Ava and Pip (3 page)

ALMOST DINNERTIME

DEAR DIARY,

I barged into Pip's room and said, “I know two transportation palindromes.”

Pip said, “You have to learn to knock!”

I went back out and knocked, and Pip said, “Who's there?” so I said, “Ava,” and then barged in and said, “I know two transportation palindromes.”

She looked up and said, “K-A-Y-A-K and R-A-C-E-C-A-R. Duh.”

I sighed and sat on her bed. “What are you doing?” I asked. The answer was pretty obvious because there were pants and tops everywhere.

“Trying on clothes.”

“Aren't you going to tell me your secret?”

“No.”

“Pleeeease.” She didn't answer, so I said, “Just answer me this: is the ‘person' a boy?” Pip blushed a little, so I said, “I knew it!”

She got pinker and said, “Don't tell anyone, okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Not a word!” she said.

“Not a P-E-E-P!” I agreed. “But, Pip, if you have a crush, you have to tell me who it is.”

“No, I don't,” she said. “That stays secret.”

AVA AGAIN

BEDTIME

DEAR DIARY,

What if I'm stuck? What if I have writer's block? I have no pen, no voice, no words,
no
no
thing! And my story is due in eleven days.

Dad says I'm too young to have writer's block. He got it once after a theater critic wrote a bad review of one of his plays. Dad had worked hard, and the actors had worked hard, and the director and stage manager and costume and set and lighting designers had all worked hard, and then a reporter sat down and didn't like the show and said so. People stopped coming, and the show closed early, and it was sad for Dad.

For a while, he started moping instead of writing.

That was no fun for him—or for us, either!

It helped a little when Dad's brother, Uncle Patrick, sent a note that said,

“The play was a great success but the audience was a disaster.”

Oscar Wilde

Dad taped it on the wall by his desk, and it's still there.

I wish someone would write me an encouraging note.

Today, Mom and Pip started planning Pip's birthday. She invited six seventh-graders to a slumber party. I think Mom's hoping the party will fix Pip's “social issues.”

Here's what I love about slumber parties:

1.
Staying up late

2.
Raiding the refrigerator

3.
Sleeping in sleeping bags

4.
Doing Mad Libs

This will be Pip's first real slumber party ever! She usually tries hard to stay off everyone's radar (R-A-D-A-R). I mean, if someone next to her sneezes, I bet she doesn't even say, “Bless you.”

It's as if Pip thinks people will bite—like the mean dogs Dr. Gross sometimes has to take care of. The ones that when they're hungry, the assistants open the cage door just a crack, put in the food really fast, and shut the door again before they snarl or nip or worse.

For Pip's party, Mom offered to bring party pets, including a one-eyed owl from the wildlife refuge center.

Pip said, “Mom, I'm not in second grade!”

I think Mom forgets how old Pip is because Pip doesn't act her age and I'm two and a half inches taller. (We just got checkups.)

Unlike me, Pip never keeps a diary. She's not a writer; she's a drawer.

Wait, that makes her sound like a piece of furniture! I mean, she's an artist—she likes to draw and sketch.

Questions:

Do artists ever get artist's block?

And
do
I have writer's block?

At least I have you. When I write in you, it's not for a prize or review or grade or anything.

I've decided to stop thinking about the dumb contest.

Who cares about it anyway? Even if I entered, I'd probably lose. I'm excellent at losing things.

AVA, BLOCKED

AFTER SCHOOL

DEAR DIARY,

I got a 100 on a spelling test but didn't even mention it.

AVA AGAIN (AGAIN)

BEDTIME

DEAR DIARY,

Yesterday, I asked Maybelle if she ever noticed that her name starts with
Maybe
.

“
Maybe
,”
Maybe
lle said and laughed. I think she must have, but then I'd never noticed that my family's names are all palindromic.

Last night, Maybelle
slept
over
, and this morning we
overslept
. She was supposed to be at a soccer game at ten sharp, but she forgot!

She's lucky—her mom didn't even get mad.

Today I wanted to ask my mom to help me think up story ideas, but she was busy with Pip. They were ordering helium balloons and a gigantic strawberry cake that says “Happy Birthday, Pip.” Now they're talking about what to put in the goody bags and what kind of pancakes to make on Sunday—blueberry or chocolate chip.

To tell you the truth, I'm getting sick of the whole subject. I know they don't want Pip's party to be a dud (D-U-D) and they want it to be really fun, or at least fun enuf (F-U-N-E-N-U-F). But Mom never makes a big deal about my birthdays.

And that's not fair. She's my mom too!

AVA, AN AFTERTHOUGHT?

AFTER SCHOOL

DEAR DIARY,

Pip came home from school
sobbing
. During first period, a girl told her that something came up and she couldn't go to Pip's party. During second period, a second girl told her the same thing. During third period, a third girl also said her plans had changed. In gym, when even Isabel, who lives three houses away, offered a lame excuse, Pip made her tell her what was going on. Isabel did, but that got Pip even more upset.

What she found out is that this new kid, Bea, who has long straight blond hair, is having a boy-girl party on Saturday—the first boy-girl party of seventh grade!

Pip said it wasn't fair that everyone was going to Bea's party when she'd known them longer and invited them first. Then she ran to the girls' room and hid out and ended up being late to science, and her teacher was giving a pop (P-O-P) quiz, so he gave her a zero.

Poor Pip! She's never gotten a zero before. She usually gets nothing but straight As because she's so smart and hardworking (even though she never participates).

Now she's in her bedroom doing an extra-credit science project to make up for the zero. She just came out with puffy eyes and said she hates the new girl's guts.

I said, “Me too.”

Pip called Mom at work, and Mom offered to call Isabel's parents or the new girl's parents, but Pip begged her not to and said it would only make everything worse.

I feel so bad for Pip. Even though I was getting sick of hearing about her party, I never thought she'd have to cancel it!

I wish I could help.

AVA THE ANGRY

I don't know what to write!

I still don't know what to write!!

I STILL don't know what to write!!!

LUNCH PERIOD

DEAR DIARY,

I told Mrs. Lemons I have writer's block and asked if it's curable. She said, “Ava, sometimes you just have to get out of your own way. I know you can write a wonderful story—no—lots of wonderful stories!”

I mumbled, “Thank you.”

Chuck, the boy who wants to be a boxer and who gets bus sick, added, “Ava, you stress out too much. Who even cares if you submit a dumb story or not?”

I mumbled, “I do.”

AVA, IN HER OWN WAY

AFTER DINNER

DEAR DIARY,

Yippee! I have a story idea! And it might help Pip feel better too!

Wish me luck. I have only three days.

Dad and I went to the copy shop to buy paper, and I confessed to him that I lost my pen. Dad didn't get mad at me because he could tell I was already mad at myself. He said that even great writers lose their pens from time to time and offered to buy me a new one.

I went up to the display and tried out scented pens and glittery pens and fountain pens and pens with feather tops and pens with gold ink and pens with erasable ink. Finally I picked out a pen with turquoise ink. It's cool, but it does not feel magical and obviously does not have “the luck of the Irish.”

On the way home, Dad told me the names of the four Irish writers who won the Nobel Prize: Yeats, Shaw, Beckett, and Heaney. He said I should read their books someday. I said, “Are they short?”

Dad laughed. The book he is now rereading is a thousand pages long! It's called
Ulysses
and is about one day in the life of one person in Ireland.

Dad started talking about “sloppy copy” (messy first drafts) and said, “Writers have to write and rewrite till they get it right.” He also said writers have to let their words “sit and marinate” so they can return to them with “fresh eyes.”

When Dad is in the middle of writing a play, he sometimes invites actors to come over to read the lines out loud in our dining room. This helps him figure out what works and what doesn't. Sometimes the actors come back a month later to read the same old play with brand-new changes.

Well, I can't let my words sit and marinate! I barely have enough time to “cook” them up in the first place!

Speaking of cooking, for dinner, we ordered in Chinese. (Actually, we
ordered
in English, but we got Chinese food.) Dessert was pineapple rings and fortune cookies, and I am taping my fortune here:

Was that message meant for me?? I haven't been working very hard lately.

This weekend, while stupid Bea has her stupid boy-girl party and Pip quietly turns thirteen, I plan to write and write.

Here's my title:

STING OF THE QUEEN BEE

Get it? “Queen Bee” as in
buzz buzz
and “Queen Bee” as in popular girl. That's a homonym. “Bee” can also mean contest as in “spelling bee.” And of course “bee” sounds like “Bea,” as in mean-awful-new-seventh-grade-girl.

Titles are my specialty.

AVA THE AMBITIOUS

BEDTIME

DEAR DIARY,

I spent all afternoon writing, and it felt as if I were in another world. I totally lost track of time! Suddenly Mom said, “Get dressed,” because we were going to the Kahiki for Pip's birthday.

The Kahiki is Pip's and my favorite restaurant. It is Polynesian and has big bubbling aquariums, flaming spicy meatballs, and steaming drinks that come with little umbrellas and overflow like gentle volcanoes.

Well, tonight Pip didn't eat much, and I could tell she was trying not to think about the giant seventh-grade boy-girl party that was going on right then.

Dad looked at all the food on our plates, and next thing you know, he started talking about rotten potatoes.

He said that in the middle of the 1800s, almost all the potatoes in Ireland went rotten, and there were “political problems,” and a million people starved to death, and another million left the country.

Obviously, this was a terrible tragedy and not “the luck of the Irish.” But if Dad's great-great-grandfather had
not
gotten on a boat to Boston, he would
not
have met my great-great-grandmother, and there'd be
no
Dad,
no
Pip, and
no
me
.

I would
not
have been born!!

Mom would have been born, but she would have been just a random lady named Anna, not my M-O-M—which is very strange to think about!!

Anyway, we were about to order cake for dessert, but Pip said, “I hate when waiters sing to me.” Personally, I
love
when waiters sing to me.

We drove home, and Mom, Dad, and I sang to Pip in our kitchen. She blew out the candles, and we ate some of the gigantic strawberry birthday cake. (Mom had canceled the balloons.)

It was pretty pitiful. Mom tried to liven things up by telling us about a boxer dog who ate his owner's underwear. “His
boxers
?” I asked, and Mom said, “No, it was a pair of pink panties!” I thought that was funny, but Pip looked like she couldn't care less about what kind of undies the dumb dog ate.

Dad tried to liven things up by saying that thirteen is a special number because if you rearrange the letters in “ELEVEN PLUS TWO,” you get “TWELVE PLUS ONE.” I thought that was funny, but Pip looked like she wasn't in the mood.

At least she got a lot of presents—way more than I ever get!

Mom and Dad gave her a watercolor set and a cell phone, and I gave her
Great
Expectations
because the main character's name is Pip. (It was Mr. Ramirez's suggestion.) Unfortunately, Pip already has that book, so now it's like I haven't given her anything!

A

P.S. Psssst: Pip doesn't need presents anyway. She needs friends—and maybe for her crush, whoever he is, to like her back. Is that asking for a miracle?

BEDTIME

DEAR DIARY,

Maybelle came over, and we took turns walking around backward and blindfolded while the other person gave directions on where to go. Then we polished off Pip's strawberry cake—bit by bit and bite by bite.

After Maybelle left, I spent all day writing. Dad said to think
BIG
, but a bee is
small
. I wrote the story by hand, then typed it on our computer. I had to check the word count over and over and kept adding and subtracting words as if I were working on a math problem, not a library story. Finally I put a moral at the end, the way Aesop does after his fables. If you include everything from the title to the moral, the story comes to exactly four hundred words.

I'm handing it in tomorrow, on the due date. Dad congratulated me for meeting the “deadline.” I said I didn't like that word.
Deadline
makes writing sound dangerous. Which it isn't, 'tis it (T-I-S-I-T)?

I printed out an extra copy and am stapling it here:

AVA THE AUTHOR