When I get to school, I can semi forget that I am not and will never be an only child. I say "semi", because Samuel's still there. And Joseph, Robert, Roberta, Tyson, Felicia, Amanda, and Lindsay. Can't escape them anywhere. But luckily, the only ones I really see is except for lunch is Sammy and Joseph since we're in the same grade, although Joseph is nine months younger.
Not only at school can I pretend I'm an only child, my best friend in the entire universe is there. Her name is Becky. Becky doesn't have twenty nine siblings, but she does have four brothers, where she's stuck in the middle, so she sort of understands where I'm coming from. So today, when I came to her with the issue of Ms. Simms, she was able to help.
"Every year at the Block Party, all the families compete in different activities." I told her that day in History class. "And my family always goes for junk like the Three-Legged Race, or the Sack Race. And we never win. This year, I have to do something different and win, or else Ms. Simms is going to be right." Becky took her glasses off and chewed on the end of one of her lenses. She told me once that she saw someone doing that on a TV show and it helped them think, so she thought it worked for her too. It hadn't failed her so far.
"Well, have you ever tried pie eating?" She asked. I nodded.
"Mateo did. He'll eat anything, and the most of anything. And he did, then threw up all over the judges." Becky went back to her thinking.
"What about Lucy? Doesn't she write poetry? Isn't there some sort of writing contests?" I nodded.
"She won't enter any of her writing. She's terrified of anybody outside of the family reading it, and even then she's scared that we'll judge her."
"Can't any of your siblings do anything? Caleb join the sports? Penny paint? What about the science part and Mila?" I shook my head.
"Caleb does the sports, but nobody can reach his level in my family, so he doesn't have a good team, Penny's paintings take forever and she can't do one in the time she's given, and Mila's not allowed to be in the science fair anymore after an incident with a volcano, ants, and Old Lady Palmer's homemade cheesecake." That was when I felt my hair get tousled, and turned to see Sammy.
"I've got a nice idea for ya, Sam." He told me, shaking his water bottle a little to make the water swirl around.
"What's your idea, Sammy?" I asked as I smoothed down my hair. He grinned, then tapped my chest with his pencil.
"Sam, you can sing." My eyes widened.
"Excuse me?" He nodded.
"Yeah! Sam, you've got a great voice! We can get Nicholas and his band together and you can sing for the show!" I shook my head, terrified. Like Lucy was scared to show off her poetry, I was petrified of singing in front of anybody, even my family.
"I don't sing! You don't what your talking about!" I squealed, a little too loud in my opinion. He nodded, still grinning.
"Uh, heck yeah I do! I've heard you singing through your door tons of times! You sing karaoke after you take a shower and when your alone in your room." He heard me!? I squeaked a little at the thought. "C'mon, it'll be sick!" I looked to Becky, who shrugged.
"I didn't even know you could sing. But if it'll get you a reward, I say go for it." I looked between her and Sammy. It seemed I was outvoted. Then I got an idea.
"I'll sing at the Block Party, Sammy, if you can get Mila back in the Science Session, and convince Lucy to enter her poetry. We also need to get Nicholas a decent family band because only family can join the competition, and to have anybody else with talent into any competitions." Because the neighborhood is pretty small-not counting my family- we have loads of competitions because we can get through them in a snap. "Our family has loads of talent brewing in it! Let's use it!" Sammy grinned and nodded.
"We totally got this!"
30
As soon as we got home, Sammy and I went to work. We managed to convince Penny that it is possible to paint a painting in about ten minutes, got Lucy to create an amazing poem to share, and decided to trade the twenty two year old stick we call Mateo in exchange for a pudgy five year old who has never puked in his life called Danny for the pie eating contest. We even pulled Nicholas a band together. Nichole could play some killer drums, much to people like Zoroya's annoyance because she's always studying for her community college and needs quiet. While Nichole did that, Amanda noted to us that she learned to play an electric guitar by the time Sammy and I were born, starting to learn at seven, but she was going to go acoustic for Nick tonight. And lastly, we had Caitlin play a tambourine.
And not only did we do all that, Sammy pulled some strings and got Mila back in the Science Session, while I got Adalyn, Autumn, and James into a fashion show. No kidding! After that, we pulled Caleb together a good team for the soccer match that was going to take place this year. We had him as captain, plus Felix, Robert, Caitlin, and Desmond.
We weren't taking any chances this year, so we tried to get everybody into everything. There was a tent that usually had a bunch of guys playing video games, so we threw that towards Everett. There was a debate team that we threw towards Charles and Charlotte's way. They fought so much, that should be a snap for them! Felicia was going to show off her garden that she was pretty proud of. Roberta was going to help in a Cook-Off, which was going to directly throw her against Ms. Simms, something that terrified her. Ms. Simms was well known for being the best at making pies. She'd been entering them in the Cook-Off for as long as I could remember, and she always won. This year, I heard she was making Blackberry Pie. But Roberta knew the importance of our family actually winning something this year, and wanted to try something no one had ever heard of before. Blue Raspberry Pie. I had no idea how she was going to make it, and frankly neither did she, but she was determined to try. She was always like that. Some of her strange foods were good, like the double cherry and fudge cake she made for Tyson's birthday. Other times, not so much, like her broccoli ice cream. It's worked on the triplets and Penny, but nobody else found it very appetising.
Speaking of Tyson, I tried to convince him to get on Caleb's soccer team.
"No way, Sam." He told me, throwing a foam basketball over my head and shooting it into the hoop hanging off the door. "You know I don't go to those stupid parties. The guys and I are going go play some basketball." Because that's what Tyson does. Unlike Caleb, he really only likes basketball and skateboarding. Caleb likes all sports, even dance, but Tyson is a man of not many interests. That's when I got an idea.
"Maybe you and the guys can compete at the Block Party!" I told him. "You're probably the best basketball player in the neighbourhood! Have people go up against you, one on one!" Tyson snapped his fingers.
"Now that's an idea I can get behind!" And just like that, I got Tyson. That left Zoroya, David, Mateo, Lindsay, Sammy, Joseph, Ben, and Riley. Zoroya had for years been trying to get them to set up a trivia and finally got it this year, so she and David took that as the oldest, Mateo said he would DJ the whole thing, Lindsay volunteered to help Adalyn and Autumn with their make up and James with his hair, Joseph said he was going to ref the soccer game, Ben and Riley were going to play water balloons with the other little kids, and Sammy said he had a surprise for me. I was a little nervous to see what the surprise was, seeing as this was the last surprise he had managed to pull together, but I was also super excited. I couldn't believe me and him had managed to pull all of this together!
When Mom and Dad heard what we managed to do, they were so proud of Sammy and me, they took us out for dinner! Just the four of us! It felt great not having all thirty of us there and not hearing Zoroya explain over and over again to people that Riley was her sister, not her daughter.
But that didn't matter now. What mattered was that the Neighbourhood Block Party was going to be a real howler! Because the Mansons were out to win, and nobody was going to stop us.