Just Grace and the Terrible Tutu (2 page)

 

Before she went home for supper, Mimi made me promise not to tell her sister secret to anyone—not even Augustine Dupre. This was a hard promise to make. Augustine Dupre is the flight attendant who lives in the little apartment in my basement, and even though she is all grown up, she is still one of my best friends. One of the best things about Augustine Dupre is that she is a great listener. It's always super easy to tell her stuff. Sometimes I tell her things that I didn't even know my brain was thinking. The words just come out of my mouth and float straight up to her ears. I thought about it for a moment and then I said, "Okay, I promise!" But inside my head my brain was thinking,
It's not going to be easy.

WHAT MINI RAN BACK TO TELL ME AFTER SHE LEFT

"Oh, I forgot," said Mimi. "You can tell your mom, because my mom told her so she already knows." So of course as soon as Mimi left again I ran into the kitchen to find Mom. "You knew? How come you didn't tell me? Mom! How could you keep such a super-big secret and not tell me?" Mom looked at me and said, "What secret, honey?" Mom is very sneaky. You can't fool her into telling you a secret just by pretending you already know it. "Mimi's sister secret!" I said. "Oh," said Mom. "That secret. I'm glad she told you. Isn't it exciting? Now she'll be a big sister. She must be thrilled." Mom was so smiling and happy that I mostly forgot to be mad at her for keeping it from me.

 

"And guess what, Mom?" I could hardly wait to tell her the next part. "She gets to pick out stuff for the room, and if it's a baby maybe even pick out her name. Isn't that cool? She could call her Vanilla or Jessica or Violet or..." And then I sat down with some paper to make a list because I was super excited and my brain was thinking of all sorts of cool names. Sometimes great thoughts don't stay in your head. That's why it's good to write stuff down. It was a good thing I was doing that, because two minutes later Mom said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you about Mrs. Luther. Did you know she moved away for four months?" I was so surprised that if I hadn't already written down Jasmine, I would have for sure forgotten it. And that would have been too bad, because Jasmine is a really good girl name.

WHAT I SAID TO MOM

"Why are there so many surprises all of a sudden? Why can't there just be one new thing at a time? Why do we have to have a hundred new things and changes all on the same day?" Mom gave me her look that means
I don't know what you are talking about
and
Can you please calm down?
She uses the same look for two different things. After she does the look she always puts her hands on her hips.

 

Sometimes that part makes me smile because I am watching for it to happen, and then when it happens I think,
Ah-ha! I knew you were going to do that.

"Okay, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Where did Mrs. Luther go?" I tried extra hard not to use my attitude voice. If Mom even thinks I am using the attitude voice she gives me her big talk about attitude. And I didn't want to hear about appropriate voice choices—I wanted to hear about Mrs. Luther. It took Mom a long time to explain the Mrs. Luther story. She added a lot of details that I was not very interested in. Superlong stories can sometimes be tiring, and you might have to move around a lot while listening.

 

MRS. LUTHER'S STORY

Mrs. Luther, my neighbor, had left her house and gone to work at another school for four months. It was a teacher emergency thing. She was like a superhero substitute.

 

This part of the story was not very exciting. Mrs. Luther is nice, but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to miss her very much while she was away. I do not go to her house or even see her very often. Mom was still talking, but I was having trouble listening because suddenly my brain was full of thinking about Crinkles. Crinkles is Mrs. Luther's cat, and just about the nicest cat in the whole world. Everyone that meets him just falls totally and madly in love with him.

 

I had to stop Mom's story right that minute, even though she was not finished talking. "Mom! What about Crinkles? Did she take him too?" I was asking this because the person who maybe loves Crinkles the most in the whole world lives right downstairs in my basement. If Mrs. Luther had taken Crinkles away, Augustine Dupre was for sure going to have a broken heart!

Of course Mom didn't know anything about Crinkles. She is not very good about collecting important information. Even though she loves to watch police shows, she would be a terrible detective.

WHAT MOM DID KNOW

While Mrs. Luther was gone, a French family that was friends with Augustine Dupre was going to move in. They were going to stay in Mrs. Luther's house so that they could be away from their own house while it was getting a new kitchen. This was the 100 percent exciting part of the story! Augustine Dupre is one of my most favorite people ever, and now we were going to get to live next door to some of her fancy French friends!

I lifted my arms up and said, "Mom, wow!" This is the new saying I made up for Mom. I only use it when she tells me some thing amazing, or when we are together and something super-good happens. It's special and just for her. She loves it!

 

Of course now I was dying to go downstairs and talk to Augustine Dupre. Usually I am not allowed to visit her after six p.m. or dinner, whichever comes first. Mom's big saying is "Grace, Augustine Dupre is not paying rent for the privilege of constantly entertaining a chatty eight-year-old." But this time even though it was after six-thirty, she did not say that. Instead she said, "Okay, go ahead." Maybe it was the power of the MOM, WOW.

AUGUSTINE DUPRE

Augustine Dupre has the best apartment ever. It is colorful and glamorous, and every time I see it, she has some kind of new French decoration making it look even fancier. She pretty much gets new stuff from France every week. Augustine Dupre is a flight attendant for a French airline, and if you like to collect nice stuff from France, this seems like the perfect job to have.

 

Augustine Dupre always knows when it's me knocking at her door. I made up a special knock so she wouldn't have to get worried and kick Crinkles out. So when I do my knock she always knows right away it's me.

Augustine Dupre is not allowed to have any pets in her apartment. This is one of Dad's rules, so if Dad is around, she has to shoo Crinkles away and pretend like he was never there.

As soon as I walked in I saw Crinkles sitting on Augustine Dupre's sofa. I couldn't believe Mrs. Luther had left him. It was like Augustine Dupre could read my mind, because the next thing she said was "I am going to help take care of Crinkles while Mrs. Luther is away." Then she put her fingers up to her mouth and made a shushing sound. I knew exactly what she was meaning. She was saying, "It's our secret—don't tell your dad." Of course she didn't have to worry about me, because I know how to keep a secret. And now I had two.