Rule of Three (18 page)

“Then what happened?” Joey asked.

Alex, Joey, and I were all three sitting cross-legged on my bed, and I, Yours Truly, had called a meeting of the Sisters Club. After our secret handshake, I told my sisters all about Mom dragging me to the studio and barging into the program manager’s office and blurting out her Big Idea. I still had my hoodie on, pulled tight around my face, and I hadn’t yet breathed a word about an even bigger surprise still to come.

“I’ve never seen Mom talk so fast,” I told my sisters. “We’re talking spit flying.”

“Ooh,” said Joey, wiping her face like it was happening right then.

“So, go on,” Alex coaxed.

“Mom told her boss that her daughter
(moi)
gave her a wonderful idea, and that they should do a whole show on cooking with emotion, you know, like baking stuff when you feel lousy or happy or just plain blue. She explained that I’ve been making these I-Hate-My-Sister cupcakes and everything — Sorry, Alex! — and how she’d like to do a show about channeling your feelings and stuff through cooking and baking.”

“So, hurry up, tell us, what did the Big Boss say?”

For a second, I could hardly breathe, being back with my sisters, having a meeting of the Sisters Club, like old times.

“So Betsy, Mom’s boss, she had to clear it with the station manager, Mr. Morrissey, and he came over and went like this.” In a deep, sort of scary voice, I said, “‘I don’t like it, Susan. I
love
it!’”

“Aaah!” Joey squealed and Alex clapped her hands together.

“Wait, that’s not all,” I said, trying to eke out the suspense. “Mom morphed into this other person and said, ‘Let’s talk turkey, Nolan,’ and I thought she meant a show about turkey, you know, like for Thanksgiving, but then I got it that she meant money, because next thing I knew I was back out in the hall reading about meerkats in a ripped-up
National Geographic.
”

“I love meerkats!” said Joey.

“So there I was, reading all about meerkat superfamilies and thinking how these guys were so cool. I learned that their life span is only like ten years and just when I was getting bummed out thinking that if I were a meerkat, I would be, well, let’s face it — dead — Mom came out and hugged me. l mean, lifted me up off the floor and told me they’d renewed her show for thirteen more episodes!”

More squealing from Alex and Joey.

“And . . .” I waited for them to calm down. “AND . . . here I was picturing myself in Meerkat Heaven when the Big Boss said, “Stevie, how would you like to be on TV? Betsy’s told me her idea and we’d love for you to come on the show. After all, you were the inspiration.”

My sisters jumped up and down and hugged each other and Joey said, “Amazingness!”

Alex made a poor-me face and fake-whined, “I’m so jealous!”

“Yeah, I know it’s cool and everything, but just think of the stage fright!” I squealed. “I mean, it’s TV!”

“Don’t worry,” Alex said, brushing my bangs to the side. “I can give you some acting tips so you won’t hurl in front of a live studio audience or anything.” Joey and I laughed, and Alex smiled, her eyes flashing in a happy-for-me kind of way, not a green-eyed-monster kind of way.

All of a sudden, I sprang up off the bed and rooted through a jumble of clothes in my bottom drawer. I pulled out the black shirt I’d worn for the audition. “Here’s your black shirt, by the way,” I said, giving it back to Alex.

“Aren’t you ever going to take your coat off and stay awhile?” Joey asked, eyeing my laced-up hoodie.

I took a deep breath and loosened the ties around my hood. “Ta-da!” I said, tossing back my hood and revealing my surprise.

“Holy Hamlet!” Alex shrieked when she saw my hair.

“Leaping Lady Macbeth!” Joey said, sucking in a breath. She held one hand over her mouth while she pointed at my head with the other.

“Your hair! You cut off your hair?!” Alex shrieked again. “It’s shorter than Shakespeare’s! Shorter than Hamlet’s!”

“But you’re not as bald as Humpty Dumpty,” said Joey, giggling.

“Look who’s talking!” I said, and all three of us cracked up.

“Who unhaired you?” Joey asked.

“Yeah, when did this happen?” asked Alex.

“On the way home,” I said.

My sisters circled around me, like I was the bride at a wedding or whatever, inspecting me from all sides.

“‘As she spoke, Jo’— I mean Stevie —‘took off her bonnet, and a general outcry arose,’” Joey said, reciting lines from her beloved Chapter 15, “‘for all her abundant hair was cut short.’”

“That bad, huh?” I asked. “Do I look like an elf?”

“No,” said Alex. “It’s sassy-chic. Makes you look older.”

“And your ears don’t even stick out,” said Joey.

Once my sisters and I had recovered from
Short Hair Shock, we realized we still had the rest of the day together without a play or a practice or a cake-off. Alex, Joey, and I sat on the floor in the family room, watching the video Dad took of
Once Upon a Mattress,
and laughing our heads off.

“Wait. Back it up, back it up,” said Joey. “I gotta see that prince guy slip on the banana peel again.”

“I can’t believe that wasn’t actually on purpose,” I said.

“Good thing everybody thought it was, though,” said Alex.

We watched the whole thing, reciting lines and singing along with the songs. And the parts where stuff went wrong — we watched those at least three times each.

“Read again what they said in the review,” said Alex.

I grabbed the sheets I had printed off the school website and read aloud. “‘It’s a tragedy that more people did not turn out to see the musical comedy
Once Upon a Mattress.
’”

“Just skip to the good parts,” said Joey.

“OK, OK. Here we go. ‘Despite a few stumbles in the first half, the cast of
Once Upon a Mattress
cleverly turned these mishaps to their advantage, adding funny moments with comic timing that could not have been better had they been rehearsed.’

“Here’s my favorite part. ‘One such move had Stevie Reel, sister to Alex, the play’s lead, stepping out of the chorus to fill in the lyrics on “Happily Ever After” with her singular, silver-tongued voice.’”

“Where do they get this stuff?” asked Alex. “Keep going. Read my favorite part.”

“‘A bold move by Alex Reel had her playing Princess Winnifred with short, cropped hair. Reel could not have been more energetic, springing to life in Act 2, full of spit and vinegar.’”

“Remind me again why ‘full of spit’ is a good thing?” Joey asked.

Alex leaned back against the couch and howled.

“Speaking of vinegar, what do you say I hit the kitchen so we can mack on some cupcakes with bomb frosting?” I teased, imitating the glam girls in one of Alex’s teen magazines.

“Snack Attack!” said Joey.

“What’s that got to do with vinegar?” Alex asked. I didn’t dare tell them that even Pink Velvet cupcakes called for my secret ingredient — a dash of vinegar.

On my way back with the positively perfect Pink Velvets, I paused for a moment in the doorway before crossing the threshold to the family room. My sisters were elbow-wrestling and comparing feet and Alex was trying out sparkly clips in Joey’s short hair.

Joey chewed on her pencil, probably dreaming up a new list, while Alex twined her necklace around her finger. Comedy and Tragedy were reunited, back where they belonged.

Alex wasn’t just Actress. Big Sister. Fink Face. Wicked Witch. Beauty. Green-Eyed Monster. Porcupine. Princess.

She was all of those things.

Joey, too. Jo, J-o-e, Reader, Writer, Little Sister, List-maker, Duck, Funny Girl.

And so was I: Singer. Baker. Sister. Peacemaker.

Watching my sisters, it hit me for the first time in a very long time that I wasn’t wishing for things to be the way they used to be. I liked who we were in that moment.
Happy in our own skins.

As Will himself said,
All’s Well That Ends Well.
For a way-old Wise Guy, that guy sure had smarts.

“Drum roll, please,” I said, presenting my cupcakes.

“Finally! We get to eat the Make-Up cupcakes.” Before you could say Nosey Parker, Joey had pink icing on her nose.

I handed Alex the Princess-and-the-Pea cupcake made especially for her. It had twenty (count them) rainbow stripes of icing for the twenty mattresses in the play, and one green pea sticking out from underneath. And on top, a single candy heart that said,
EVER AFTER.

I crawled across the well-loved corduroy couch and plopped down in the middle of my two sisters. The room went quiet for a minute, except for lip-smacking sounds, that is.

“Cupcakes. Oh, aren’t cupcakes divinity?” Joey asked, imitating Amy in
Little Women.

“Question,” said Alex, who couldn’t help staring at my short hair again. “Don’t get me wrong, your hair looks great, but, why —?”

“Why would I chop off my hair
on purpose
if I didn’t have to?”

“Exactly,” said Alex, cracking up.

Sisterhood,
I was thinking as I pulled my sisters in tight. How could I explain it to Alex?

“I can’t be the only one around here with Rapunzel hair. How else is everybody going to know we’re sisters?”

Knife, Fork, Spoon.

Rock, Paper, Scissors.

It’s the Rule of Three.

“It’ll work,” Alex said. “Okay, you guys. Be serious. This is it. Close your eyes. I’m going to say something Shakespeare, and you can’t fight me on it. Then I’ll count to three. On the count of three, open your eyes, and we each toss our Special Objects into the fire at the same time. Ready? Remember, the most important part is you have to
believe.”

I closed my eyes. The darkness heightened every sound — wind whipping through the trees outside, the ticking of the old mantel clock, my sisters’ breathing. My own heart thumping.

That’s when I knew I wanted to wish for something besides just ordinary good luck. It was probably just hocus-pocus, but somehow — call it the storm, the dark, the firelight — this felt bigger than a birthday-candle wish.

I’d wish for . . . something new and exciting to happen to me. Something different. Something daring. Like when I tried out to be in the musical
Once Upon a Mattress.
Or entered a Cupcake Cooking Contest.