Mia the Melodramatic (5 page)

“But maybe I could help. Like, maybe I could explain why you haven’t received one e-mail from Tim all week.”

I paused in the doorway. “What do you know about Tim’s e-mails?”

Chris grinned maliciously, pulled a pile of papers out from under his plate, and waved them at me.

I narrowed my eyes and demanded, “What are those?”

“Your missing e-mails,” Chris said. “But before I hand them over, you have to confess to Mom and Dad that you poisoned me.”

I swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t act innocent with me,” Chris replied. “I know you did something to make me sick—besides showing your face.”

“So what if I did? When you put Tabasco in the ketchup bottle, I burned my mouth so bad I couldn’t taste anything for three days. I was just paying you back. Now we’re even. So give me my e-mails.”

“We’re not even close to even. And if you don’t confess, you’ll never read any of these e-mails from Tim that I printed out before permanently deleting them from our computer.”

“Give me those!” I reached for the stack of papers, but because he pulled away at the last minute, my hand fell into his syrupy plate instead. The dish clattered to the floor as I ran after him. “I want my e-mails.”

Chris flipped on the switch to Dad’s paper shredder and it roared to life. “Not until you confess.”

“Never.” I dove for the papers and almost had them in my grasp when I slipped on the syrup-covered floor. “You deserved it.”

“Then you deserve me shredding your e-mails. And it’s really too bad because Tim had some great stories about a chick named Felicity. I bet she’s totally hot considering how much Tim wrote about
her,” Chris said, jamming the papers into the shredder.

“No!” I tried to get up, but the floor was too slippery, and I fell back into a puddle of goo.

The last of the papers disappeared into a pile of confetti. “You are truly evil,” I said through clenched teeth.

“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Why did I have to have a brother with an IQ of lint?” I unstuck myself from the floor and stormed out the back door, no doubt leaving a path of syrup-covered footprints in my wake.

Later that afternoon, I was elbow-deep in a dusty box of crowns, wands, and papier-mâché toadstools when Eric walked into the props cottage. I pushed the hair out of my eyes. “I need a box of fairy dust for one of the plays next week,” I said. “Do you have any idea where I can find any... or do I have to mug a fairy?”

“Just throw some glitter in here,” Eric said, tossing me a small case from the collection of boxes in the corner. “And when you’re through with that, we’re going to need your help outside.”

I dumped some gold glitter into the box. “Please tell me that whatever you need help with doesn’t involve Zoë.”

Ever since our pizza powwow Monday night, I’d accepted every task that kept me as far as possible from Zoë. I’d painted a castle set, hemmed a dozen elf costumes, and created 15 pig noses all by myself just so I could avoid spending time with her. The extra work was about killing me, but I figured anything was better than dealing with the acrimonious albino all day long.

“I’m afraid it does.” Eric smiled ruefully. “Before Monday, all of us need to practice setting up the Play Wagon.”

The Play Wagon was a gigantic boxy trailer that opened up to become a stage. It hitched to the back of a pick-up truck and was driven around to all the city’s parks so the kids at Little Tyke’s could
bring their “theater” to the masses rather than the masses coming to the theater. Personally, when I watch a play, I’d rather be in an air-conditioned theater not getting bitten by chiggers in the grass, but maybe that’s just me.

I threw the box of fairy dust into the bucket. “Doesn’t your mom have a mechanical engineer hired to set up the Play Wagon?”

“Yeah, right. Just like she has professional seamstresses to make the costumes, carpenters to build the set, sound technicians—”

“All right. I get your point,” I said, reluctantly following Eric outside to the Play Wagon, where Zoë and Henry were waiting for us.

Eric pointed to the metal rungs that hung on both ends of the white trailer. “I want you and Zoë to climb those ladders and unhook the latches so we can lower the stage. When it’s parallel to the ground, Henry and I will prop up the supports.”

I eyed the metal ladder. “Nancy didn’t say anything about heights in her job description.” Besides being petrified of large farm animals, I also have a deadly fear of bees, snakes, girls with 15 facial piercings, and heights.

“And she didn’t mention to me that I’d have to work with a sticky stiff today either,” Zoë said. “So, get up there, Preppy.”

I shot Eric a dirty look. When he’d caught me spraying off with the hose that morning, he’d told me he’d keep my syrupy situation to himself.

Now he shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “But she wanted to know why you were all wet, and I just couldn’t lie to her.”

I rolled my eyes. Great! I told my secret to freaking George Washington!

“I don’t have all day,” Zoë called from the top of her ladder.

Taking a deep breath, I slowly climbed to the top rung of my ladder. Not looking down, I said to Eric, “Now what am I supposed to do?”

“Lean over and unhook the latch.”

I shook my head and curled my hands into vise grips onto the top
rung. “There’s no way I’m letting go of this ladder!”

“What, are you afraid you might break a nail?” Zoë said.

I gritted my teeth. I wasn’t going to let her Highness of Hatred make me look more like a wimp than I actually was. I leaned over, grabbed the latch, and unhooked it. And I’m proud to say I didn’t even flinch when I broke the nail on my pinky finger.

“Great job!” Eric shouted. “Now, both of you climb down and help with the stage while Henry and I set up the braces for support.”

Using extreme caution, I slowly descended the ladder rungs until I was safely on the ground while Henry and Eric went underneath the stage.

“Hurry up, Preppy,” Zoë said, grimacing as she held on to one end of the platform. “I can’t hold this stage up much longer by myself.”

I picked at my torn fingernail. “What are you talking about?”

Zoë’s arms started wobbling. “What do you think I’m doing over here? I’m holding up the stage while Eric and Henry are setting up the braces. And if you don’t get over here to help me, it’ll fall and smash them like two cockroaches under a shoe.” She struggled to keep her grip. “Oh, no, I’m losing it!”

I sprinted over to the stage and grabbed hold of the other end just as Zoë let go.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I screamed. “I can’t hold this stage up by myself! Grab the other end and help me before it falls and kills Henry and Eric!”

Zoë burst out laughing.

I grunted, using all my strength to keep the stage from turning Henry and Eric into a couple of cartoon characters flattened by a boulder. “What’s so funny?”

Pointing at the two institutional-size chains bolted to the sides of the trailer—
they
were holding the stage up—she howled with laughter. “You are such an easy mark. This summer is going to be too much fun.”

Eric poked his head out from under the stage. “Zoë, what are you laughing about?”

“The stiff here thought I was really holding up the stage by myself,” Zoë replied. “She thought I was going to drop it on you and Henry.”

“She told me she needed my help holding up the stage,” I protested. “What else was I supposed to think?”

“That wasn’t nice, Zoë.” Eric grinned. “But it was funny. Mia, I can’t believe you really thought Zoë could lift the stage by herself. It weighs a ton.”

“I’m glad you both find me so amusing,” I said, marching back to the props cottage.
Cripes
! No job was worth this. If I wanted to be humiliated on a regular basis, I could’ve just stayed home.

“Don’t be mad, Preppy,” Zoë said, running after me. “It was just a joke.”

I walked faster. “Leave me alone.”

“Where’s your sense of humor?”

“I must have lost it when I thought I was going to squish your cousin like a cockroach under a shoe.”

“Get back here.” Zoë reached toward me. “I’m not done talking to you.”

“Well, I’m done talking to you!” I yelled, swinging my arm around so I could remove her hand from my shoulder. Unfortunately, I missed and my fist landed squarely on the fleshy part of her top lip.

“What was that sound?” Henry asked, crawling out from underneath the stage. He took one look at the blood pouring from Zoë’s mouth and screamed, “Oh, my God, Mia just shot Zoë in the face!”

“I didn’t get thot, thtupid,” Zoë lisped. “Printheth punthed me.”

“It was an accident,” I stammered, trying to use my palms to catch the blood pouring from her mouth.

Eric looked at me. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” I said helplessly. “Maybe they’ll need this blood to do a transfusion.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Eric said as he ran over to us.

He took Zoë’s face in his hands and wiped the blood from her lip. “I don’t think you broke any teeth. But you
are
going to have one heck of a fat lip. You might want to take out your lip hoop while it heals.”

Deciding that I better apologize now, because it might be too difficult to do after Zoë punched out all my teeth, I said “I’m so sorry. I’ve never hit anyone but my brother—I swear.”

Zoë glared at me as she removed the earring from her swollen lip. “You know whath thith meanth, don’th you, Preppy?”

I chewed on my jagged fingernail as I waited for Zoë to unleash her wrath. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Good. Then I hope you’ve been thaving your money.” She wiped the blood from her chin. “Eric, geth your car. We’re all going outh for veggie supreme pizza and Printheth here is buying.”

A
fter shelling out practically all the money I’d made during the past week, I finally got Zoë to accept my apology. I figured she’d forgive me even if I didn’t buy everyone a super-sized chocolate sundae, but I splurged just in case. After all, it was better to be destitute than dead.

Eric dropped me off at home and as soon as I walked in the door, I raced to our computer. If I was lucky, there’d be an e-mail from Tim, summing up everything he’d written during the past week. I clicked on our e-mail account, but nothing was there except for a few lame jokes from my mom’s sister, Aunt Maeve. I searched the deleted mail file, but nothing was there either. Chris was going to pay for this.

I guessed it was now up to me to e-mail Tim, but what could I say? I really wanted to write Tim a long e-mail telling him how much I missed him. But I couldn’t do that. What if Chris was right and Tim had started liking Felicity more than me? If I poured out my heart to him when he was planning on breaking up with me, I’d look like an idiot.

If only I had my own cell phone—like every other teenager in America. Then I could just call him, and we could talk like we used to. But both Tim’s parents and mine wouldn’t let us get cell phones, and they’d made it very clear they weren’t paying for any long-distance phone calls we made to each other. And considering we were both broke, e-mail was all we had.

I took a deep breath and typed.

I stared at the screen.

Oh, cripes—I sounded like his great-aunt Edna. Deciding to end the e-mail before I was reduced to asking about the weather, I quickly typed,

I mumbled, “I hate this,” but hit send.

Because I was already online, I figured now would be as good a time as any to research revenge tactics to use against Chris. I clicked on a search engine, and was just about to learn everything there was to know about itching powder when our e-mail chimed, letting me know we’d just gotten a message. I hit the mail button and my heart raced. It was an e-mail from Tim. Did I dare read it?