Ava and Pip (13 page)

4:04

DEAR DIARY,

Mrs. (Bright) White called to say my story didn't get picked for the anthology after all. “That's okay,” I said. To be honest, I was more relieved than disappointed.

Someday I hope I'll write a story that is so good, I'll
want
it to get published. And even framed!

Could that happen? You never know!

Hey, I just noticed something:
know
backward is
wonk
.

AVA WREN, WORD WONK

SATURDAY NIGHT

DEAR DIARY,

Last night, I was folding origami snowflakes and snacking on grapes when Ben came over to pick Pip up for the dance. She looked happy, and I felt happy for her—which, trust me, is way better than feeling annoyed by her or sorry for her or worried about her.

After they left, Dad took me to buy a new diary at Bates Books because this one's almost done. (Obviously!) I'm pretty proud of myself for finishing it—and not burying it in my dead diary graveyard.

I think Dad's proud of me too.

Funny how I haven't been scared of blank pages lately. I like writing in them about…
everything
! And while I miss my magic pen, I like my new pen. So long as I have something to write with, I'm okay. It's when I have an idea and don't have a pencil or pen or marker or crayon or keyboard that I go a little nuts.

Anyway, when we bought the diary, Mr. and Mrs. Bates were both there. They were talking about decorating their shop windows, and I offered to make them one hundred origami snowflakes. “Would you?” Mrs. Bates asked. “We could put them in the children's section.”

I said “Sure,” and that's what I did the whole time Pip was at the dance. It felt like “penance,” which is one of this week's bonus words. It means making up for messing up. As I folded and folded, I pictured my snowflakes decorating their cozy bookstore.

Observation: when you buy books online, it's not cozy, there are no homemade decorations, and a cat never comes by to rub your legs.

This morning, when Pip woke up and came downstairs, I asked how the dance was, and she said, “Really fun.” Mom, Dad, and I exchanged a look.

I said, “Did everyone have fun?”

Pip said, “Everyone except Isabel.”

“Why not Isabel?” Mom asked.

“Because both her parents chaperoned.”

Mom and Dad laughed. Then Mom said, “I'm going to get a manicure later. You girls want to come?” Well, that was an absolute lifetime first, so we said sure.

At the nail salon, the lady said, “Pick a color.” Instead of picking out a polish by color, like a regular person, I kept turning over the little bottles to read the names. I didn't want to pick “Blushing Bride” or “Nude Attitude” or “Pinking of You” or “Gold Digger.” I finally settled on “Life's a Peach.” Mom liked “Life's a Peach” too, so now she and I match.

Back home, I was passing Pip's room, which is a total disaster area, and on her desk, I noticed the five yellow strips of paper crinkled up. I poked my head in and asked if I could have them.

“What for?”

“I don't know, to tape into my diary.”

“Why?” Pip looked at me as if I were a kook (K-O-O-K).

“Souvenirs,” I said, but to tell you the truth, they might come in handy someday. Like, what if I ever have to be a head life coach instead of a junior life coach? Or what if I ever need a Friendliness Refresher Course?

Pip shrugged and handed over the strips, and here they are, all taped in:

When she gave them to me, she said, “Just so you know, I'm never going to turn into a big ol' blabbermouth.”

“Good,” I said, “because if you turned into a big ol' blabbermouth, I'd have to pretend we weren't related.”

After I said that, I realized that I used to sort of pretend we weren't related anyway, and I felt kind of ashamed about that.

Maybe the Pip Pointers and all my trials and tribulations have helped me be a better person too?

AVA, NEW AND IMPROVED

AFTERNOON

DEAR DIARY,

Ben texted Pip to ask if he could come over to borrow her copy of
Great
Expectations
. Lamest excuse ever! His parents own Bates Books! And I bet he could have downloaded it!

Pip said, “Sure,” then went crazy cleaning her room and giving it a makeover. She even put her stuffed animals into a giveaway bag (poor things!). She left only one on her bed: a goldfish named Otto (O-T-T-O). She named him for the goldfish in
A
Fish
Out
of
Water
. (My favorite P. D. Eastman book is
Sam
and
the
Firefly
, which is about a firefly that makes words that get people into and out of trouble.)

Anyway, when Pip was cleaning up, guess what she found under her bed?

No…

Guess again…

No…

Nope…

My Irish pen!!! The one Dad gave me!!!

Y-A-Y-Y-A-Y-Y-A-Y-Y-A-Y-Y-A-Y!!!

I went running around the house jumping for joy, happy as a lark. (Question: are larks happier than wrens or starlings?)

Dad was happy too. He said, “A good writer should have a good pen.”

Then he told me the expression “The pen is mightier than the sword.” So I told him
sword
scrambled is
words
. He laughed and gave me a hug.

Pip said, “You should take better care of your pens, Ava. A lot of good things happened because of stuff you wrote.”

“A few not-so-good things too,” I mumbled.

“True,” she replied. “But more good things.” She was blushing, and I wondered if someday she'd tell me more about you-know-who who, just then, rang the doorbell.

I'll say this: I love having my magic pen back, but what I like most about it is that Dad gave it to me. And that he thinks of me as a writer, a real writer.

You know what else? Just as Pip found my pen (which in some ways wasn't 100 percent lost), I think I may have found my voice (which in some ways may have been inside me all along).

The key might be to know, in your heart and your head, what you want to say and how you want to say it, and then to just trust that it will come out
right
if you
write
and
write
and
rewrite
and
rerewrite
.

AVA, ASPIRING AUTHOR

P.S. Has my pen been under Pip's bed ever since we played Word Scrambles on her floor? That was in
September
! (I know because I left the blank page in my diary.)

AFTER DINNER

DEAR DIARY,

We hung up our holiday wreath. It has pinecones and a red bow and smells like Christmas.

At dinner, I mentioned that I got another 100 in spelling. Dad said, “You're unstoppable!” Pip joked, “GO, AVA, OG!” Mom said, “Great job, honey!” then added, “Can you spell veterinarian?”

I said, “V-E-T-E-R-I-N-A-R-I-A-N.”

She said, “W-O-W,” so I asked if they knew how to spell the longest word in the English language.

Mom said, “I don't even know what the longest word is.”

Dad said, “Antidisestablishmentarianism?”

Pip said, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?”

I said, “
Smiles
—there's a
mile
between the first and the last letter.”

Mom and Dad laughed. And the funny thing was: that joke wasn't even that funny. So I told them a funnier one:

“Question: What does a fish say when it swims into a concrete wall?

Answer: Dam!”

They liked that one, so I figured this was a good time to show them what I'd made this morning. I'd found another lion and put it in a jar and added corn oil. It didn't come out as cute as Slimy Simba I, but Slimy Simba II was still cute. I held it up and asked, “Who can guess what this is?”

Dad looked confused.

Pip asked, “W-A-S I-T-A-C-A-T-I-S-A-W?”

“Close!” I said, because it was a palindrome and a feline. “Any other guesses?”

“A-H-A!” Mom said. “I know. It's a L-I-O-N-I-N-O-I-L!”

“Bingo!” I said just to be funny.

“I'm putting this on the windowsill,” I announced. “Don't anyone throw it out.” I looked straight at Mom.

“Wouldn't dream of it,” she said. Later, as we were washing dishes, Mom said, “Ava, we still have a little time, but you and I should start planning your birthday, don't you think?”

“Sure,” I mumbled with a shrug. But inside I started doing a happy dance.

AVA THE APPRECIATED

P.S. Pip just slipped two pieces of paper under my door. One is a sketch of me writing in you. It makes me look much older than ten. I look eleven at least. Maybe even eleven and a half. The other is a note. It says:“If there were a contest for Best Sister, you'd get First Prize.”

You know what? I'm taping that right on my wall!!

AT 10:01

DEAR DIARY,

I hope I never lose my long-lost pen again. I hope I don't lose the one Bea gave me either.

I'm going to end this diary now, on a palindrome date at a palindrome time. I'll even throw in a palindrome sentence that Dad told us. It is perfect for today, the first day of winter, but it's a
word
palindrome (not a letter palindrome). Here it is: “Fall leaves after leaves fall.”

Cool, right?

Well, it's late, so I'd better catch some ZZZZZZZZs.

Wait, I just remembered: I wanted to end this diary with a moral.

First I was considering “Families and friends
count
—and a few even
spell
.” But that's not really a moral.

Then I was considering “When you lose something, you find something,” because I lost my pen and found my voice. But that's too fortune-cookie-ish.

Then I came up with a moral that's a little
sappy
and a little Ae
soppy
. Ready? Set? Here goes:

Moral: Helping others helps you too.

X-O-X-O-X

ABSOLUTELY AVA

***

Psssst, it's past midnight, and I just clicked on my new night-light pen. I wanted to see what it's like to write in the dark. Answer: totally awesome! My pen is shining a bright little beam onto my letters and words and putting them all in a spotlight—where letters and words belong!

I've been thinking a lot about pens lately—my Irish pen and my turquoise pen and my light-up pen—and how any pen can be a special pen. Or a power pen. Or a magic pen!

In one of my favorite picture books,
Harold
and
the
Purple
Crayon
, what's special isn't really the crayon. It's Harold's imagination. And the author's!

Funny, when you stop and think about it, it hardly even matters what kind of pen you use—or lose! What counts is what you write and think and not the color of your ink. (Hey, that's a poem!)

Anyway, the main reason I got up is that I have been thinking a lot about everything, backward and forward, and I have two things to say:

1.
My family
is
seriously nutty. Maybe even extra-chunky-peanut-butter nutty. But they're mine, and I'm not going to trade them in. Not P-I-P. Not M-O-M. Not D-A-D. We're the Wrens, after all. And you know what they say about birds of a feather. (They stick together!)

2.
I want to write a book someday. A book that kids my age can read and reread and even
rereread
. That is my goal, and I'm putting it in ink right here right now: when I grow up, I want to be an author and write a book—a short one. I've been thinking that it could be about a good kid who does a bad thing and sometimes feels invisible, but who helps her sister find her voice and ends up finding her own. H-U-H. Maybe it could be a diary…

AVA

MOM

DAD

PIP

HANNAH

ELLE

WOW

ANNA

BOB

HUH

EVE

MADAM I'M ADAM

MA HAS A HAM

SIS

POP

PUP

LION IN OIL

NAN

VIV

SENILE FELINES

SAGAS

STAR RATS

XOX

YAY

ATTA

MMM

STEP ON NO PETS

A MAN A PLAN A CANAL, PANAMA

KAYAK

RACE CAR

PEEP

RADAR

DUD

FUN ENUF

'TIS IT

NOW I WON

TOP SPOT

REDDER

A TOYOTA'S A TOYOTA

NO MELON NO LEMON

AHA

EVIL OLIVE

YO, BANANA BOY

LONELY TYLENOL

SOS

REPAPER

M&M

PEP

NOON

SEES

EYE

GIG

SOLOS

TOOT

LEVEL

BOOB

BIB

PULL UP

HOHOHOH

AHHA

WONTON NOT NOW

POOP

REFER

DEED

NOT A TON

DON'T NOD

AKA

#AMM IT I'M MAD

DESSERTS I STRESSED

MUM

YO
SOY

DO GEESE SEE GOD?

GAG

TATTARRATTAT

WAS IT A CAT I SAW?

SUE US

KOOK

OTTO

XOXOX