Don't Chicken Out Page 2

  Back into the kitchen she went for a refill. Mrs. Miltenberger, who was busy putting away dishes, said, “How’s it going?”

  “Fine and dandy,” Fiona replied, seeing how many pirouettes she could fit in before the water reached the top of the can. She spun around counting twelve and then yanked the watering can from the sink, splashing only a tiny bit on the counter.

  “Careful,” Mrs. Miltenberger said.

  Fiona was back at the lemon tree in no time at all, and in one turn of her wrist she emptied the watering can again. “Maybe now we’ll get some lemons,” she told the tree. Fiona swung the can around as she practiced more pirouettes, to celebrate the fruit that would surely come from such good and responsible watering. But on the fifth pirouette, her feet got all wobbly and knocked the can against the terra-cotta pot. The can fell to the floor, and she quickly put her hands on the pot to steady it. Knocking over a lemon tree, even a lemon of a lemon tree, would not be a very grown-up thing to do.

  She picked up the watering can to return it to the kitchen. And that’s when she saw water running out of the pot. At first it was only a little bit. Her dad, who was a meteorologist, would have called it a “light drizzle.” It trickled from the side of the pot, where Fiona now saw there was a crack, and then onto the wooden plant stand. She put her hand on top of the crack to keep the water in, and that’s when the gushing started. A downpour, really.

  Fiona thought fast. She looked around the room and grabbed some clothes from the laundry basket next to the couch. She sopped up the water from the carpet with a couple of her dad’s work shirts and then went back for more. She grabbed a handful of clothes, and for a second, she wondered if there was any underwear in there. She hoped there wasn’t, but in an emergency, there was no time to check for underwear. And this was an emergency.

  Fiona strung some of the clothes around the bottom of the pot to catch the water before it reached the carpet. And then she stuffed the rest of the clothes right into the dirt to soak up what hadn’t yet made it out. That seemed to do the trick. Except for a few drips, the rain had stopped. Fiona stood back and admired her quick thinking.

  The admiration didn’t last very long, though, because right about that time Mrs. Miltenberger finished doing the dishes. “Blazes!” she shouted, covering her eyes with her hands. “What have you done?”

  Fiona started to explain, but Mrs. Miltenberger cut her off and yelled, “Out! Out! Out!” She pointed to the door with a look on her face that was usually reserved for Max.

  This was some kind of thanks she got for trying to help. Fiona trudged over to the door, feeling as un–grown up as ever.

  • Chapter 4 •

  Fiona trudged down Juniper Street. She didn’t know where she was going. But that was the thing about trudging—you just kept going and going and didn’t know where you’d end up.

  She trudged across Ordinary. The whole time she wondered why you couldn’t just say you were grown up and then actually be grown up. Why did it have to be so hard? Always, so hard. And when would it happen? Would she just wake up one day and then somebody would say, “Good morning, Fiona Finkelstein, you are now officially a grown-up and you can do anything you want, including getting a monkey!”?

  Fiona wondered what it felt like to be a grown-up. She figured at the very least it must feel like you’ve got bags of sand tied to your toes because every grown-up she knew was on the slow side and seemed tired an awful lot. Just in case, she checked her feet at every corner. But they didn’t feel any heavier. And she couldn’t feel any sand, no grit between her toes.

  Fiona was continuing her trudge along the north side of Baker’s Park when she saw something that made her feet stop dead. On the other side of the park, across the Great Lawn and next to the clock tower, she saw a boy holding a leash. And on the other end of that leash was a chicken.

  She had seen people walk all sorts of things before—dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits even. At the mall, sometimes she even saw little kids on leashes. Which Mrs. Miltenberger always said was a “disgrace” and that you’d never catch her putting Max on a leash no matter how much of a darter he was. And no matter how much Fiona said she should.

  But never before had Fiona seen a boy walking a chicken.

  She watched for a while, watched as they walked along like it was the most perfectly ordinary thing to do. Some people came up to them, others pointed, but this boy and this chicken did not stop for anyone. They crossed the street, and she lost sight of them for a moment behind a line of parked cars. When they made a left turn down Washington Avenue, Fiona was afraid that she’d lose sight of them for good. So she started to run.

  It surprised her how quickly she made it across the Great Lawn. She turned left on Washington Avenue, just like they did, expecting them to be right there. But except for a man pulling weeds out of the cracks in the sidewalk, the street was empty.

  “Did you see a boy with a chicken?” Fiona shouted to the guy pulling weeds. She bent over and rested her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

  “With a what?”

  “A chicken,” she said. “He was walking a chicken!”

  The man shook his head and muttered, “Crazy girl. Why would a person walk a chicken?”

  This was exactly what Fiona wanted to know. She ran to the end of the street, checking the sidewalk for clues like feathers or chicken scratch or eggs. Nothing. She circled back toward the park and wandered up and down the side streets asking anybody she met if they had seen the chicken boy. No one had.

  After a while, with no sign of either the boy or the chicken, she began to wonder if she really had seen what she thought she saw. Or if all that trudging made her see things that weren’t there. Maybe, she thought, the chicken boy was mysterious like Bigfoot, out there somewhere but hardly ever seen.

  As she headed back home, Fiona thought about how searching for Bigfoot must be a very hard job, one that was probably meant for grown-ups, on account of the fact that Bigfoot is probably big all over (not just his foot) and only a grown-up would be brave enough to face him. And also because it was common knowledge that Bigfoot ate kids like candy.

  Bigfoot hunter was not the kind of job Fiona would ever want; that she knew for sure. Still, if you wanted to prove that you were grown up and responsible, catching Bigfoot would be a surefire way to do it, Fiona thought. Actually, you’d probably have to be pretty grown up on the inside to have any kind of job at all.

  She sat on the curb to rest her tired legs. She looked around. In her search for the chicken boy, Fiona hadn’t paid too close attention to where she’d ended up. So many of these streets looked the same—houses, trees, porch swings. Same, same. But as soon as she saw the red brick building on the corner, Fiona knew exactly where she was. And she had an idea!

  She made her tired legs run again, across the street and up the stairs to La Petite Academy. The door to the practice room was closed, but Fiona watched through the glass panel. Madame Vallee stood at the front of the class with the heels of her fancy black shoes pressed tightly together. She nodded as the girls practiced the rond de jambe at the bar.

  Fiona went into the hall and waited for the class to end. While she waited, she watched a tiny spider crawl up the pink wall and disappear behind a picture frame. Fiona wondered if the spider was just out for a stroll or if it had made a home behind the frame. Or if it was simply paying someone a visit, on account of the fact that its father and everybody else in Spiderland thought it was grown up enough to do things by itself.

  Finally the door swung open and all of the girls flooded the hall with high-pitched chatter on their way to the dressing room. Fiona pressed herself against the wall to get out of their way, and when they passed, she slipped into the practice room.

  “The early bird eats the worm, Fiona?” Madame Vallee said. “You are two days early for lesson.”

  Fiona followed her to the CD player on a table against the back wall. “I wanted to ask you a question.”

  Madame Va
llee removed a CD from the player and slid it into a plastic sleeve. “What is it, my darling?”

  “I’ve been noticing lately that you look really tired.” This was not true, of course. Madame Vallee always looked very nice and very awake, but this was the only way Fiona thought she might be able to get what she wanted.

  Madame Vallee smoothed her hair with her fingers and adjusted a pin in her bun. “How is this a question? Tired? What do you say to me? This is a joke, yes?”

  Fiona shook her head. “I’m just saying that you must be working too hard.”

  Madame Vallee raised her eyebrows. “Yes, well, the hard work does not do itself.”

  “You’re not a spring chicken, you know,” said Fiona. “You need to get some rest. I saw on TV the other day that women your age are on the go too much and don’t get enough rest.”

  Madame Vallee put both hands on the bar and leaned against it. “My gracious. Well, tell me. What did TV say I should do?”

  “It said you should ask for help,” said Fiona.

  “It said I should ask for some help?” asked Madame Vallee.

  “Well, not you exactly, but, you know, women your age and stuff.” Fiona cleared her throat. “I mean, I think you could use some help around here.”

  Madame Vallee looked at the ceiling and seemed to give this some thought. “What would I get help with?”

  “You know, with the ballet teaching and things like that.”

  “I have had thought about part-time teacher,” she said. “My classes are quite large in size.”

  “See?” Fiona clapped.

  “Thank you, Fiona,” said Madame Vallee. She cupped Fiona’s chin with her palm. “You are a very sweet girl, as well as a good dancer. I will consider it.”

  “When do I start? I mean, after you are done considering it.”

  “Start?” said Madam Vallee.

  “Being your helper.”

  “Oh, you didn’t think . . .” Madame Vallee gently brushed Fiona’s cheek and laughed. “No, no, my darling. You cannot possibly be helper.”

  “Why not? You said . . .”

  “I was thinking of my niece,” she said. “She is older. But don’t worry, not old like me. She still is spring chicken.”

  “But I can do lots of things to help you,” said Fiona. “I’ve been taking ballet lessons from you for a long time, so I know what stuff needs to be done around here.”

  “That is very true.” Madame Vallee rested her hand on Fiona’s arm. “Thank you for your offer. If you were a tiny bit older, I would snap you up like this.” She raised both hands above her head and clicked her fingers.

  “But you should snap me up like that now,” said Fiona, clicking her fingers at Madame Vallee in return, “because I’ll be a tiny bit older really soon. Like now. I’m older now than I was a few seconds ago. And now. I’m older again. And again!”

  Madame Vallee laughed. She rested her hand on her chest, and her fingers danced at her neck. “You’re a comedienne.”

  “A what?” asked Fiona.

  “You make me laugh always.” Madame Vallee glided across the practice room and out the door.

  That was good and all, but it didn’t help Fiona much. Really not at all.

  • Chapter 5 •

  The next day at school, before the first bell, Fiona told Cleo how she gave Madame Vallee the idea to hire a helper. And then how Madame gave the job to somebody else. “What other kinds of jobs are there?”

  Cleo shook her head. “Don’t know.”

  “Hey,” said Fiona. “You have a job. Maybe I could get a job at your mom and dad’s restaurant.”

  Cleo raised her eyebrows. “Doing what?”

  “I don’t know. The things that you do, like filling salt and pepper shakers and ketchup bottles. Saying hello to people and taking them to their table.”

  “You want a job saying hello to people?” said Cleo.

  “Not just hello,” said Fiona. “I also said I’d take them to their table.”

  “That’s my job,” said Cleo. “And so is wrapping silverware, filling salt and pepper shakers.”

  “And ketchup?”

  “That too.”

  “Well, what else is there to do?”

  Cleo shrugged. “Cook, deliver food, run the cash register.”

  “Ooh, the cash register,” said Fiona. “I’ll do that.”

  “No, you won’t,” said Cleo, cracking her knuckles. “My mom does. And you have to be at least sixteen to cook or wait tables. Maybe you could scrape the food off the plates before they go into the dishwasher.”

  Fiona groaned. “Would I have to touch the food?”

  “It usually just slides off into the trash can,” said Cleo.

  “What if the food doesn’t want to come off the plate? Then would I have to touch it?”

  Cleo sighed. “You’d have gloves on.”

  “So I’d have to touch the food with gloves on?”

  Cleo’s face got red. But before she could say anything, Mr. Bland handed a stack of papers to Cleo and asked her to hand them out. Fiona panicked. Mr. Bland liked to give a quiz when you were least expecting it, which was one of a very long list of reasons why Mr. Bland was Fiona’s least favorite teacher in the whole entire world.

  When Fiona got her paper, she was relieved to find that it wasn’t a quiz. It was a map of the Great Ordinary Fair. Every building, pavilion, and snack shop was marked, and at the center of it all was the Great Ferris Wheel—a giant O for “Ordinary.” When it was lit up, you could see it from miles away. Looping through all of the buildings and rides were paths that on the map looked like strings of spaghetti. And handwritten on each path were Xs and the names of the kids in Fiona’s class.

  “I’ve divided up our class into groups of two,” Mr. Bland explained. “And you’ll find your names next to an X on this map. This is where you’ll be stationed.”

  Fiona found her name along with Cleo’s next to Bridgette’s Mum Stand, where they sold chrysanthemums in big plastic pots. Nobody ever went to Bridgette’s Mum Stand. It was the farthest X from the rides and farm animals. Fiona didn’t have anything against mums—they were a perfectly fine and dandy flower—but nobody came to the Great Ordinary Fair to buy a flowerpot that they’d have to lug around the whole time.

  Which meant that nobody would be in Fiona and Cleo’s area, which meant that Fiona and Cleo would have nobody to give maps to.

  “Not fair!” was what Fiona was thinking. And then what she was thinking accidentally came out of her mouth.

  “Excuse me?” said Mr. Bland.

  Fiona held up the map and pointed to the X with her name on it. “But we’re way far away from all the fun stuff. You know, where all the people will be. Who are we supposed to give maps to over there?”

  Mr. Bland said, “If you’d like to skip the fair altogether, that can be arranged. Just keep talking.”

  Cleo looked at Fiona and mouthed, Stop. Which is what Fiona did. Right after she said, “But can’t we at least be near the Ferris wheel or something?”

  Cleo put her head down on her desk as Mr. Bland said, “Why don’t you take a walk down the hall to Principal Sterling’s office. Milo, please make sure she doesn’t get lost.”

  • • •

  “I know how to get there,” Fiona told Milo once they were in the hall.

  “Why did you keep talking after he warned you?” said Milo. “What did you think was going to happen?”

  Fiona shrugged. “Sometimes words just come out of my mouth before I know what’s happening. And then it’s too late.”

  Milo shook his head. “I know.”

  They reached Principal Sterling’s office, and Milo left Fiona with Mrs. Little, the school secretary. She was busy typing at her computer and didn’t see Fiona standing there at first. But when she finally looked away from her screen, she sighed and said, “What is it this time, Fiona?”

  “Mr. Bland sent me down here to talk to Principal Sterling.”

  “
About?”

  “Complaining too much, I think.”

  “You think?” said Mrs. Little.

  Fiona nodded.

  “Hold on a minute.” Mrs. Little knocked on Principal Sterling’s door and then stuck her head inside. Fiona heard her name and some whispering, but she couldn’t make out the words. Mrs. Little returned to her desk and said, “Go on in, Fiona.”

  Fiona crossed the room and slowly pushed open the door to Principal Sterling’s office. Principal Sterling closed a folder on her desk and waved Fiona in. “Have a seat,” she said. “You and Mr. Bland are having another difficult day?”

  Fiona nodded and tried to explain. But Principal Sterling held her hand up in the air until Fiona got quiet. Then she took off her red glasses, which Fiona had always liked, rubbed her eyes, and said, “Mr. Bland is your teacher, and you need to remember your place in his classroom, Fiona.”

  “But . . .”

  Principal Sterling held up her hand again. “You’re in fourth grade, and you should know how to listen and follow rules by now. It’s Mr. Bland’s job to make sure you learn what you need to learn. But you have a job, too. Your job is to listen and follow the rules so that you can learn.”

  Fiona thought that scraping food (with gloves on) sounded like a better job than listening and following Mr. Bland’s rules. Especially when the rules weren’t fair. Besides, what was she supposed to learn by handing out maps to nobody? Nothing, if you asked her.

  Principal Sterling put her elbows on her desk and leaned forward. “So, let’s cooperate and try to act a little bit more grown up.”

  “But I am trying,” said Fiona. Why couldn’t anybody see that?

  • Chapter 6 •