluffy and dry. Half of it was stuck to the bottom of the pot. The rest was floating at the top.
I was so, so mad. I picked up the box of rice and shook it. Rice went flying everywhere.
“Who writes these directions anyway?” I said. “There are secret codes and words you cannot even understand. I am going upstairs right now to write a letter to the rice company. They will be sorry!”
I left my big house family standing in the kitchen with their mouths hanging open.
After the Divorce
I picked up my purple pen and my pink paper and started to write:
Dear Rice Company,
I am sitting upstairs in my room at the big house and I am writing to tell you …
Wait, I thought. Maybe I should tell them about the big house. And the little house, too. You see, I live in two houses. This is why.
A long time ago Mommy and Daddy decided they didn’t love each other anymore. So they got divorced. We had been living at the big house here in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. (The big house is the house Daddy grew up in.) But after the divorce, Mommy moved out with Andrew and me.
We moved into a little house. (It is in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, too.) Then Mommy got married again to a man named Seth. He is my stepfather. Seth is very nice. He moved into the little house with us. He brought along his dog Midgie, and his cat Rocky. (I guess they are my step-pets.) So now Mommy, Andrew, Seth, Midgie, Rocky, Emily Junior (she’s my pet rat), and I live together in the little house most of the time.
But every other weekend, and on some holidays, and for two weeks in the summer, Andrew and I go to the big house, where Daddy still lives.
After the divorce, Daddy got married again, too. He married Elizabeth. Now she’s my stepmother. She moved into the big house with her four children. They are Sam and Charlie (they’re in high school), David Michael (he’s seven, like me), and Kristy (she’s thirteen).
Then Daddy and Elizabeth adopted Emily Michelle from a faraway place called Vietnam. She’s two and a half. I named my rat after her. Nannie, Elizabeth’s mother (my stepgrandmother), moved into the big house after Emily Michelle came. Nannie takes care of Emily Michelle when the rest of the family are at work or at school.
I almost forgot to tell you about the pets at the big house. David Michael has a Bernese mountain dog puppy named Shannon. Daddy has a fat tiger cat named Boo-Boo. Andrew has a fish named Goldfishie. And I have a fish named Crystal Light the Second. (That is because Crystal Light the First died.)
So Andrew and I have two families, two houses, two sets of pets, and two of lots of other things. For example, I have two stuffed cats. Moosie stays at the big house. Goosie stays at the little house. And I have two pieces of my special blanket, Tickly. (I had to cut Tickly in half because I kept leaving him behind at one house or the other, and I need him with me to go to sleep.)
I even have two best friends. Nancy Dawes lives next door to Mommy. Hannie Papadakis lives across the street and one house over from Daddy. Nancy and Hannie and I call ourselves the Three Musketeers.
Do you know what I call myself? Karen Two-Two! And I call my brother Andrew Two-Two. (I got that name from a book my teacher, Ms. Colman, read at school. It was called Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.)
So that is the story of the big house and the little house. I tried to decide if the rice company would be interested.
“Karen! Dinner is ready!” called Kristy.
Thank goodness! I was gigundoly hungry. I wondered what we were going to have instead of rice. I hurried downstairs to find out.
The Goops
Spaghetti. Thanks to Nannie, that is what we had instead of rice.
We ate together in the kitchen. It is a lot less fancy than the big house dining room.
“Please pass the pasketti,” I said. (That is what An
drew calls spaghetti.)
I was secretly glad we were having spaghetti instead of rice. Spaghetti is more fun. I found a really long piece in my dish. I held it up over my mouth. Then I sucked it in with one slurp.
“Karen, no slurping, please,” said Daddy.
“Sorry,” I said.
Blub, blub, blub. Blub, blub, blub.
Andrew was blowing bubbles in his milk.
“Andrew, no bubbles,” said Daddy.
Suddenly we heard a sound that was like an elephant trumpeting in the jungle. I didn’t even know where the sound was coming from. But Elizabeth did.
“David Michael, please stop making that noise with your armpit. It is very rude,” she said.
I thought it was very funny. And I wanted to add to the noise. So I took a big swallow of air and tried to burp. Sam showed me how to do it once.
I ended up choking and coughing instead.
“Try again,” whispered Sam. “Bring the air way down and push it up again. Like this….” Urrrrp!
“Sam!” said Daddy. “It is one thing for the younger children to forget their table manners. But you’re in high school.”
“Sorry,” said Sam.
“I think we’d better eat a little more quietly,” suggested Elizabeth. “No slurping, burping, bubble blowing, or making animal noises for the rest of the meal.”
“I agree,” said Daddy. “Some people at this table are rather ill-mannered. In fact, they are behaving like the Goops.”
“Who are the Goops?” I asked.
Elizabeth smiled. “There’s a book called Goop Tales by a man named Gilett Burgess,” she said. “It tells everything you could ever want to know about the Goops. I have an old copy somewhere. I’ll look for it after dinner.”
We tried to eat more quietly after that. Blub, blub. Urrrp! I guess we did not do a very good job.
When we finished eating, David Michael, Andrew, and I went into the den. We drew pictures of what we thought the Goops would look like. In the meantime, Elizabeth searched for her book.
“I found it!” she called.
Elizabeth read us a story about the Goop Family at dinner. They blew bubbles in their water, made strange noises, and squirted whipped cream all over the table. They really did sound like us. Especially a little Goop girl named Quirita. Elizabeth read us a poem about her. This is how it went:
She has a Funny Name — QUIRITA!
Yet Never Little Girl was Sweeter.
So Seldom was she Found to Blame
You’ll Wonder How she Got her Name —
But if you Dined with her, you’d Know;
Her Table Manners, they were Low!
Andrew and I could hardly stop laughing. We thought the Goops were very funny.
“Are you a Goop?” I asked Andrew.
“Yup!” said Andrew. “Are you?”
“Yup!” I said.
“I don’t like all this talk about manners,” said David Michael.
He looked worried. I began to wonder why.
Mr. Peabody’s School of Dance and Charm
“Red light, green light, one, two, three!” I shouted. I turned around. Everyone was frozen in place. Boo. I wanted my friends to move so I could send them back to the starting line.
It was late Saturday morning. I was in the big house backyard with Andrew, David Michael, Hannie, Linny (Hannie’s brother), and Melody and Bill Korman (our new neighbors).
“Achoo!” sneezed David Michael.
“You moved. You have to go back to the starting line!” I said.
“That is not fair. Sneezing does not count,” said David Michael.
“Does too,” I said.
“Does not,” said David Michael.
“Doesn’t matter,” called Charlie, sticking his head out the back door. “The game is over. Time for lunch.”
“See you later!” I said to my friends. “We have to go inside now.”
We raced to the kitchen. That is because Saturday lunches at the big house are the most fun. Daddy and Elizabeth practically empty out the refrigerator and food shelves. They put everything on the kitchen table and let us pick whatever we want.
My Saturday lunch used to be peanut butter on celery sticks. But now I eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich, just like Kristy. And I have an apple, potato chips, and milk. Yum!
I was having a little trouble eating. That is because I was still out of breath from running. And my hands were sweaty and slippery, so my apple kept sliding around. And I was trying to eat around the dirty fingerprints on my sandwich.
Urrrp! “That was a good one,” said David Michael. “I bet you cannot burp so loud, Karen.”
“I bet I can. I have been practicing since last night,” I said. I took a deep swallow of air.
Urrr-urr-urrp!
“Now that is what I call a burp!” said Sam.
“I have an announcement to make,” said Daddy.
“Is it a Surprising Announcement?” I asked. (At school, Ms. Colman makes Surprising Announcements. They are almost always something great.)
“Yes, I think you will be surprised,” said Daddy. “I have enrolled you and David Michael in Mr. Peabody’s School of Dance and Charm. You will learn some ballroom dancing. And you will learn some manners.”
“Cool! Gigundo cool!” I said. “Amanda Delaney went to Mr. Peabody’s school, too.”
Amanda was my friend who used to live two houses over from Hannie. Then she moved away. Melody and Bill Korman live in her house now.
When Amanda went to Mr. Peabody’s, she got to buy a fancy dress. And one day a week she got to act like a grand lady.
“It will be just like playing our Lovely Ladies game,” I said to Kristy. Amanda taught me to play that. We get all dressed up and say, “Oh, I am a lovely, lovely lady.”
“Well, I’m not going to be a lovely lady! No way,” said David Michael.
“There will be other boys there,” said Elizabeth.
“I don’t care. I am not going to some silly charming school,” said David Michael. He sounded like he meant it.
But I could tell Daddy meant it more when he said, “Your mother and I have decided you are going, David Michael. And that is final.”
Ribbons and Bows
“Oh, I want to be a lovely, lovely lady. That is what I truly want to be!”
It was Saturday morning at the little house. I was sitting in front of my mirror. I was singing a lovely lady song to the tune of my favorite hot dog commercial.
“Elizabeth and Kristy will be here any minute, Karen. Are you ready to go?” called Mommy.
“Yes! I will be right down,” I answered.
Even though it was a little house weekend, Elizabeth and Kristy were taking me shopping. That is because Monday was my first day at Mr. Peabody’s school. I already had party shoes. But I needed a fancy new dress. And white gloves. (Elizabeth volunteered to take me shopping because Mr. Peabody’s school was her and Daddy’s idea.)
Beep! Beep!
“Be good,” said Mommy. She waved good-bye to me and Elizabeth and Kristy as we headed into town.
“We will try Madame Drew’s Dress Shop first,” said Elizabeth.
We found a parking spot right in front of the store.
“Look at the dress in the window!” I cried.
It was gigundoly beautiful. It was white with tiny pink and blue flowers all over. The sleeves were puffy with ribbons tied around them. And at the waist was a big pink bow. I love ribbons and bows!
“Let’s see if they have your size,” said Elizabeth.
“May I help you?” asked the saleswoman.
“Yes, thank you,” said Elizabeth. “This is Karen, and she needs a new dress for Mr. Peabody’s school.”
“Hello, Karen,” said the woman. “My name is Mrs. Oliver. I am sure we will have something you like.”
“I like the dress in the window,” I said.
“I will see if we have it in your size,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Please have a seat.”
I sank into a big red armchair. This was nothing like the stores I went to for my jeans and sneakers.
When Mrs. Oliver came back, her arms were filled with dresses. Pink dresses, white dresses, velvet dresses. Wow!
I tried them all. I liked them. But something was missing from every one.
“Wait,” I said. “The one from the window is not here.”
“I’m afraid I did not see that one in your size,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“But I like it the best. It is the fanciest!” I cried.
“These dresses are pretty, too,” said Kristy.
“The one in the window looked like it would fit me. Can you see if it is my size? Please? Puh-lease?” I begged.
“I’ll go look,” said Mrs. Oliver.
After awhile, Mrs. Oliver came back carrying the dress from the window.
“You were right,” she said. “It is your size.”
“Thank you!” I cried.
I put on the dress. It was my absolute, number one, very special favorite.
“We’ll take it,” said Elizabeth.
Mrs. Oliver wrapped up my dress in a fancy box. I felt gigundoly special carrying it outside. I saw Mrs. Oliver putting a new dress in the window. It wasn’t half as nice as mine.
“Our next stop is Bellair’s Department Store,” said Elizabeth as we climbed into the car.
I went into Bellair’s empty-handed. But I came out carrying two bags. One held my new white gloves. The other held my fancy new hair clip with shiny white pearls.
I was so excited. I could not stop singing the whole way home.
“Oh, I am going to be a lovely, lovely lady. When Monday comes, everyone will see!”
The Cookie Mess
“Goosie, may I have this dance?” I asked.
I held Goosie up to my ear and listened for his answer.
“You would be delighted, but you need me to lead? I would be glad to,” I said.
I took Goosie in my arms and began to hum. Hum-de-hum-hum. Hum-de-hum. I twirled around and around the room. I twirled so much, I made myself dizzy. I had to sit down.
“Thank you for the dance, Goosie,” I said, holding my head in my hands.