Seeing Cinderella (12 page)

“Come on,” I said. “Everyone else is probably finished by now.”

Stacy didn’t hear me. She stood still, looking grimly at her own reflection.

“Stacy, let’s go. Stacy?”

Still no answer. Stacy stared at herself with this funny look on her face. And—I couldn’t help it—I took out my glasses to spy on her thoughts.

A few girls came streaming through the maze, giggling just as I slipped on my glasses.

They’re laughing at me,
Stacy’s thoughts scrolled across the blue screen hovering next to her.
Some things never change. No matter how hard you try.

“They weren’t—” I began, but broke off quickly. I didn’t want Stacy getting suspicious about the glasses, like Ellen earlier.

It didn’t matter. Stacy hadn’t heard me.

No matter what, I’ll always be
that
girl.

What girl
? I wanted to ask, but knew I couldn’t. It occurred to me then I knew very little about Stacy. I knew she’d moved to California from Oregon over the summer, that she was boy crazy, and that she was out to steal
my best friend. But I didn’t know anything else. I’d never bothered to ask.

“So what—” I began, but Stacy took off, seeming to instinctively know her way out of the maze.

“We won!” Ellen raised her fist triumphantly when we came out of the maze.

But she didn’t point to Raven—she pointed to Scott.

“I lost Raven in the maze,” Ellen was saying. “And Scott lost Charlie, so we teamed up. And we won!” Ellen and Scott high-fived.

Okay, so any interest I might have felt in Stacy’s life just totally flatlined, like one of those heart monitors on TV.
I
could’ve been the one who found Scott in the maze, but nooooooo, Stacy the slowpoke had to go and ruin it.

After that, Ellen suggested we head over to the games section.

While Scott tossed footballs through a tire, I pulled a pack of Red Hots from my apron pocket and started crunching on them. I must have been standing really close to Scott, because when he pulled back his arm he knocked into me, sending my Red Hots skittering into the grass.

Scott turned back, looking annoyed. When he saw the Red Hots though, he flashed his crooked smile. “Are those your favorite candy?”

“Aar, she sneakest them all the time in class,” Charlie said, before I could answer. Then he turned to me and added, “It makes your tongue really red.”

I blushed, and Scott turned back and lobbed the football. It sailed easily through the tire, earning him a stuffed teddy bear for his effort. And then he turned around and offered it to . . . me!

“Sorry about your Red Hots,” he said.

“No problem,” I replied, dazed. Scott Fowler had just won me a teddy bear.

Maybe this night wasn’t totally ruined after all.

Chapter 12

Super Freaky Glasses Rule #
₁₁

People guard their secrets well. Your magic glasses can’t change that.

“C
ALLIOPE, WAKE UP
! I
T’S ELEVEN IN THE MORNING
. I
T’S
late even for a Saturday.” Mom pounded on the door.

“Umagettinup,” I mumbled from under my bedspread. After a few more door pounds, Mom left, allowing me to resume my dreams. Most of them featured Scott reading his poems to me on a tropical beach before we rode off into the sunset on a unicorn.

Okay, maybe that was over the top. But Scott had won me a teddy bear—proof, I’d thought last night, that he was totally crushing on me. Until Stacy opened her big mouth.

“Hey, no fair,” she had protested, after Scott handed me the bear. “We want one too.”

Then Ellen got all royal and said, “Yes, kind Prince, and as your Cinderella I shall require the best bear in all the land.”

Next thing I knew Scott had spent a few more dollars, and soon all the girls had their own bears except for Raven, who told everyone she thought teddy bears were stupid. Still though, Scott had given
me
the first bear he won. That had to mean something.

I picked up my teddy bear (who I’d already named Scotty), and hugged him once before depositing him back on my pillow. I rolled toward my nightstand and picked up my phone. I wanted to talk to Ellen about Scott—without Stacy hanging around.

“Martin residence,” came a prim voice on the other line.

“Hi, Mrs. Martin. Is Ellen around?”

“Oh, hello, Callie.” Mrs. Martin’s voice warmed up. “It’s been ages. How come I never see you anymore?”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled, but Mrs. Martin didn’t hear.

“Ellen’s not here. She’s out with Stacy. I’ll tell her you called, though.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks, Mrs. Martin.” My voice cracked as I said good-bye.

I hung up my phone, and flopped backward. My pillow made a poufing sound, and Scotty spilled to the ground. I stared up at the ceiling, thinking.

The day after the carnival Ellen decided to hang out with Stacy. Without me. I felt something shift then, like Stacy had just won a major victory.

“Best friends forever,” I whispered, holding out my pinkie.

But Ellen wasn’t there to meet me halfway. As I lowered my arm, I realized I didn’t have another friend I could call.

The phone rang then, and I hoped, hoped,
hoped
it was Ellen, inviting me to join her and Stacy. Fast as a Wicked Stepsister finding an oversize glass slipper, I snatched up the phone.

“Ellen?”

“Not quite, Callie Cat,” my dad said, laughing. “I guess you’ll have to settle for your poor old man. Have you written any stories about me lately?”

“No, Dad,” I said, hoping he didn’t hear the disappointment in my voice. “But I promise to write a few before next weekend.”

“Actually, that’s why I called. I can’t make it.”

“What?” I said, my thoughts momentarily distracted
from Ellen and Stacy the Best-Friend Stealer. “But we haven’t seen you in forever—you keep saying you’re coming to see us, and then you always cancel. When are you coming home? And when are you and Mom going to make up?”

Out came all the questions I’d learned not to ask when Mom kicked Dad out. Because asking them seemed to hurt both my parents.

“Things take time, Callie Cat. And your mother . . . well, you know how your mother is.”

I sighed. I did know.

“So, when
can
you come see us then, if you can’t make it next weekend?” I hated it that when I said those words, in my head I heard them in Mom’s voice.

“Not for some time, I’m afraid. Not for about six or seven weeks or so.”

“What? Six weeks? Why?”

“I’ve got some things I need to take care of.”

“What things?”

Dad paused, and I could hear him sigh on the other line. “Things you won’t understand until you’re older.”

I always hated it when parents said stupid stuff like that. How did they know what their kids would or wouldn’t understand? It seemed to me that half the time, kids were
smarter than their parents. I wanted to use my glasses and find out what these “things” were that I was too young to understand, but I already knew from trying that on Ellen it was useless.

“Fine,” I said, deciding not to argue. “Want to talk to Mom?”

“No.” My dad now sounded eager to get off the phone. “I talked to her last night. Take care, Callie Cat. Love you lots.”

“Love you lots, too.”

I hung up the phone and hauled myself out of bed, my great mood when I first woke up now totally gone. I slipped on my glasses, grabbed my journal, and headed downstairs.

Ellen might’ve been unavailable, but I still wanted to talk to someone about Scott. So I went to my last resort: my mother.

Mom was in her office grading papers, her usual Saturday morning routine.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hello,” she said, not looking up. A red pen flashed across the page she graded. “We went over and over this, and they still don’t get it,” she mumbled to herself. “Who was on the phone?” she asked a second later.

“Dad.”

The air shimmered, and the screen appeared by Mom. Inside, in fierce red writing, were her thoughts about Dad. They were full of words I wasn’t allowed to say. Mom looked up and glanced at my journal. The screen changed then and an image appeared of my dad holding a painting and talking excitedly to Mom while she spooned baby food into Sarah’s mouth with one hand, and scrambled eggs with the other.

“Have you been writing in that thing again?” she asked.

“Uh, no,” I said, and carefully set it down on a bookcase. Mom went back to grading papers and I said, “The carnival was fun last night.”

“Oh?” Mom said it like she wanted to hear more, but when I looked back at the screen near her I knew her thoughts were drifting away from Dad, and from me, and back to where they usually were—her classroom.
Did I schedule the math test for Tuesday or Wednesday? Where is my planner?

“Yeah,” I said as Mom began rummaging through piles on her desk. “We ran into some boys from our drama class.”

“Good. That’s good, honey.” But then she found her planner, and her to-do list, and her thoughts drifted even farther away:
Grade the spelling test, ask Callie to do her chores, call the bank, ask Callie to do her chores, clean the bathroom …

“Yeah,” I said, pushing on, “and I was wondering if—”

“Have you unloaded the dishwasher?” Mom looked up.

“What? No. I just got up, remember?”

Mom closed her eyes and rubbed her temples.
Maybe if I send Callie to the park with Sarah, I could get everything done. I might as well unload the dishes myself, anyway.

“Look, I’m sorry about the dishes. I’ll do them in a minute, but I was wondering—”

Mom leaned around me and hollered. “Sarah! Can you come in here?” Then she looked up at me and said, “I need you to—”

“Take Sarah to the park so you can get some work done. Okay,
fine
.” I stomped out the door, passing Sarah in the hallway. If Mom wondered how I’d known what she was thinking, she never asked. She was too busy telling Sarah to get dressed.

My favorite tree lives in the park by our house. Squished between a couple palms and a few other evergreens stood one tree that was actually changing colors. After I got Sarah settled on the swings I sat down on a bench and stared at my tree. I liked looking at the red and brown and gold leaves. It made my heart rise up with a warm, hopeful feeling. Kind of like Thanksgiving and Christmas and the last day of school all rolled together.

Then I thought about Ellen and Stacy and my heart plunged like a broken elevator. It never bothered me before that I didn’t have a ton of friends. I had Ellen, and she was better than a hundred friends.

But what if one day we weren’t friends anymore?

I opened my backpack and pulled out my
Cinderella
script and my journal. If I couldn’t talk to someone, I’d do something even better. I’d write a story.

Cinderella and Her New Friend

One day Cinderella got tired of living with her Wicked Stepsisters, who always did things without her and never let her in on their inside jokes. So she decided to ditch her sorry-looking bed under the chimney and find another place to live.

She ran far into the forest and found an abandoned cottage in a meadow. She lived there happily all summer, but eventually she became lonely. She even missed the friendly mice from her stepmother’s attic. Each day she’d stand outside her cottage and sing at the top of her
voice—hoping someone would hear. Day after day she came and sang, and just when the meadow turned cold and brown and she was about to give up, another girl her age stepped into the clearing and began to sing the same song. They went inside and passed the winter together singing and telling stories.

When I finished, I closed my journal. And I saw Ana.

She didn’t see me as she herded the Garcia boys into the park. Anthony and Miguel started throwing sand at each other.

“Anthony! Miguel! Stop it!” Ana said, followed by something in Spanish.

The boys ignored her, and then, in English, Ana threatened to tell Mr. Garcia they weren’t behaving.

“Go ahead and tell him,” Anthony said. Then he threw a fistful of sand, which barely missed Ana’s face. “See what he’ll do.”

I expected Ana to yell at him or turn around and march them straight back home. That’s what I would’ve done, anyway, if Sarah acted like that. But Ana just got this really sad look on her face and said something to them in Spanish, and they skittered off to the play structure.

“Hi, Ana,” I said.

Ana jumped and turned around. She seemed a little embarrassed. “
Hola,
” she said, and sat down next to me.

“Feeling better?” I asked.

“Better?”

“Yeah. Are you still sick?”

“No,” Ana said quickly, a look of realization setting in. “I’m feeling much better.”

We were silent, and I turned to watch Miguel and Sarah, who were over by the trees throwing leaves at each other. I think we both knew Ana was lying about being sick.