Rebecca's Rashness Read online

  She also looked really impatient.

  "I can't believe it's eight hours into July already and still my power hasn't arrived yet," Rebecca said. "What can be taking it so long?"

  "Cool your jets," Petal told her.

  We suspected Petal had been waiting her whole life to say something so rude to Rebecca.

  "It'll get here in its own good time," Annie said.

  "Yeah," Georgia said. "Like my gift coming too early and then me sending it back and then having to wait until the end of the month for it to make its way to me again. There's no point in trying to tamper with these things."

  "Yeah," Durinda said, "so cool your jets."

  We suspected that Durinda had also waited a long time to say something like that to Rebecca.

  Durinda stretched, yawned. "Time for me to start breakfast. Jackie?"

  Jackie yawned, stretched, and went with Durinda into the kitchen to help. The rest of us followed. We were very hungry, so hungry we might not even wait for Durinda and Jackie to put breakfast on the table but would eat it standing up as soon as it was ready.

  "I think we'll have eggs today," Durinda said, "except we'll cook ours."

  "Sorry to disappoint you," Carl the talking refrigerator said when Durinda opened the door, "particularly since you are always kind to me, Durinda, not like some rude people whose names I will not name, but there are no eggs left."

  "I don't mean to contradict you, Carl," Durinda said, "but how is that possible? There was at least a whole carton here last night."

  "That rude person whose name I will not name drank them all," Carl said.

  "Rebecca!" We all turned on her.

  "Rebecca," Annie said sternly, "I cannot believe you drank a dozen raw eggs."

  "You will surely die now," Petal warned Rebecca. "I suppose I shall be very sad, but at least I will not be tempted to eat raw eggs, what with there no longer being any eggs in the house."

  "You would never be tempted to eat raw eggs anyway," Marcia pointed out.

  "You're much too cautious," Georgia said. "Why, you could never enjoy being caught in an avalanche the way I did."

  "True and true," Petal admitted freely. "I'm the biggest scaredy-cat ever and proud of it."

  "The cats have informed me," Zinnia said, "that they wish the term scaredy-cat to be retired forever. They say it casts aspersions on their character and that anyway, Precious is the only cat it's true of."

  We ignored our loony littlest sister, all except for Jackie.

  "Did the cats really use the word aspersions?" Jackie wanted to know.

  Zinnia nodded.

  "That's a very good word," Jackie said in a complimentary fashion. "I hope they're impressed with themselves."

  "Jackie," Rebecca said, "why must you always insist on hu moring—"

  "That's enough out of you," Durinda told Rebecca. "Because of you, I can't make eggs as I had planned. Now, what can I make instead..."

  "I'm sorry to inform you," Carl the talking refrigerator said, "but we are currently out of all breakfast items. After that rude person whose name I refuse to name finished with the eggs, she drank all the milk and the calcium-enriched orange juice, and then she broiled a steak."

  It was then Durinda noticed the dirty broiler sitting in the sink.

  "Couldn't you have cleaned up after yourself?" she asked Rebecca.

  "I was too busy getting in shape," Rebecca said. "You know, I need to be prepared for my—"

  "Power," Annie finished wearily. "Yes, we all do know."

  "We could just have cereal then," Durinda said cheerily, trying to put a bright face on things.

  "'Fraid not," Carl said. "Family history teaches that you don't like dry cereal, you all complain if you have to eat it, plus—"

  "I know, I know." Durinda sighed. "Rebecca ate all the Razzle Crunchies, right?"

  "Um, no," Carl said. "Robot Betty was watching a late-night movie. She didn't like the way the romance was going so she threw cereal at the TV in protest, then she crunched it with her metal feet. I told her she should vacuum up her mess—what would your mother say if she suddenly returned?—but instead robot Betty just went to Winter and took a few runs down the ski slope there."

  Leave it to robot Betty. Our inventor-scientist mother had created her to make our lives easier, but instead she did things like throw all the Razzle Crunchies at the TV, leaving the cleanup for us, and then go skiing in Winter, one of the four seasonal rooms our mother had created so we could go to whatever season we wanted to be in at any given time.

  "You know how Betty is," Carl added.

  We did. Still, we loved her.

  "Is there anything to eat for breakfast, Carl," Durinda asked, "that Rebecca hasn't eaten or Betty thrown?"

  "Sorry," Carl said. "You really do need to do a Big Shop."

  A Big Shop was what Mommy always called it when she needed to stock up on food and supplies for our somewhat large family. Thinking of the way Mommy always said that made us sad, missing her. Would we ever see her again? Or Daddy? But then...

  "Annie," Zinnia piped up, "could we go on the Big Shop with you? You almost always do these things yourself, but this time it sounds like we need a Really Big Shop. It could be like an outing, and I should very much like to go on an outing because that would practically feel like getting a present."

  Talking to animals and worrying about presents—it was easy to see what Zinnia would focus on when it was finally her turn to have her own month. Zinnia was such a two-note girl. But then it occurred to us: sometimes we were all one- or two-note girls.

  "It would be nice to get out of the kitchen," Durinda said.

  "It's not fair to deny us the chance to go on a Really Big Shop," Georgia complained.

  "I'm fine with it either way," Jackie said.

  "While we're there," Marcia said, and then she cast a hasty glance at Annie and added, "if we do all go, it'd be fun and educational to calculate the number of square inches each item takes up on the shelf."

  "I would like to go on an outing too," Petal said, "but what if I am walking by a pyramid display of cans of creamed corn and there is a slight earthquake, toppling the pyramid on top of me and crushing me to death? I can't think of a worse way to go, death by creamed corn, at least not at the moment."

  "Can I push the cart?" Zinnia asked, raising her hand and waving it in Annie's face. For a minute there, Zinnia reminded us of our classmate Mandy Stenko. We almost missed Mandy, whom we hadn't seen since school got out in June, and we absolutely missed Will Simms, whom we hadn't seen in just as long a period of time. As for Principal McG and her husband, who'd come to teach us—the Mr. McG—the jury was still out on whether we missed them or not.

  "Pleasepleaseplease!" Zinnia waved her hand in Annie's face some more.

  Annie ignored her. We'd all learned there were times when the most sensible thing to do was ignore Zinnia. This was also true of Georgia, Petal, and Rebecca, who were often ignorable. We couldn't ignore Durinda because we needed her to cook for us. And it was almost impossible to ignore Marcia because she was so precise about everything, it somehow made us pay attention even if we didn't want to. Jackie never said or did anything that needed ignoring. As for Annie, we knew that if we tried to ignore her, we'd pay for it in the end.

  "What about you?" Annie turned to Rebecca. "Don't you want to go on this thing the others are all so excited about, this thing they're calling a Really Big Shop?"

  "No," Rebecca said. "I'd rather stay here and prepare for my—"

  "Too bad," Annie cut her off, "because we're all going."

  "Why can't I stay here alone?" Rebecca said, hands on hips.

  Seven of us rolled our eyes. Surely Rebecca must be joking.

  "It's one thing for eight of us to live alone without adult supervision," Annie said, "because we take care of one another. Somehow our strengths and weaknesses balance out. But to have any one of us stay here alone? And particularly you?" Annie shook her head. "That really would be chaos
."

  "Fine," Rebecca grumbled, "but can we make this Really Big Shop really quick? I need to get back here to prepare for my—"

  "Power," Annie finished. "Yes, yes, we all know. We'll try to make it as quick as we can. Let me just go slip into my Daddy disguise, the one I use when I drive the Hummer, and then we'll be off."

  "I suppose the rest of us should get changed too," Durinda said.

  "We are all still in our jammies," Marcia observed.

  We headed toward the stairs.

  "Can I wear my jammies to the store?" Petal said, fingering the silver charm bracelet that she never took off, not even when she went to sleep. "I do feel safer with bunny slippers on my feet. They might protect me against a creamed-corn catastrophe."

  It was hard for any of us, even Zinnia, who loved anything to do with animals, to imagine how bunny slippers could protect a person, much less keep someone from being crushed to death.

  "Sorry, Petal," Annie said, "not this time. People already think our family is crazy enough without adding bunny-slippers-while-grocery-shopping into the mix." Annie paused for a moment, sniffed the air. "Rebecca," she said, "please change out of those sweaty clothes before we leave the house. You smell like a gym."

  "Fine, fine," Rebecca grumbled some more. Then she consulted her workout watch. "I just can't believe we're eight hours and forty-three minutes into July and I still haven't—"

  "July!" Petal shrieked, and for once her shriek was one of joy. "It's July, it's July, it's July!"

  "Yes," Annie said, "I believe that fact has been established, more than once."

  "My month, June, is officially over!" Petal crowed. "I can no longer read other people's thoughts! If Georgia is thinking, 'Petal's a little idiot,' I have no direct knowledge of that fact. Yippee!"

  We all looked at Petal. Had there ever been an Eight who wanted her power less? Of course there hadn't.

  "Plus," Petal went on breathlessly, "Rebecca hasn't received her power yet. So right now we're living in a world where no one has any powers." She shot a quick look at Annie and added, "Well, except for Annie with her power to think like an adult when necessary, but there's nothing scary about that. A world where no one has power—yippee!"

  With that, Petal began spinning in happy circles on the stair where she stood, which was a very dangerous thing to do since she almost fell off the stair.

  "Oh, bother," Georgia said, propping Petal up to prevent her fall. "The little idiot's spun herself into a regular tizzy."

  "I heard that!" Petal said. "Wait a second. Did you say that out loud, or am I still somehow reading your mind, or did I perhaps even just imagine it?"

  "Anyway," Rebecca said, ignoring Petal, "I'm sure my getting my power is just a matter of time. And I'm sure once I do get it, it will be what Zinnia likes to refer to as a doozy."

  Then she cracked her knuckles again.

  That was when six of us began wishing she'd just hurry up and get her power, no matter how bad her getting it might turn out to be for the rest of us, because that sound was giving us the willies.

  Tizzies, doozies, willies.

  We really were quite a bunch.

  We only hoped that with all these tizzies, doozies, and willies everything wouldn't suddenly go kablooey.

  THREE

  Annie pulled the car into the lot outside of the Super-Duper Food Extravaganza Shop That Sells Everything Else Too Including Gilded Birdcages.

  Every time we looked at that sign we thought that if a person lettered signs for a living, after painting just that one sign, he or she could retire as a millionaire and go live in the Bahamas.

  The lot was so full, Annie had to drive around for a bit before finding a parking spot. What was going on here? Had everyone in the whole world decided to go shopping on the same day we had?

  "Did you notice the Hummer was making a pinging noise as we drove over here?" Marcia observed.

  "I don't think cars are supposed to go ping! like that," Petal said. "What if some evil person has programmed our car to make a special noise that will slowly drive us all insane?"

  "I don't think it's anything to worry about," Annie said, readjusting her Daddy mustache, which had tilted at an odd angle. "Let's shop, shall we?"

  Once we were inside the store, whose name we would repeat here if only it weren't so long, Annie directed Zinnia to get a cart.

  "And please get the giganto one," Annie said. "It's the only one big enough to hold everything our family needs."

  Zinnia did as asked and fetched the giganto cart, which was the only one of its size.

  "Okay," Annie said, "let's split up so this is organized and doesn't take us all day. Georgia and Rebecca, you handle the fresh produce, bread, and baked goods. Durinda and Jackie, you take care of boxed and canned goods plus frozen foods. Petal and Zinnia, you get the meats and pet supplies. Marcia and I will get beverages and cleaning products and such."

  "Okay," Zinnia said, "but don't be surprised if we come back with all fish. I'm thinking we should become pescatarians, people who eat fish but no meat. It's the cats' suggestion. They say they're uncomfortable with us eating animals that can walk on four legs."

  "Can we get a birdcage?" Petal asked.

  "No," Annie said.

  "But this splitting-up system doesn't make sense," Georgia objected. "If Zinnia's the one with the cart, what are the rest of us supposed to do?"

  "When your arms are full," Annie said, "you go find Zinnia and dump your items in the cart, then you go back for more."

  "You didn't assign anyone the task of getting pink frosting," Rebecca pointed out.

  "By all means," Annie said, "add it to your and Georgia's list. I'm sure we'd all hate for you to starve. Okay, gang." Annie clapped her hands. "Let's go divide and conquer."

  It felt odd splitting up, since we were almost always all eight together everywhere, unless one of us got temporarily taken by an evil person or some such. Still, who knew what great things we might accomplish if we did this divide-and-conquer thing Annie was suggesting?

  ***

  "Do you think Annie will notice if we slip a birdcage into the cart?" Petal asked as Zinnia struggled with a twenty-five-pound bag of kibble, finally stowing it in the bottom of the cart.

  "Yes," Zinnia said, a little out of breath from her efforts. "What do you want a birdcage for anyway? The only birds we ever have around the place are the carrier pigeons that come bearing notes, and I doubt any of them would enjoy living in a cage."

  "I don't know," Petal said. "Haven't you ever wanted anything just for the sake of wanting it?"

  Now this was something Zinnia could understand.

  "All the time," Zinnia confessed freely. "Okay, what's next?"

  "Meats," Petal said, "or I suppose fish since you said we shouldn't eat meat anymore."

  "Do you think the cats would also object to us eating fish?" Zinnia wondered aloud. "After all, fish are animals too."

  "I don't see why," Petal said. "Cats would eat fish all the time if they could get it, so I don't see why they would object to us doing it. Of course, cats will eat spiders too if they can get them but I don't think I want to try spider pizza anytime soon."

  "Good point," Zinnia said.

  ***

  "There are so many different kinds of orange juice," Marcia observed. "Calcium-enriched, pulp, some pulp, no p ulp—how is a person to decide?"

  "You're right," Annie said. "It is a bit much. Georgia and Rebecca are getting the fresh produce. I'm sure they'll get oranges because Georgia always likes to practice juggling with them. She says it's good practice for the day we're all forced to join the circus. Perhaps Durinda can just squeeze fresh for us this week? How much extra work can that be?"

  ***

  "Georgia," Rebecca said, "would you stop juggling those oranges and get a move on? We need to get home so I can continue with preparing for my—"

  "Yes, yes." Georgia cut her off. "What's next on the list?"

  "Bread and baked goods," Reb
ecca replied.

  A few minutes later, as Rebecca and Georgia debated the merits of plain bagels versus flavored ones, a smell drifted by that was very familiar and much hated:

  Fruitcake.

  Rebecca's and Georgia's heads snapped up in time to see our evil toadstool of a neighbor, the Wicket, placing a fruitcake in a cart that was already filled to over-brimming with fruitcakes.

  The Wicket's head snapped up in time to catch them looking.

  "Petal, Zinnia," she said in greeting.

  What a double mistake to make! The Wicket never could get us straight.

  Naturally, Rebecca and Georgia glared at her over this.

  "Stop looking at me like that!" the Wicket said, wheel-

  ing her cart around and hurrying away. "Your whole family freaks me out!"

  ***

  Durinda's arms were filled with boxes of Razzle Crunchies and Jackie's were filled with cans of tuna and crushed pineapple as they rounded a corner and ran smack into the McG and the Mr. McG.

  "Hello, Eights," the McG said. "Or should I say two-eighths?"

  "I hope you're all spending your summer studying math, lying in hammocks, and staring up at clouds," the Mr. McG said.

  "We have to go now," Durinda said.

  "Bye!" Jackie said.

  It was always so odd, seeing educators outside of school.

  "Did you notice the Mr. McG was holding the McG's hand?" Durinda giggled. "It was so sweet. Of course, I'm mostly never sure if they even like each other."

  "Does it seem to you like everyone in the world is here today?" Jackie wondered.

  "If Petal were here right now," Durinda said, "she'd probably say, 'Oh no! If everyone in the world is here today, then all the evil people must be here too!' "

  Yes. Yes, she would.

  ***

  We all finally met up at the line of registers.

  "What do you think of making fresh-squeezed orange juice this week?" Annie asked Durinda.

  "Are you sure we can't find room in our house for one small birdcage?" Petal asked.

  "I've finally calculated how many square inches various items in this store take up," Marcia said, "just in case anyone wants to know."