Rebecca's Rashness Read online

  This was true. All summer long, since school had ended, we'd been wanting to invite him over to play but hadn't felt that we were able to. There's a lot you can do when you're eight little girls living home alone. You can run the household. You can acquire powers and gifts. You can try to solve the mysteries of the universe. But one thing you can't do, unless you are very careful about it, is invite friends over, because if their parents discover there is no adult supervision, objections might be raised. But now we had adult supervision, in the form of the Petes.

  "Put Will's name down!" Durinda said.

  "Put Will's name down!" Jackie said.

  "Put Will's name down!" Georgia said.

  "Put Will's name down!" Marcia said.

  "Not a bad idea," Rebecca said, "even if I didn't think of it myself."

  Petal didn't say anything. She just spun in a happy tizzy, daydreaming of Will.

  "Put Will's name down!" Zinnia said, even though she'd already suggested him once.

  "All right, all right," Annie said. "No need to shout at me. Didn't you see me put it down just as soon as Zinnia suggested it?"

  Mrs. Pete looked at us all closely. "Do you all have a... crush on this Will Simms?"

  Sixteen cheeks blushed crimson. Eight heads shook violently.

  We refused to respond any further to that remark.

  "What about Mandy Stenko?" Zinnia suggested. "If we invite one classmate, I suppose we should invite the other classmate."

  There was somewhat less enthusiasm for this suggestion than there had been for Zinnia's last one, but eventually we agreed that Annie should add Mandy's name to the list. Mandy had been much better of late, and anyway, she was really no competition for us in terms of Will's affections.

  Not that we were competing over him or anything.

  "These are both fine suggestions, I suppose," Rebecca said, "but I was thinking of inviting someone a little more... dangerous."

  "We could invite the McG and the Mr. McG," Zinnia suggested. "They could be dangerous, in that they might bring a homework assignment with them."

  Zinnia had instantly become our expert on making up guest lists. Well, she was our party girl.

  "That's not who—" Rebecca started, but Annie cut her off.

  "Yes, I think I will add their names," Annie said. "Perhaps if we invite them to a party in the summer, they'll take it easy on us in the fall."

  Georgia snorted at this.

  "Fine," Rebecca said, "you can invite them to my party, but I still think we should invite a few more... dangerous people to liven things up."

  "Like who?" Jackie asked mildly.

  "Like the Wicket," Rebecca said.

  Seven jaws, plus Pete's and Mrs. Pete's, dropped.

  "Like Frank Freud," Rebecca said, "just as soon as I can locate where he's living now."

  Seven mouths, plus Pete's and Mrs. Pete's, snapped shut.

  And then everyone except Rebecca began to splutter.

  "But we can't do that!"

  "That would be insanity!"

  "That would be death!" Guess who on that one?

  "Yes, we can do that," Rebecca said, "no, it wouldn't be insanity, and no, it wouldn't be death. What it would be is smart."

  "Smart?" those of us who weren't scared out of our wits shouted.

  "Yes, smart," Rebecca said. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

  Pete let out a low whistle.

  Rebecca was busy being smug over her pronouncement, so it took her a moment to ask, "Why'd you just whistle like that, Mr. Pete?"

  "Because of you, pet," he said simply. "Why, you're turning into a regular Machiavelli right before our very eyes."

  "Machia-who?" Rebecca asked with a sneer, though she usually tried not to sneer around Pete since even she recognized that we did often need him.

  "I guess you haven't studied him in school yet," Pete said. "But one day you will. And when you do, Rebecca, I doubt anything he said will come as any great surprise to you."

  "Machiavelli," Marcia informed us. "Italian guy. Dead for hundreds of years. Lots of tough ideas about how things should work. You pronounce the ch like k."

  Hmm ... except for the Italian and the dead-for-hundreds-of-years parts, he did sound just like Rebecca.

  "Anyway," Rebecca said, "if the Wicket or Frank Freud get out of line, with my new strength that may or may not be my power, I can toss them."

  ***

  Drawing up a guest list had taken a lot out of us and we were eager for some liquid refreshment.

  "Annie and Marcia didn't think to get any mango juice," Durinda said, "nor did they get any juice boxes, so I guess I'll just squeeze us some fresh orange juice. Jackie?"

  Jackie followed Durinda into the kitchen as usual, leaving some of us to wonder: Jackie was always so agreeable about helping out, but what if one day she mutinied or tried to stage a coup, like the time Marcia tried to take the reins of the household from Annie?

  But no, we thought. Mutiny wasn't Jackie's style and she was certainly no Marcia, obsessed with power. She was simply Jackie, the only one among us without any serious issues, and we were grateful for her being the way she was.

  "Fresh-squeezed juice is ready!" Durinda called, bringing in a tray with a pitcher full of juice and some glasses.

  If Jackie was our normal one, we did worry about Durinda sometimes. We worried that one day she'd hunt down a string of pearls and a frilly apron and never take either off again. It was a bit scary sometimes, Durinda's kitchen self.

  "What's this?" Rebecca said, peering into a glass once Durinda had finished pouring.

  "It's juice," Durinda said, stating the obvious, "from fresh-squeezed oranges. I squeezed them myself."

  "If it's fresh-squeezed," Rebecca said, "then there should be pulp."

  "There isn't any," Durinda said. "I strained it. No kid likes pulp."

  "You didn't throw out the pulp, did you?" Rebecca demanded.

  "No, she didn't," Jackie said. Then she disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a glass measuring cup filled with awful, disgusting pulp.

  Rebecca took the glass measuring cup, raised it to her lips, and drained it dry.

  "Ah, pulp," Rebecca said, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. "We strong girls like drinking the pulp."

  Some of us were beginning to think that Rebecca's power, if it was her power, was going to her head.

  EIGHT

  "Have we got any more pulp in the house?" Rebecca said, sweating as she came indoors from outside, where she'd been doing something in the newly fenced-in front yard with Petal. We craned our necks around Rebecca, who was standing in the doorway. There was poor Petal behind her, spread-eagled on the lawn. We wondered what they'd been up to. We wondered if Petal was still alive.

  "I said," Rebecca said testily, "have we got any more pulp in the house?"

  "How should I know?" Durinda said just as testily. "I'm not your maid. Besides, it's a holiday. Why don't you go see for yourself?"

  We assumed Durinda meant for her to go see if there was any more pulp in the house and not for Rebecca to go see if it was a holiday. We already knew it was a holiday, since it was in fact the Fourth of July, which we were only half celebrating since we still hadn't decided where we geographically stood on the issue.

  "I'll bet if I were Zinnia and I asked for pulp, you'd get it for me in a second," Rebecca grumbled.

  "Yes, I would," Durinda grumbled back, "but that's because Zinnia is sweet while you're..."

  "Yes, I do know exactly what I am," Rebecca said, filling the void left by Durinda's unfinished sentence.

  "Just for the record," Zinnia piped up, "I'd never ask for a glass of pulp."

  "We all know that," Annie said.

  "And if I did go crazy and ask for one," Zinnia went on, "I'd still have enough sanity left to also say please and thank you. Those are, after all, the magic words."

  "We know that too," Annie said.

  "You people make me cra
zier than I already am," Rebecca said, trudging off to the kitchen.

  "I hope Petal's still alive," Jackie said.

  "Do you see the way her little chest is heaving up and down?" Marcia observed. "I think that means she must be."

  "Phew," Georgia said, "that's a relief."

  We all turned to Georgia. When had she ever cared about Petal?

  "What?" Georgia stared back at us, surprised and offended. "Where would I be without Petal? Why, without Petal, there'd be no one for me to call 'you little idiot.' I'd be devastated."

  Of course.

  Rebecca came back from the kitchen, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. A glass of raw eggs, a glass of pulp, a glass of orange-tinted battery acid—really, at this point it was anyone's guess what she'd been drinking in there.

  "Well, I'm off again," she announced heartily. Then she paused, considering. "I wonder if Petal's up to continuing now..."

  "That's nice of you to worry about Petal for once—" Annie started.

  "Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm worrying about her," Rebecca corrected, "just wondering."

  "Whatever the verb," Annie said, "I am curious: just what are you doing with—or perhaps I should say to —Petal out there?"

  Rebecca shrugged. "If you're so curious, why don't you come watch? It's a free country, after all. Isn't that what this day is all about?"

  ***

  We all, including the Petes, followed Rebecca out to the front yard.

  "Are you ready for more?" Rebecca asked Petal, grabbing Petal's hands and pulling her to her feet.

  "I don't think—" Petal started to say, but Rebecca just tossed Petal over her shoulder and began racing around the house with her.

  "That's what you call the fireman's carry," Rebecca informed us after a few laps. "Come on now, Petal, position yourself for the piggyback."

  "I don't think—" Petal started to say.

  Before we knew it, Rebecca was racing around the house some more with Petal clinging to her back for dear life. We knew then where the term piggyback had originally come from, because poor Petal was squealing like a pig.

  "Okay," Rebecca said when she'd finished a few laps of that version. "Now, Petal, remember how to do Estonian style?"

  Estonian style? What was going on here?

  "I don't think—" Petal started to say.

  In a moment, Petal was hanging upside down on Rebecca's back, her legs around Rebecca's shoulders, her hands holding on to Rebecca's waist.

  More racing around the house ensued.

  We had no idea what was happening, but in a way it was fun, kind of like watching some bizarre sporting event. It wasn't exactly like fireworks at dusk at the beach, but something felt celebratory about it. Perhaps because it was different.

  We liked different.

  Well, except for Petal, who'd never really liked different and certainly wasn't liking it any better right now.

  "This is all very entertaining," Annie said when Rebecca had ceased her racing once more. "Well, probably not for Petal," she added. "But might it be possible for one to ask just what exactly are you supposed to be doing?"

  But Rebecca ignored her and turned to Pete.

  "Do you still have those cement blocks you used to prop the Hummer up?" she asked him.

  Pete nodded.

  "Can you bring them out here and set them up on the lawn?"

  "I suppose I can do that," Pete said thoughtfully, "but wha t—"

  "You only need two," Rebecca said, cutting him off, "not all four. The requirement is only two dry obstacles."

  Dry obstacles?

  "Now," Rebecca said, "who wants to go pull out that old wading pool we used to use when we were smaller?"

  "I do! I do!" Zinnia cried, raising her hand.

  "Very well," Rebecca said, accepting the offer.

  "Oh, good," Zinnia said cheerily, trotting off to get the pool. Halfway across the lawn, she stopped, turned around to us, and shouted, "I have no idea why I'm doing this or what it all means, but this is fun!" And then she continued with her trotting.

  Soon Pete had two cement blocks set up on the lawn, and Zinnia had hauled out the old wading pool. At the end Jackie had had to help her pull it the rest of the way across the yard. We doubted it weighed as much as the twenty-five-pound bag of kibble Zinnia had lifted at the grocery store three days ago, but it was awkward in size, being large enough to hold eight of us when we were little.

  Or littler.

  Rebecca got out the hose and began filling the wading pool.

  It did take a bit of time.

  "There," she said when she was done, pleased. "So, do you think that's about a meter deep?"

  "A meter deep?" Marcia said in a rare scoffing tone. "A meter is similar in length to a yard. I doubt you have even six inches, also known as half a foot or one-sixth of a yard, in that thing."

  "Oh, well." Rebecca shrugged. "Nothing's ever perfect, is it? Still, it's only practice right now. It'll just have to do as the water obstacle."

  Dry obstacles? Water obstacle?

  But before any of us could ask a question out loud, as opposed to in our heads, Rebecca was off racing around the dry obstacles and running through the water obstacle. She was racing with Petal hanging upside down on her back in what we now recognized to be the Estonian style.

  We still had no idea what we were looking at, but at least we were becoming comfortable with the terminology.

  "I'm just glad," Georgia said, "that Mr. Pete erected that impenetrable fence."

  "Georgia's right," Annie said.

  Georgia's right? Those were words almost as rare in our experience as Rebecca's right or Petal's right.

  "I am?" Georgia asked, as surprised as anyone.

  "Yes, of course," Annie said. "We have enough problems in our lives without having reporters or neighbors or strangers seeing this." She indicated with her hand the Petal-carrying Rebecca as Rebecca raced through the wading pool again and serpentined once more around the cement blocks. "Whatever... this is," Annie added.

  "Yes," Georgia said with some degree of pride, "that was right of me to come up with that." Then she frowned. "Although I'm not sure that's what I meant."

  We might have questioned Georgia as to just what she had meant, but Rebecca stopped her racing then, dropping Petal at our feet.

  Mrs. Pete immediately went to Petal. It was handy to have her around for things like that because it meant Durinda and Jackie were free to circle Rebecca with the rest of us as we tried to figure out just what had been going on.

  "So that's it then," Rebecca said, slightly out of breath. "I do wish I had Jackie's speed—you know, to make the racing part easier on my legs and lungs—but with my strength it's mostly just a breeze." She turned to Annie. "I'll need about fifteen hundred dollars from the checkbook. No, better make that two thousand dollars, just to be on the safe side."

  "Two thousand dollars?" Annie looked aghast. "Whatever for?"

  Rebecca looked aghast at Annie's aghastment. "Why, for the Finnish Wife-Carrying Championship, of course."

  "The Finn—" Annie started to say, but Marcia cut her off.

  "Oh, I know all about that!" Marcia said excitedly. "I read about it somewhere once." Then her expression grew puzzled. "But why didn't I recognize that from what Rebecca was doing with Petal?" And then her expression eased. "Maybe it's because of the way Rebecca was doing it—you know, the reduced size of the water obstacle and all that."

  "Okay," Annie said, "I can understand why Marcia might know about this ... Finnish Wife-Carrying thing. Marcia just seems to know lots of bizarre little facts. But how do you know about it, Rebecca?"

  "Because I read about it on Mommy's computer, didn't I?" Rebecca said boldly.

  We reeled back from her. Mommy's computer was in Mommy's private study. We almost never went in there; we rarely used her computer the few times we did go in there; and none of us ever went in there alone.

  "So what?" Rebecca dared us. "That night I
was doing chin-ups on the chandelier and all those other exercises, I got bored and needed a break. So I went in Mommy's private study and began looking through those files we'd looked at that one time. And when I got bored with that, I began surfing the Internet. That's when I learned about the Finnish Wife-Carrying Championship. And that is why I now need two thousand dollars. So Petal and I can go to Finland and compete. I'm sure we can win this year."

  Even though Petal was already lying on the ground, she still managed to faint at this.

  Mrs. Pete immediately began fanning Petal, and soon Petal was revived. We weren't sure if Petal was happy about this.

  "But Petal's not your wife!" Georgia objected.

  "So?" There was Rebecca's shrug again. "Not everyone carries his own wife in a Finnish Wife-Carrying Championship. If your wife's too heavy, you're allowed to borrow your neighbor's wife, or even search for a wife farther afield if need be. I'm confident that over time Petal and I can beat the record set by Margo Uosong of Estonia."

  "Who is Margo Uosong?" Jackie wondered.

  "Only the person who holds the record of having won five Wife-Carrying Championships," Rebecca said, "that's who."

  My, it sounded like Rebecca had done her research for once.

  "Give us enough years competing," Rebecca went on, "I'm sure we can top that."

  "I don't think so," Marcia said thoughtfully.

  "How can you say that?" Rebecca said. "Did you not see the ease with which we negotiated the two dry obstacles and the one water obstacle? I'm sure we'd have the fastest time."

  "Maybe so," Marcia agreed, "but you still can't compete."

  "You mean outside of the fact that I would never give Rebecca two thousand dollars to do this crazy thing?" Annie said.

  "Yes," Marcia said, "even outside of that. You see," she said, turning to Rebecca, "you'd be immediately disqualified."

  "I'd be what?" Rebecca was outraged. And given her newfound strength, that was a scary thing to see.

  "Petal certainly would," Marcia said calmly. "I'm familiar with the rules set forth by the International Wife-Carrying Competition Rules Committee, and in addition to the rules about length of the obstacle course and the rules about which wives are available and all that other stuff, it gives a minimum age for the wife. It doesn't say anything about the age of the wife-carrier, but the wife has to be over seventeen years of age."