Ask My Mood Ring How I Feel Read online

  When the school called about Carmen, it was because she’d done something spectacular, like gotten a perfect score on a national test that’s for seniors in high school. But when the school called about me, it was because I was… well… I was not spectacular. And because I was not spectacular, I was failing math. Sure, I could count, just like everybody else, but the most interesting thing I did with numbers was remember my locker combination.

  “Any idea why he’d want a conference?” Dad asked.

  “I think I’m failing his class,” I admitted.

  “Really? What’s your average?”

  “If I were good with numbers, I’d tell you.” I couldn’t help being sassy. After all, who cared about my average? I was failing, plain and simple. It didn’t matter if my average was a sixty-two or a twelve because it was still an F in the grade book.

  “I don’t understand,” Dad said. “Your sister…”

  I stood up. “Don’t even go there,” I warned. “I’m so sick and tired of hearing how smart Carmen is and how dumb I am.”

  “I didn’t say you were dumb.”

  “You were going to tell me to ask Carmen for help. To ask her for tutoring. That’s what everybody tells me. They think Carmen has all the answers, and guess what… she thinks she has all the answers. And I’m the one who has to hear it all the time, who gets corrected. So excuse me if the last thing I want is to give her another reason to wave her superior intelligence in my face!”

  With that, I stomped out. I knew Jimmy was still in the tub, but I thought to myself, Let Dad deal with it!

  43 PHONE CALLS

  About an hour later, Dad told us to start dinner without him. He wasn’t hungry yet, so he was going to take a shower and watch the news first. I served our food on paper plates and handed out plastic forks so the clinking of real forks and plates wouldn’t wake Mom. But she woke up anyway, and when she saw us at the table, she said, “There you are. I thought I was all by myself. I thought you guys went for pizza and left me behind.”

  Carmen and I glanced at each other. Somehow, this felt like getting busted for doing something wrong.

  “Well?” Mom said. “Where’s the cat?”

  “What cat?” Carmen asked.

  “The one that bit your tongues,” Mom joked. When we didn’t say anything, she got suspicious. “Why are you being so quiet?”

  That’s when Jimmy blurted, “Rules!”

  “What’s that, Jimmy?”

  This time he whispered, “Quiet rules.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Mom asked Carmen and me.

  “Just something Dad made up,” I said. “It’s not important.”

  “Yeah,” Carmen added. “Just a few quiet rules.”

  Mom raised her eyebrows, curious. “And what are these rules exactly?”

  We knew we had to tell her, so we described putting a towel against the crack beneath her bedroom door to drown out noise, and lifting the dining room chairs instead of scooting them, and not blow-drying our hair or hooking up our iPods to the speakers.

  “And last weekend, Dad disconnected the doorbell,” Carmen said, “because Erica’s friends were waking you up.”

  “They’re not the only ones who ring the doorbell,” I snapped, because she was trying to make things my fault again. “Anyway,” I continued, “Dad went a little overboard with that rule.”

  “With all of them.” Carmen laughed.

  I laughed, too. Dad’s rules seemed ridiculous when you really thought about them.

  Somehow, I expected Mom to join the laughter. After all, she made fun of her lymphedema and her replacement breast. She joked that she glowed in the dark after so much radiation. But when she heard about the quiet rules, she slumped in a chair, her shoulders drooping. Then, when Dad came into the room, she stood up, mad.

  “No more quiet rules, understand?” she said.

  Dad took a step back. “What? Who? What… do you mean?”

  “The girls told me all about it.”

  I didn’t want Dad to get in trouble, so I said, “Mom, we like being quiet. Right, Carmen?”

  Before she could answer, Mom made the “stop” gesture with her hand, so we didn’t say another word.

  “I want to hear my children,” she told Dad. “I want to hear their voices and footsteps. I want to hear toilets flushing and vacuums running. I want to hear Jimmy crying and laughing, and the girls fighting. And I want to hear you, too—tapping on the computer, shaving, brushing your teeth. Why aren’t you brushing your teeth anymore?”

  “I am,” Dad admitted. “But I’m using the kids’ bathroom now.”

  “Why?”

  “So I won’t bother you. So you can rest.”

  “But I can rest just fine with noise!”

  She startled me because she rarely raised her voice. She startled Jimmy, too. He didn’t cry, but he ran to me and lifted his arms so I could carry him.

  Mom came toward us. She kissed the top of Jimmy’s head, patted my back, and tousled Carmen’s hair. “I’m sorry, kids,” she said. And then her voice got shaky. “I feel tired all the time. That part’s true. The radiation just zaps me, but I’m still alive.” She turned to Dad. “Can’t you see I’m still alive? Don’t make this place like a tomb. I don’t need to feel buried already. You understand? Noise is life, that’s what I’m saying. Noise is life.”

  Dad approached her, hugged her, and said, “I thought I was helping you. I didn’t mean to…”

  I don’t know what he said next because I carried Jimmy out and Carmen followed. We could be the nosiest kids on the planet, but we knew when it was best to leave our parents alone. But we were worried. As soon as we got to our room, Carmen said, “Mom and Dad never fight.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I guess it’s the cancer.”

  We just stared at each other for a minute, the way hikers in a blizzard might stare at each other, not because they’re angry but because they’re scared that if they look away, they’ll be lost and all alone.

  “I’m going to clean the bathroom,” Carmen said, and she stepped out. A few minutes later, I could hear water running in the tub.

  I grabbed a few toys from Jimmy’s room. “You play with these, okay?” I said. He grabbed them, and soon was making crashing sounds as he rolled toy cars into the wall.

  While he played, I made a list of everyone in Mrs. Gardner’s class. They had to do a service learning project too, so maybe they’d help. Then I listed students from my other classes. After brainstorming two whole pages of names, I took out my school directory and made phone calls. I called forty-three students. Of course, some people didn’t answer the phone, and other calls went to voice mail. But I did reach a lot of people. A good number were more than happy to sponsor me, so when my classmates said, “I’ll think about it” or “I don’t have any money” or “Let me talk to my parents first,” I didn’t feel so bad. I was still a long way from my goal, but every bit helped.

  144 OUTFITS

  My phone rang at six o’clock in the morning on the day of Derek’s party—when I couldn’t afford to lose a single minute of beauty sleep!

  “Not another dream,” I answered, because only Shawntae called so early.

  “I’m calling about your mom’s lottery ticket. I had that dream a week ago, and you still haven’t told her.”

  “Because it’s not going to happen.”

  “I haven’t had any more dreams about you,” she said. “You know what that means, right?”

  I shrugged, but then remembered she couldn’t see me because we were on the phone. “No, I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means that the last dream is the real one. Your mom’s going to win the lottery. I can feel it in my bones.”

  I sighed, unconvinced. “And we’ll all live happily ever after. We’ll have lots of money, and you’ll put ‘psychic’ on your campaign posters when you run for mayor.”

  “Don’t be sassy with me,” she scolded.

  “I�
��m sorry,” I said. “It just sounds a little far-fetched.”

  She was quiet for a moment, but then she said, “Just make sure she goes to the store, okay? It only costs a dollar to buy a ticket, so even if my psychic abilities aren’t one hundred percent accurate, she won’t lose much.”

  “Okay,” I promised. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

  She said yes, but we talked a bit longer about Derek’s party before hanging up. I couldn’t fall asleep after the conversation, so I hid under the blankets and made my own prediction. Tonight, I was going to have a close encounter of the fourth kind—physical contact—maybe even a kiss! I just knew it, and I didn’t need to dream about it first.

  Iliana and GumWad planned to carpool with Carmen and me. After leaving us at Derek’s house, my parents were going to take Jimmy to Chuck E. Cheese. He loved that restaurant. Three or four times a week, he said, “Gimme pizza. Gimme pizza,” while pointing to a flyer with the Chuck E. Cheese mouse on it. As for me, I hated the place. All those bells, whistles, and kiddie songs gave me a headache, but if Mom needed noise to feel alive, Chuck E. Cheese was the best noise factory in the city. She admitted, though, that she had no appetite for pizza and that she’d probably just sit at the table while Dad and Jimmy played games. Still, she was going out, which was a good sign, in my opinion.

  Iliana arrived an hour and a half before the party. She brought a suitcase of clothes and a gym bag of shoes so I could help her find the perfect outfit. I’d been trying on clothes since midafternoon, so when she came, she stepped into a room with skirts covering the beds, blouses spilling out of drawers, and shoes littering the floor.

  “What a mess!” she exclaimed.

  She pushed some clothes aside to make room for her suitcase, and as she matched up different combinations, I finally settled on a black, ruffled miniskirt with an under layer of tulle peeking out below the hem. I also wore a pair of strappy, silver sandals, and a silver ankle bracelet with cute charms—an “E” for “Erica,” the Pisces zodiac sign, a puffy heart, an angel, a tiny T-shirt, a laptop computer, a cell phone, and my newest charm, the pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness.

  “What do you think?” I asked as I slowly turned to model.

  “Thumbs-up for the skirt and shoes, but that T-shirt has to go.”

  I was wearing my faded brown T-shirt, a total yawn on the fashion meter. “I’m still trying to pick a top,” I explained.

  Just then, Carmen burst in. She had dressed in the laundry room because she wanted to iron her clothes first.

  “I’m ready!” she announced. “At least, I think I’m ready.” She had on black Mary Jane pumps, a black skirt, and a white, long-sleeved blouse buttoned all the way up.

  “You look like a nun,” I said.

  Carmen glanced at Iliana to see if this was true. Iliana hates to hurt people’s feelings, but she had to agree.

  “I’ll never figure out what to wear!” Carmen moaned as she threw herself on the bed. “Not counting my school uniforms, because you can’t wear them to a party, I have five skirts, three pairs of jeans, four other types of pants, and twelve blouses. That’s 144 potential outfits. I can’t possibly try on all of them.”

  “I guess you can’t go then,” I teased.

  Iliana threw a blouse at me. “Be nice,” she warned. Then, turning to Carmen, she said, “I’ll help you out. Besides, I’ve always wanted a little sister to play dress-up with.”

  “You can have my sister for free,” I said. “In fact, I’ll pay you to take her.”

  They just ignored me.

  While they picked through clothes, I asked Iliana for her opinions. First, about a T-shirt featuring a gigantic ring with a glittery diamond and the words “You rock my world!”

  “You’ll scare the guys with that one,” she said. “They’ll think you want them to propose.”

  “What about this one?” I asked, pointing at a shirt with a picture of bowling pins and the caption “You’re out of my league.”

  “Too intimidating,” she said.

  When I held up a shirt that said “Luv my badittude,” she said, “Too sassy.” For the one with butterflies, “Too cutesy.” And for a shirt that said “Sacred Heart Church. Come in for a faith lift,” Iliana could only roll her eyes.

  Finally, I discovered the perfect T-shirt—a hot pink V-neck that said “dress shirt” over outlines of a wedding dress, a flapper dress, a ball gown, a sundress, and a muumuu.

  “I’m ready!” I said, turning around to discover that Carmen was ready, too. As much as I hated to compliment my sister, I had to admit she looked great. The white blouse was now a loose jacket over a turquoise camisole, and a scarf with swirls of turquoise and gold acted like a belt for her jeans.

  “That looks a lot better than the nun outfit you had on earlier,” I said.

  “Really?” Carmen ran to the mirror to see for herself. She flipped back her hair and put her hands on her hips. I think she meant to pose like a runway model, but she looked like Supergirl instead. And that’s when I noticed…

  “You have nubs,” I said.

  “What?”

  I pointed at her chest. “You have nubs.”

  Iliana leaned forward for a closer look. “That’s right,” she said to Carmen. “You’re developing.”

  I thought my sister would be excited, but instead she covered up and said, “Quit looking at me! It’s embarrassing.”

  Iliana put an arm around her. “No, it’s not. It’s just nature. You should feel excited.”

  “Well, I’m not. How can I go to the party with nubs?”

  “It’s no big deal,” I said. “Just put on a bra.”

  “I can’t. I don’t have one.”

  “Why not? All you have to do is ask Mom. You should have seen how happy she got when it was time to buy me a bra.”

  “I don’t want to ask because… because…”

  For once, I knew what my sister was thinking. “Because of the surgery?”

  She nodded.

  Poor Carmen. She didn’t want to remind Mom about losing a breast, so she’d kept quiet about needing a bra. Luckily, she had me for an older sister. I reached into my underwear drawer and searched for my training bras, finding three in the back corner beneath the bikini tops Mom had given me. The bras seemed tiny—just a bit of padding and some straps. I couldn’t believe they fit me two years ago. I tossed them to Carmen and said, “They’re yours.” She thanked me as she turned away to try one on. The straps were too big so she asked Iliana for help, and while they made adjustments, I glanced at the C cups of my mom’s bikinis. I took one and put it against my chest, but I was a long way from fitting into it. I could never fill that bikini, I decided. Funny, how I could seem so big next to Carmen yet so small next to Mom.

  Just then, my cell phone beeped with a text from GumWad: “Want something from the store?”

  I remembered Shawntae’s dream. Before winning the lottery, my mom was buying candy at the convenience store. I decided to give Shawntae’s prediction a try, so I wrote, “Snickers. Thx.”

  “OK. BRT,” which means, “Be right there.”

  “GumWad’s on his way,” I announced. “We’ve got to hurry!”

  Because she’d spent so much time helping Carmen and me, Iliana had to rush her own outfit, but she didn’t complain. She picked a short denim skirt with rhinestone-studded flip-flops and a shimmery white blouse. Simple but classy. We applied lip gloss and combed our hair once more. We were finally ready for the party, and just in time, because we heard knocking at the front door.

  When we answered, GumWad said, “I think your doorbell’s broken. I’ve been standing here for five minutes.”

  “My dad broke it on purpose,” Carmen tattled.

  “It’s a long story,” I said, not wanting to explain.

  After a few awkward moments, he handed me the Snickers bar. “I got you a king-size.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Double chocolate, double luck.”

  Everyone loo
ked at me. I could tell they were wondering if I’d lost my mind.

  Just then, my parents and Jimmy showed up.

  “Everyone ready?” Dad asked.

  We all nodded.

  “But first,” I said, handing Mom the chocolate. “You have to eat this.”

  “But…” GumWad tried. Before he could finish his thought, Jimmy started crying. “Gimme candy. Gimme candy.”

  “Also,” I explained to Mom, “you have to go to the convenience store, preferably one decorated with pink streamers and a mirror ball, and you have to buy a lottery ticket because tonight’s the big night. You are going to win the jackpot.”

  “Oh, please,” Carmen said. “Statistically speaking, a lottery with six numbers from one to fifty gives you only…”—she stared at the sky where, I imagined, a gigantic calculator flashed the answer—“only a one-in-thirteen million chance of winning.”

  If Iliana and GumWad weren’t around, I would have stuck out my tongue and said something really immature like “nanny-nanny boo-boo.” As it was, I could only stare at her and wish that I were Medusa so I could turn her to stone because, as far as I knew, stones were awful at math and they never, ever acted like Little Miss Factoid.

  “Gimme!” Jimmy begged as he reached for the candy.

  Mom peeled back the wrapper and handed him a piece. “What makes you think I’m going to win?” she asked.

  “Shawntae.”

  “Really?” GumWad said, all excited. “Did she have another dream?”

  I nodded. “You were in the library when she told us about it last week, and ever since, she’s been bugging me.” I turned to Mom. “She wants you to buy a ticket tonight.”

  “You really should,” GumWad said to my parents. “Shawntae has psychic abilities. Last week, she told me I was going to eat enchiladas on Wednesday, and I did. Then she told me I was going to find a dog for my social studies project, and I did. I actually found four. Then she told me a pink gumball was going to come out of my gumball machine, and it did, right after the yellow and blue gumballs came out. And she also told me I was going to have a test in one of my classes, and I did. I had a test in science. So you see? She’s been predicting all kinds of stuff for me, and they’ve been happening right before my very eyes.”