Lee:
Chapter 4: A Surprise
We had only one day left at the Catchett House. Only one. Then it would all
be behind us. Everything. Laurie, my friends, my enemies, our games, pretty much everything in our life. Gone. Just like that. Laurie barged into our room, flinging the door wide open. "Come on girls! It's your last dinner here! Enjoy it! You're our guests of honor!" Loe of course jumped right up and was happy again. She's like that. One second, she's sad, the next second, she happy. Especially when she hears about anything that involves food. Sometimes I wish I could be like that. I didn't want to seem like a party pooper on my last day, but I was being one and I knew it.
So I hopped up from the bed and said as enthusiastically as I could, "Yay!" We raced down stairs as fast as we could but stopped abruptly at the bottom of the stairs. The dining room was empty and dark. Just like I felt. All of a sudden the lights flickered on, my friends popped out from behind the furniture, and I heard one wonderful little word:
"SURPRISE!"
I almost had a heart attack. How could almost giving me a heart
attack on my last day be such a good surprise? Well, okay, it was good.
It was all decorated, compliments of the housekeeper, Mrs. Sutton. The younger
kids had made a big giant poster that said, 'Good Luck, Lee and Loe." It was very cute. I couldn't resist. Loe and I gave them a group hug. "I love you, Lee and Loe!" Asia (age 3) announced. We ate our favorite meal (pizza, of course!) cooked by Laurie and a few of the older girls (And one older boy, Kirby, who
insisted that he was just 'messing around') "Do you like it?" A girl called Becca asked eagerly. I sure did! It was the best pizza I'd ever tasted!
"Yum!" was all I could say between bites. Then we had a nice dish made by
the boys. (Surprising, huh?) I'm still not sure what it actually was.
"What is this, exactly?" I inquired politely. Bobby grinned. "Fried worms with a topping of beetles." He answered playfully.
Loe gasped. "Really? Awesome! Ohmigosh, this is my new favorite food! You have to give me the recipe!" she exclaimed and started shoveling the food into her mouth.
I slowly, very slowly stopped chewing and brought by napkin to my mouth and pretended to cough while I spat whatever it was out. I didn't eat after that. Dan saw what I was doing and laughed.
Hey, Lee, want some?" he asked, holding up a bit of whatever it was in front of my face.
I wrinkled my nose. "Not especially." I said, my voice dripping with disgust.
"THROW IT! THROW IT! THROW IT! THROW IT!"
The boys began the chant, then the little kids, and then some girls, until
everyone (including Laurie) joined in. So Dan tossed the so-called worms over to me. It seemed to be in slow motion as the worm thing flew through the air closer and closer and closer to me and it finally landed BAM! Smack dab on my nose! I looked crossed eyed at it. Loe laughed and took it off my nose. Then she stood on her chair and held it by two fingers in the air. "OH YEAH?" She said, facing off Bobby and Dan. "Nobody throws worms at my sister and gets away with it!" Then she leaned over and took the plate of worms and brought it down on Bobby's head! Laurie, instead of yelling like some other adults would, stood up on the middle of the table and yelled enthusiastically,
"FOOD FIGHT!"
Pizza soared through the air, whizzing past me right into Laurie's arm. She took a couple of big bites out of it then tossed the crust over to Becca, who squealed and sent it soaring over to her best friend Michelle who munched on the crust. Meanwhile Loe had got the remainder of the worm things and put one down Kirby's shirt, who wasn't paying attention because he was busy taking some of the chicken fingers and aiming for Tom's face. Loe had to stand on a chair to reach his back because frankly, we're pretty short for our age. Like, so short it's embarrassing. But yeah, whatever. Asia didn't know what it was all about because she was only three, (the youngest of all) but she grabbed the plate of fries and tossed them at Dan.
"Take dat, meanie!" she said, her mouth full of fries. He picked her up and sat her on top of the pasta so that she was covered with sauce. Then her little friend Carrie, who was five years old, sneaked up behind him as he was putting her in the sauce and grabbed the whole sauce container and put it on top of his head! His whole entire body was covered with sauce. It was hilarious!
I shouldn't have laughed, though, because next thing, I knew and, BAM! I was bombed with little balls of bread from the boys. They set them up on their spoons, aimed, then hit one end and it went flying! I calmly collected the bread balls and then plotted my revenge. Okay, so revenge isn't really my thing. It's more, well, Loe's department. But she couldn't save me, considering that she was getting attacked herself. I think actually, she was enjoying it. Michelle dumped a big container of punch over her head, soaking her with sticky, fruity juice. Loe just laughed and licked her lips. Then she took the lemon from the bowl of punch and sucked on it. Her lips are all puckered up.
Then I got a bad idea. A diabolical idea. A completely evilly awesome idea. (By the way, diabolical means devilish. What? I read the dictionary.) "Hey girls!" I said, beckoning all of the girls.
They drop their food and come over. "Huddle up." I said, my voice lowered to a whisper. "I have a plan. Against the boys. Are you all in?"
"Does this mean we're going to plan some kind of evil attack?" Loe asked, doubtfully. "Uh-huh."
"I'm in." she agreed, grinning.
"Me too!" chirped Asia.
That, of course, made Carrie volunteer immediately. "So am I." Then there was a girl aged eight, Violet. She's a new girl. I wasn't quite sure if I would like her much or not, but I decided it didn't matter because we were leaving soon anyway. She thought a minute. Then she said, "If it's okay with Laurie, I guess I'll do it."
Laurie joined in, like I knew she would. So long as nobody died, she said. So
then it was up to the last two. Michelle and Becca. Michelle, well, she wasn't much of a problem. She's 13, but she's still full of energy. She always jumping around and having fun. Also, sometimes she can be a little (or a lot) mean. So obviously, she said yes.
Michelle wasn't so easy. She was 15, so boys were a big thing to her. Sometimes
she was a barrel of fun, but then she got all mature and boring. She paused, and then said, "I think playing pranks is silly and childish. I'd rather do womanly things like cooking, or sewing.
Besides, if I play a prank on the boys, Tom won't want to date me!" her face turned bright red. "Oops." she muttered.
Carrie and Asia immediately started singing. "Tom and Becca sitting in a tree! K-I-S-something-something-G!
Violet pushed her glasses up on her nose and said shyly, "K-I-S-S-I-N-G."
The boys, who had been paying attention only too themselves, noticed what was going on and came over. "Becca and who?" Christopher, an 11-year-old, sneered.
Loe smiled. "We'll tell if you don't agree." she teased. Becca's face turned even redder. "That's blackmail!" she insisted, but finally gave in. The boys finally went back to they're food fight.
"Okay, what if...we add just a little bit of pepper to the punch we serve to the boys? Just to get even on how mean they've been. "I proposed. I couldn't wait. First we had to clean up. That wasn't a problem. Most of the food wasn't on the floor; it was on the table so we just ate it was we went. Or gave it to the housekeeper, Mrs. Sutton, to put away. Easy as pie! Piece of cake! The food that was on the floor, Kyle and Shawn (ages 4 and 6) at it all. It was sort of disgusting how boys eat, to tell you the truth. They just inhaled it. Like human vacuum cleaners.
"Cake time! "The Mrs. O 'Day, said, setting an enormous ice-cream cake on the table. Then Mr. Martin, the gardener, put a big bouquet of beautiful flowers he had grown himself as the centerpiece for the table. The cake was big and square, and across the cake, it said, 'Good Luck, Lee and Loe.' My favorite, ice cream. Especially in this heat. Mrs. O' Day makes the best cakes. She was in on the joke, thanks to Laurie's great thinking. She poured the good punch in our glasses, and then poured the pepper punch into the boys. The boys were such pigs that they drank the whole cups. The results- funny!
Bobby was first. His face wrinkled up, then his eyes watered, and he quietly, just like I had done with the worm- things, spit it back out into his cup. Us girls tried to hide our giggles. Asia and Carrie laughed right out loud, but the rest of us just quietly enjoyed our cake and punch like nothing had happened. Mrs. O' Day pretended to be offended. "Why, don't you like the punch? Made it myself."
"Love it." Bobby choked out. Tom was next, then Kirby, then Dan, then Kyle and Shawn. The reaction was all the same: coughing, watery eyes, making a face, spitting it out. Yet none of them said a word, just went on drinking. I guess they didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I wouldn't have guessed that boys had ever even heard of feelings.
After the cake, we opened presents. Besides Mrs. Sutton's decorations, the little kid's poster, the cake from Mrs. O' Day, the workbooks from our teacher, and the flowers from Mr. Martin, we got a scrapbook from everyone (mainly from Laurie), with notes from all of them, and pictures of all the kids that had been in the Catchett House from the past 8 or so years. They must have been very busy writing notes after we had run upstairs.
I felt my eyes watering. Loe doesn't cry for any reasons- usually- but I wasn't sure if I was crying from happiness or sadness. Maybe both. Because, as good as the party was, there was a reason for it: being adopted.