Just Grace and the Terrible Tutu (13 page)

 

Sunni gave me her note. Her script writing was excellent, which was no surprise. It was nice that she wrote me a compliment.

 

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER SCHOOL

Sammy wanted to walk home with Mimi and me so he could get his stone. It was nice to have Mimi being normal again and being friendly to Sammy. As soon as we got to my front yard Lily came running over. "Hi, Grace." She grabbed my hand like we were best friends. She said hi to Mimi too, but she did not say her name. I was sorry about that. Mom says you should use a person's name when you meet them, because it makes them feel more special. She is right about that, because it really does.

HERE IS AN EXAMPLE:

 

I introduced Lily to Sammy, but she said she'd already met him when he'd gotten his jar of rocks. They kind of just smiled at each other and didn't say anything.

Today Lily was wearing a yellow tutu. I was suddenly getting the feeling that she probably had a big collection of tutus in all sorts of colors.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

Lily's mom, Yvonne, came over to drag Lily back to their house. This was a big relief, because I had a lot to do for the show, plus I had all my regular homework too. I did not have any extra time left over to be playing with Lily. Everyone else went home too except for Sammy. He waited on the front steps while I ran in to get his rock.

 

WHAT I WOULD NEVER SAY

"Wow! This is a great rock—thank you." But coming out of Sammy's mouth it sounded perfectly normal, and it made me happy.

 

WHAT I SAW THAT WAS UNUSUAL

After Sammy left, I saw Mimi standing in Mrs. Luther's driveway. She was talking to Yvonne and Lily. Normally I would have run over there to see what was going on, but instead I made myself sneak over to Mimi's house to talk to her mom about part two.

WHAT FEELS GOOD

Mimi's mom is so nice. Now that I did my talking to her, it's hard to even remember why I was thinking I was going to be nervous about it. She said yes to part two of the plan. And the best part of all was that Mimi didn't even see me asking her. The show was still going to be a surprise, and I was happy about that! It made it even more exciting.

I was back in my yard when Mimi walked back from Mrs. Luther's. "I was giving Yvonne my old hula hoops for Lily," said Mimi. "Good idea," I said.

Mimi couldn't talk anymore because her mom called her in for dinner. As I was waving goodbye it looked like her mom winked at me, or maybe a bug flew in her eye. It was hard to tell 100 percent, but I was pretty sure it was a wink.

PART FOUR OF THE PLAN

Part four of the plan is the making part of the plan, and it was probably going to take a long time to finish it. The bad thing about a big plan is that when you are doing the thinking part of the plan, everything is very exciting and the plan seems like it will be fast and easy to finish. But when you really start working on it, that's when you suddenly know that you were wrong and that the doing part isn't going to be so fast and easy after all.

HOW TO MAKE A SHADOW PUPPET

A. DRAW PICTURE
It's best to draw on black paper with
a white crayon. That way you can see
your line better.

 

B. CUT OUT PICTURE
You can use scissors.

 

PART FIVE OF THE PLAN

Ask Mom to help.

 

Mom is going to do all the cutting parts and I am going to do the drawing part. Now, with her helping, it is not going to take so long. Mom said she was happy to be helping. She was especially happy after I told her that I really got the idea from something she did for me.

WHAT MOM DID TO HELP ME AT MY FIRST SLEEPOVER AT MIMI'S HOUSE

Even though Mimi lives just next door, when I was little I was scared to sleep in a bed that was not in my room. I really wanted to sleep over at Mimi's, but I did not want to miss Mom saying good night to me. Mom told me she had a surprise for me, and that when it was bedtime at Mimi's house she wanted me to look out Mimi's window and watch my bedroom window.

This is the show she made me. It started with window one and ended with window three.

 

Mom always used to call me her little star, so this was a perfect little show for me to see.

THIS IS HOW MOM DID IT

 

WHAT LILY WAS WEARING ON THURSDAY

Lily was wearing a green tutu. She didn't see me watching her from the front yard, so I shouted her name and waved. This was new for me. NO hiding.

Mimi came out a few minutes later and we had a nice walk to school—just the two of us.

THE BIG THING THAT HAPPENED AT SCHOOL

The only interesting thing that happened at school today was that Miss Lois gave Owen 1 a gold star on his folder for going the whole entire day without playing with the Velcro on his shoes. This probably made it a big special day for him, but for the rest of us it was just like any other day except without the ripping noise.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER SCHOOL

I told Mimi I wanted to get home to do my homework, but really I needed to get working on the show. Mimi said she was going to do some more sister-room designing. I could tell that she was still really nervous about making the right choices, because now she was thinking about having the room be totally decorated with teddy bears. Yesterday she said it was going to be bunnies, or ducks, or balloons. She was having a hard time deciding on anything. I was having the feeling that the sister-room project was not turning out to be as much fun as she thought it would be.