Disclaimer: Ann M. Martin owns most of the characters I write about. If I create my own character, I will put astericks around his/her name when the character is first introduced.
Write about a person you know (outside of your family) who has influenced you to become who you are today.
I don't know why I was thinking about English homework on a Friday afternoon. Maybe I was looking over the prompt sheet because it had been the last thing dished out to me in school that day. These creative writing assignments do seem really interesting the first time you think about them. As you put off doing it, it becomes more of a chore. At least for me.
Hello, my name is Carolyn Arnold. I'm thirteen years old, and in the eighth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School. Not very exciting. But besides that, I love science. I have a lab in my basement where I do experiments all the time. Right now, I'm taking integrated chemistry & physics, better known as ICP or "integrated chemics & physistry." I'm taking it on the high school level because I am really that good at science. I'm not bragging; it's just a fact. When I'm a freshman, I want to take chemistry. When I'm a sophomore, I want to take physics. During my junior and senior years, I want to start taking college science courses. Like botany or biology. All that stuff is very interesting to me.
English isn't all that interesting to me; creative writing isn't bad, though.
My other big interest is punk rock. Right now, I'm into a band called Five Iron Frenzy. But I've only been into them for about a week. They're replacing my former obsession with Jimmy Eat World; that band went mainstream. I am way too hardcore for anything that mainstream. Ha.
"Hey, Carolyn," my sister peeked into my room. "Have you seen my band shoes?"
"Didn't you put them in the garage when they got muddy?"
"Oh, yeah!" She disappeared to find her shoes.
Meet my sister, Marilyn Arnold. Our names rhyme because we're twins. Personally, I think that was an extreme lapse in judgement for our parents to give us cutesy twin names. (But that's Mother for you. Everything about her is cutesy.)
When we were little, our mother dressed us exactly alike and styled our hair the same. We wore name bracelets so that people could tell us apart by those. Sometimes that didn't work, though. At school, kids called us both Marilyn-or-Carolyn because they didn't want to bother telling us apart or getting to know us. That's how we were back then, a unit. One person instead of two. Until one day when everything changed...
KA-CHING! I had a flash of inspiration; the lightbulb went off over my head. Chuckling to myself, I knew who I would write about for this assignment. It would involve interviewing the person, but luckily, this person was someone I could access easily. She was the older sister of my friend, and a member of the original Baby-sitters Club. Her name was Mallory Pike.
Why is Mallory influential to me? That's very simple, I thought.
In one quick motion, I reached for my scrapbook. My scrapbook is very special to me; Mother started it when I was a baby. Marilyn has one, too. I think our scrapbooks are two of the first things that we didn't have to share. Now that I've been keeping up with my own scrapbook, it's become even more personal and interesting.
I turned to the middle and landed on a picture of 9-year-old me at Wet 'N Wild. Then I flipped back a few pages to my eighth birthday party. (Marilyn's, too.) There was that picture that made me laugh every time I saw it.
In the photo, Marilyn and I were leaning over the cake, blowing out sixteen candles, eight on each side. We don't look particularly happy in the picture. But the funny thing is Mallory. In the background of that picture, Mallory has her arms crossed, party blower in hand, and she looks... weird. The expression on her face is just plain weird. I don't know what she's doing there, but she really completes the mood of the picture.
Most of the other pictures of the party showed us smiling, having a great time. But the biggest, brightest smiles came in one picture where we are sitting side by side, holding the gifts from Mallory, our baby-sitter. Mallory gave me a science book and Marilyn a pin in the shape of a piano. Those were the only non-matching gifts that we received that year. The first time that anyone every recognized our individual personalities.
I knew that I would be writing about Mallory Pike, but not until I interviewed her myself. Until then, I would put the writing prompt aside and concentrate on other things. After all, it was Friday afternoon, the first draft of this writing assignment was due next Friday, and I had nothing due on Monday. This was a weekend I could enjoy.
I could hear Marilyn playing scales on her French horn in her room. I could picture her sitting on her bed, blowing her brains out on that thing right now. Marilyn plays really well, though. She's good enough to be a part of the high school marching band, which only a few middle school students are allowed to do. That's what she was doing tonight; getting on a bus and riding to Stamford for the first football game of the season.
Marilyn's been so obsessed with being in the band. She wants to try out for drum major eventually so she's constantly hanging out (or tagging along) with the current drum major, a senior girl named Jessica Vaughn. Marilyn also plans to try out for the SHS orchestra. If she makes it, she'll be the first eighth grader ever to do so. And she'll be busier than ever.
She's already so busy that she had to give something up. She's decided that she doesn't even have enough time to be a regular member of the Baby-sitters Club. (More about that later.) She used to be our club's alternate officer, but just last week, she decided to become an associate member of the club. That means that she doesn't regularly attend meetings, and we only offer jobs to her if none of us can take them. We all hope this will be a temporary arrangement, but unless we figure something out, it will probably be permanent.
Two weeks ago, in fact, I was incredibly angry at my sister. She blew off an important meeting of the BSC in which we inducted a new member into our club. I actually tried to hunt her down, failed to do so, and ended up going to the meeting and crying in front of my friends. (Something I hate to do.) When she finally showed up, it turned out that she didn't blow off the meeting on purpose. She and Jessica were driving to the music store, and Jessica hit a parked car and did about $800 worth of damage to it. Marilyn had to stick around while Jessica waited for the owner of the car to come out of the store. So, to make a long story short, it really wasn't Marilyn's fault.
I glanced at the clock and realized that it was almost time for me to go. I picked up my stuff and headed downstairs. Marilyn was at the bottom of the stairs wearing her dorky band pants, held up by suspenders with a white t-shirt. Her decorated jacket was lying on the couch, next to her goofy-looking feather hat. She bent over to shut her horn case, and I gave her bottom a quick pinch. She jumped.
"Cute suspenders," I teased.
She crossed her eyes. "Thanks. These pants are huge!"
"No kidding. I think we could both wear them at the same time."
She laughed. "Where are you going?"
"I'm sitting for Sadie and Sealie Tiner at 4:00. Just for a couple of hours while Mrs. Tiner works out at the fitness center. "
"Oh!" She looked a little envious when I said that. The Tiner girls are adorable; they're probably our favorite clients. "Tell them I said hello. And tell the BSC that I wish I could be there. Maybe I'll be able to come to Wednesday's meeting for a little while. But not Monday."
"Okay," I agreed, thinking for a moment about how I wished I could go to Friday night's game. It made me a little sad because I really wanted to see Marilyn in the band. And to see the Pike triplets on the field in their first Varsity game. I wondered if I should discuss this with the rest of the club.
"Oh, guess what," Marilyn interrupted my thoughts. "Mr. Barnes decided to push orchestra tryouts up to next week. We try out on Thursday afternoon."
"No way! That's sort of bad, isn't it?"
"I guess," Marilyn frowned a little. "I think he did this on purpose though. Because so many of us are trying out, and a lot of us are really good. So I guess he decided that he was giving us too much time to prepare. I think I'm ready though."
"You sound good to me," I commented. She honestly did. She had been practicing the violin for many long hours every day ever since she first decided to try out.
"Thanks," she replied. "But guess what else happened today. I found out another eighth grader is trying out."
"What? Who?"
Marilyn made a face. "Rosie Wilder."
I sighed. "Not Ms. Perfect!"
"Yeah," Marilyn rolled her eyes. "She acted like she just decided to tryout, but I think she's just been trying to keep it a secret. Now she's getting all the attention for trying out as an eighth grader, and everyone seems to be forgetting that I even exist!"
"Well, you'll show them!" I exclaimed, even though part of me still hoped Marilyn wouldn't make it so that she might come back to the BSC. However, part of me really wanted her to beat Rosie Wilder once and for all. Rosie really gets on my nerves because she always has to be better than everyone at everything she does.
She shrugged. "I just hope I still have a chance. If I don't make it, though, I hope Rosie doesn't make it. If I do make it, I still hope she doesn't make it. I want to be the first eighth grader to be in the orchestra. I don't want to have to share that with anyone."
"Right."
She turned to face the hallway mirror and started pinning up her hair to go under her hat. Not only do Marilyn and I have completely different interests, we also have completely different looks. Our hair is naturally a mousy light brown color, and Marilyn doesn't do much to hers. She wears it in long layers that start just past her chin and go down past her shoulders.
"If you cut your hair, you could probably get it under your band hat easier," I commented.
"And I suppose I should highlight it too," she added sarcastically. "With red and blonde."
"You'd be cute like that," I teased. She stuck her tongue out at me and continued pinning up her hair. I honestly do think she should at least cut hers to be the same length as mine. Our hair is kind of thin, and Marilyn's layers make hers look even thinner. Mine has a little more body because there's less weight pulling it down. As for the highlights, I personally love mine. I just got them done not long ago; they're pretty subtle. I put in streaks of red and blonde, mostly around my face just so that I would look a little more interesting. I'm always experimenting with my looks; Marilyn is very predictable.
Like I said, we're different.
"You should probably head off to your sitting job if you still want to be early." She noticed me staring at her just then, and reminded me that I didn't have all day to stand around.
"I was just about to go," I replied. With my Kid-Kit in hand, I then headed out the door and started down the street to the Tiner's house. When I reached the end of our street, I looked back and saw Marilyn and Mom pilling all of her band stuff into the car, getting ready to head back to school and from there, head for Stamford.
Different looks. Different interests. Now even more different schedules. I didn't feel like a twin anymore; sometimes it made me a little sad. I found myself missing the days when Marilyn and I were two peas in a pod. These days were different.
