The Wondrous World of Violet Barnaby Page 6

  “Sure, he’ll call back,” Olivia answered. “As soon as Big-Hair Barbie lets him off his leash.” Big-Hair Barbie is what Olivia calls her dad’s wife.

  I stared at my plate and kept quiet, but I was mad, too. I’d spent two afternoons this week watching Joey, and it was kind of nice hanging out with him. We mostly just sat at the table, and he played with his action figures while I did my homework. Every time I looked up a new word in my dictionary, I let Joey highlight it, which he thought was the coolest thing ever.

  Mr. Vanderberg, Joey and Olivia’s dad, lives in Texas. He sends checks every month and buys them both a pile of presents for their birthdays. As far as I can tell, the only thing he won’t buy them is plane tickets so they can actually go visit him. Olivia told me it’s because Big-Hair Barbie doesn’t want them around Charlie, their half-brother.

  Just then my phone pinged with a text from Austin:

  I’m bored!

  I smiled and texted back:

  So? Go DO something! Have you done any research for our Egyptian essay yet?

  Besides hanging out in Miss Mallery’s class, Austin and I had been texting back and forth a lot the last few days. He’d asked me a couple questions about Mom, and I found myself telling him—well, texting him—stuff I’d never told anyone else. Like how I’d read to Mom when she was in pain, or how I’d play the piano for her—even though I’m not all that great at it—when she was too tired to play herself, how I’d dragged her old record player into her room and we’d listen to Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald over and over again.

  Somehow, it felt easier to text about those things than to say them out loud.

  No. What’s to research? They lived. They built the pyramids. Then they died. They’re history! Get it, Wordnerd?

  He’d started calling me Wordnerd after I told him a couple days ago about my nightly walkie-talkie chats with Izzy and our old code names. Although Izzy and I hadn’t talked last night. I’d been so busy texting with Austin, I’d forgotten to switch my walkie on; so I don’t know if she tried to call me.

  “Can someone pass the syrup?” Dad asked. Before I could move an inch, Olivia was out of her seat and handing it to him.

  “Thanks, Olivia,” he said. Then his voice became stern. “Violet, how many times have I told you no texting at the table?”

  The correct answer was zero. Before Melanie came along, Dad didn’t care. We rarely ate our meals at the table; a lot of times it was just takeout in front of the TV, but I knew not to push it.

  “I’m just finishing up,” I said.

  Can’t talk right now. Text you later.

  After I finished, I tucked my phone under my napkin.

  “We’ll call your dad together later,” Melanie said to Joey in the steely voice she reserves for students who disrupt her class. “Trust me. He’ll be there.” Her voice brightened. “But in the meantime . . . I have plans for us today!”

  “Really?” Joey asked, hiccupping and rubbing his eyes. “What are they?”

  “I bought us all tickets to go ice-skating!”

  “That sounds awesome,” Olivia said.

  “Yeah,” I lied. The Terrible Beautiful Ache tore at my heart, though, because Mom would have known that I don’t like ice-skating. Or any sports, really. But I knew Melanie was trying to make Joey feel better, and I didn’t want to ruin it. “Sounds like fun,” I added, and smiled. “Let me know how it goes.”

  Melanie frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll be at Caulfield Farm all day, helping out at the Christmas-tree lot.”

  “Oh—but I bought a ticket for you, too. I thought it would be nice if the five of us spent time together.”

  “Oh.” Now it was my turn to frown. “Why don’t you give the ticket to . . .” I was trying to think of the name of one of Olivia’s friends on the baton-twirling team, but I was drawing a huge blank. Who did she hang out with, anyway? “Maybe Olivia can invite someone else,” I said instead. I turned to her and smiled, but she glared back at me and hissed, “Stop messing things up.”

  “Messing what up?” I whispered. “I’m trying to do you a favor. Geez.”

  “You didn’t tell me Violet was going to be gone all day,” Melanie said to Dad, and she sounded like she was talking to a student who’d forgotten to turn in his homework. From the look on Dad’s face, he noticed. And he didn’t like it.

  “You didn’t tell me you’d bought tickets,” he said.

  “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

  “It is,” Dad said crisply.

  Dad and Melanie stared at each other until Melanie waved a hand. “Well . . . we weren’t going until the afternoon, anyway.” She turned to me. “I’m sure the Caulfields won’t need you all day. Why don’t you help out until lunchtime? We’ll leave after we’ve eaten.” She went back to her cereal, like everything was settled.

  “Won’t work,” I said. “I’m supposed to be at the tree lot all day.”

  “Supposed to? That’s ridiculous. I realize the Caulfields need extra help this year, but they can’t expect—”

  “They don’t expect anything. I want to be there.”

  “Oh.” Her face pinched into a frown as she understood what was happening. “So . . . this isn’t something you have to do?” She looked back and forth between Dad and me.

  “I do have to do it—I need to earn my charm.” Not to mention the fact that if I spent the day at Caulfield Farm, I could cross “Volunteer for a good cause” off Mom’s list.

  “Earn your charm?” Melanie sounded confused, but judging by Dad’s exasperated look, I was sure he had told her about the charm club. Couldn’t she be bothered to remember anything about my life?

  “It’s something Violet and her friends do together,” Olivia spoke up. “They have to do a task before they can put a charm on their bracelet. The next charm is a clock charm because they have to give someone the gift of their time.” Olivia looked at me and shrugged. “Sophia’s locker is next to mine; she told me.”

  Melanie and I stared at each other. It felt like we were in a boxing ring, warily circling each other, getting ready for the first round of a long fight.

  “Okay,” Melanie said slowly, “then if it’s that important—”

  “It is,” I said quickly.

  “—then you can take Olivia with you,” she finished.

  “What?” I said.

  “What?” Olivia said.

  “It’ll give you girls a chance to get to know each other better. Maybe Olivia can get to know some of your friends, Violet.”

  “Mom, Violet doesn’t want me getting to know her friends,” Olivia said. Her cheeks were red with embarrassment, and I knew I’d get in a ton of trouble if I agreed with her.

  “What about the ice-skating tickets you bought?” I asked. “Won’t they just go to waste?”

  “No—we’ll just invite some of Joey’s friends instead,” Melanie said. “If the Caulfields need help, one extra set of hands would be helpful, right?”

  I opened my mouth to tell Melanie the Caulfields didn’t need that much extra help, but when I caught Dad’s eye, he was smiling hopefully. I knew his smile would vanish if I didn’t take Olivia with me.

  “Sure, Olivia can come,” I heard myself saying.

  “Wonderful.” Melanie beamed.

  But across the table, Olivia was glowering at me.

  CHAPTER

  14

  INSIDE JOKES

  After Dad dropped me and Olivia off at Caulfield Farm, we started up the long driveway leading to the farmhouse. “You didn’t have to say I could come,” Olivia grumbled. “I don’t need your charity.”

  “Tell that to your mother,” I said. “And besides, it’s not my fault if—”

  “Whatever,” Olivia interrupted. “We’re here now. So whatever you’re about to say is irrelevant.”

  “Irrelevant”—meaning “beside the point or unimportant.” Pretty much how I feel most of the time around Melanie.

&nbs
p; “ ‘Irrelevant,’ that’s a good word,” I said as I knocked on the door of the farmhouse.

  Olivia smirked. “Yeah, you should put it on one of your lists in your journal.”

  “How do you know about my lists?” I asked.

  “Hello? I live with you—you always leave it lying out on the table.”

  The door opened then, and Delia, Daisy’s mom, said, “Hi, Violet! The other girls are already over at the tree lot. I’ll walk you over there.” Her gaze flicked to Olivia.

  “Thanks,” I said. “This is Olivia. She’s . . .”

  I paused. I wasn’t sure how to describe Olivia, but Delia was nodding cheerfully. “She’s your new stepsister, right?”

  “Um . . . sure,” I said, and both Olivia and I did a great job of not looking at each other.

  “If you’re going over there,” boomed Daisy’s grandmother’s no-nonsense voice from somewhere in the house, “then take everyone hot drinks. It’s cold out there.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Delia rolled her eyes and gestured for us to follow her into the kitchen, where we started heating up a batch of the apple cider the Caulfields brew every year.

  I didn’t know a lot about Daisy’s mom. She was younger than most other mothers and wanted everyone—including Daisy—to call her Delia. Last month she’d gone around town wearing funky glasses and bell-bottoms, but today she was dressed pretty plainly in jeans and a flannel shirt.

  “Bring them some snacks, too,” Grandma Caulfield said, sweeping into the kitchen. She eyed Delia reproachfully. “They’re working hard today.”

  “I’m working hard today, too,” Delia said through gritted teeth.

  “What are you working on?” I asked Delia after Grandma Caulfield left the kitchen.

  Delia clapped her hands together. “A new project! It’s gonna be great!”

  The three of us packed a picnic basket full of apples, pastries, doughnuts, and paper cups for the cider, then left the farmhouse. The Caulfields’ tree lot was at the back of the farm, over by their big red barn, where rows and rows of fir trees stood waiting to be cut down. For those who didn’t want to chop down their own Christmas tree, several precut trees were waiting in the barn, along with a cash register and a drink stand.

  Delia led us inside the barn, where Izzy, Sophia, and Daisy were talking to Grandpa Caulfield.

  “What are you doing here?” Izzy said when she caught sight of Olivia, and Sophia elbowed her in the ribs. “I mean—nice to see you.”

  “You too,” Olivia said, and it sounded like she meant it.

  Delia left, and while Olivia and I passed out doughnuts, Grandpa Caulfield told us he needed help decorating for Christmas. Every year he liked to line the fence around the tree lot with white string lights, thousands of them. The only problem was, the other eleven months of the year they sat tangled up in giant knots in huge plastic bins.

  “This will take hours,” Izzy complained as we hauled the bins out of the barn.

  “Don’t sweat it,” said Jake Harris, a cute high school boy who worked part-time at the farm. “The tree lot doesn’t start getting really crowded until next weekend.”

  “How does that make it any better?” Daisy scowled, and Jake laughed and ruffled her hair. “I hate it when he does that,” she said after he stepped away to help some customers. “It’s not like I’m eight years old.”

  Sophia and I watched Jake; he didn’t realize it, but he was standing under a sprig of mistletoe someone had taped up on a wooden beam near the cash register. But Sophia and I definitely noticed.

  Did I mention he was cute?

  Sophia glanced over at me. “Your cheeks are red,” she said.

  “So what? So are yours.”

  We kept looking at each other until we both yelled, “Crush dibs!” at the same time.

  “Crush dibs, on Jake?” Daisy said. “The cold must be freezing your brains solid.”

  Sophia, Daisy, and Izzy started trying to untangle the lights while Olivia and I poured cider into paper cups. “What’s crush dibs?” Olivia asked.

  “I guess it’s sort of an inside joke,” I said. “If Izzy, Sophia, Daisy, or I like a boy, we call ‘crush dibs,’ and then he’s off-limits. No one else is allowed to like him.”

  “What happens if two of you like the same boy at the same time?” Olivia asked.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “That’s never happened before.”

  We passed out the cups of cider, then got to work untangling lights. Sophia and I worked on the same strand, and she said, “It’s been a week in the new house, right? How’s it going?”

  I didn’t really feel like talking about Melanie, so I shrugged, and said, “It’s fine.”

  Once we finished with our strand, we each grabbed a different one. Soon Izzy moved next to me, and said, “Hey, what happened to you last night?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I tried calling you on the walkie and you never answered.”

  “Oh . . . I was watching a movie,” I said.

  “Well, stop forgetting. That’s the second time in a row.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah—I tried calling you Thursday night, too.”

  I concentrated really hard on my string of lights. Thursday night I’d been texting with Austin, too. But I didn’t think Izzy would appreciate me saying I forgot to call her because I was texting with her former crush.

  “Sorry,” I said finally. “I’ll be better next week.”

  We spent the next few hours untangling the lights. We were nearly finished when Sophia suddenly said, “Um, Daisy? What’s your mom doing?”

  Over near the cash register, Delia was digging through a big box of Christmas decorations. She hung a few ornaments on one of the trees and then began taking pictures of it.

  “It’s her newest thing,” Daisy said, rolling her eyes. “She’s convinced she can become a famous photographer.”

  Delia smiled and beckoned us over. “What do you girls think?” she said, stepping back and examining the tree. “I need some creative holiday shots for my portfolio.”

  “Well . . . ,” I said.

  “It’s really . . . ,” Sophia began.

  “. . . it’s kind of boring,” Izzy finished, and I elbowed her in the ribs. “Ouch! You guys have to stop doing that,” she said, rubbing her side. “It hurts.”

  “Yeah . . . I guess it’s not super creative,” Delia agreed, still staring at the tree.

  “What if you decorated a person like a Christmas tree?” Olivia spoke up. “I saw someone play a game like that once—I think the pictures would be fun.”

  Delia stared at the tree for another few seconds before clapping her hands together. “That’s a brilliant idea!” She picked up some tinsel and stepped closer. “Daisy?”

  “No way,” Daisy said, scooting backward. “You are not putting all that junk on me.”

  “Decorate Violet,” Olivia said. After I shot her a dirty look she shrugged, and said, “You’re the tallest. It makes sense.”

  “It does make sense,” Izzy agreed. “Violet, step up on that wooden box over there and let us decorate you.”

  I really, really didn’t want to do it—but it occurred to me, I could probably check “Play a Christmas game” off Mom’s list, so I stepped onto the box and put my arms out.

  “Thanks a lot,” I said to Olivia. To the other girls I said, “There’s room for two up here. Olivia is almost as tall as me—why don’t you decorate both of us?”

  “Thanks,” Olivia said, reluctantly joining me.

  “You’re totally welcome,” I said sweetly.

  Izzy, Daisy, and Sophia got to work decorating us while Delia snapped pictures. “Smile!” Delia said to Olivia and me. “You’re supposed to look like you’re having fun!”

  “We are having fun,” Olivia said as Daisy began wrapping a strand of tinsel around her neck.

  “Yeah, bucket loads,” I added.

  “You can’t hang the candy canes o
n Violet’s nose like that,” Sophia said to Izzy. “It looks like she has peppermint-flavored boogers.”

  “That’s better than original-flavored boogers,” Izzy argued.

  “Gross, Izzy,” I said. “Take the candy canes off me.”

  “You’re such a Grinch, Violet,” Izzy said. After she removed the candy canes, she plugged a strand of lights into a nearby outlet and began wrapping them around me.

  “Wait,” Sophia said. “Spread your arms and legs wide—like you’re in the middle of doing a jumping jack.” She turned to Izzy. “What do you see?”

  Izzy’s eyes widened. “Sophia, you’re a genius.”

  “What?” I said.

  “You look like a human star!” Quickly, they began wrapping lights around my arms and legs until I could barely move.

  “I am so getting you back for this, Izzy,” I said. “You too, Sophia. One day, when you guys aren’t looking, I’m going to stick mistletoe over your heads just as Tyler Jones is walking by.”

  “Do it. I dare you,” Izzy said. “If he even tries to kiss either of us, I’ll punch him in the face.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “I thought you said you were on a strict diet of forgiveness and good behavior.”

  Izzy shrugged. “No diet lasts forever,” she said, and we all laughed.

  Once everyone was finished decorating Olivia and me, Delia started taking pictures of us with her camera.

  “Olivia, put your hand on Violet’s shoulder and pop your hip out a bit,” Delia called, taking more shots. “Good! Now put your arm around her—your parents are going to love these!”

  Olivia’s grin vanished, and she hesitated, her hand hovering just above my shoulder.

  “Just do it, so we can this over with,” I hissed.

  After Delia finished, Izzy, Daisy, and Sophia quickly helped Olivia and me take off the decorations.

  “Look, it’s the Jacksons,” Sophia said, motioning toward the front of the barn.

  “Really?” Daisy squinted. “They never come this early for a tree.” She turned to Izzy. “Do you want to go over there and help them?”