Chocolate-Covered Baloney Read online

  Grandma held up the thing she knitted, and I saw she was working on a large, brown sweater the color of oak leaves in the fall.

  “Well,” she said, examining her work critically, “Sandra Moore has never been known to stay in one place long. Likely, she’ll be moving on soon.”

  That made me feel a little better. Grandma lowered the sweater to her lap and met my eyes.

  “How’s your mama taking to Sandra being there?”

  “She’s none too friendly. She sure isn’t making that Mimiperson feel all cozy and welcome like she did Ian and Isabel.”

  “That does not sound like Lily at all.”

  “I know.”

  The phone rang, and when Grandma hung up, she said, “That was your mama. She said you and Melissa Kay could stay over here as long as you wanted today, but she sounded pretty tense. In fact, I think we should go over there. Your daddy and Ian had to go somewhere, Myra Sue’s busy with her homework, and your mama is having to deal with Sandra all by herself.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  I didn’t cherish the thought of being around that old woman any more than was absolutely necessary, but the mere thought of my mama being completely alone with her made my being there Absolutely Necessary. However, I still needed to talk to Melissa, so I said, “We’ll go over, but is it okay if we finish the chocolate gravy?”

  “Mercy, child,” she said, putting her knitting into a blueand-yellow quilted tote bag. “I made a pot full of it, but if you think you can hold that much, go ahead. There are more biscuits in the oven.”

  She went to get her coat, and when she came back into the room, she gave me a kiss on the forehead.

  “You feel okay?” she asked, peering into my eyes. “Looks to me like you might be catching a cold.”

  I crimped my lips. “I think being around Mimi has made me allergic.”

  She laughed a little at that.

  “It’s gonna be all right, honey. I promise you. Stay warm, but don’t get overheated. Drink some orange juice. There’s some in the fridge.” Then she smiled at Melissa and kissed her forehead, too, before she went out the front door, toting her tote bag.

  “Listen, Melissa,” I said as soon as the door shut behind Grandma. “I gotta talk to you.”

  “About Mimi?”

  “No. We’ve done talked about her all I can stomach. I need to talk to you about my dumb sister.”

  Melissa slurped down the last of her milk and got up to fill her glass.

  “What about her? Did you catch her making kissy-faces at herself in the mirror again?” she asked, snickering. You see, Melissa thinks the things Myra Sue says and does are funny, while I think they are dumb and highly annoying.

  “She does that all the time. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I think she’s up to something sneaky.”

  Melissa’s eyes got rounder.

  “What?” she breathed, leaning forward.

  “First off, you should see her around that mailbox. You’d think she was gonna win the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes—”

  “Wouldn’t that be cool? Wow, A. G., just think of all the awesome things you could buy and places you could go—”

  “We are not talking about the sweepstakes!” I snapped. Boy, oh boy, try to talk to some people and they get sidetracked. “I’m trying to tell you that my dumb sister is hiding something in the mailbox.”

  “You think she’s hiding money?”

  I stared at that girl.

  “Money? Now, where in the world would Myra Sue get money to hide?” She opened her mouth to reply, and I said, “So help me, if you mention that Publishers Clearing House business again, I’m gonna scream.”

  Melissa huffed at me and folded her arms across her chest.

  “I was going to ask if she’s been doing extra chores or babysitting or something, but if you’re gonna be all snotty and hateful, April Grace Reilly, I’m not going to talk to you! I’m already upset enough without my best friend being mean to me.”

  She was plenty mad, and I didn’t blame her, I guess.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it. “I’m upset, too, and I reckon I just got carried away with everything. Let’s start over, all right?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me and twisted her mouth like she was thinking about it. Little by little, her face relaxed and she looked away like she was tired of seeing me.

  “All right, I guess. But”—she turned her eyes to me again—“if you’re hateful to me like that again today, I’m calling my mom to come pick me up.”

  “Don’t do that! I need you.”

  “Now,” she said, scrooching a little bit in her chair, “tell me about Myra Sue.”

  So I told her all about the mailbox, and Myra staying in her room, and writing all those papers, and sleeping with her notebook, and how she hardly participated in Grandma’s birthday party, and how she’s been so distant from Isabel St. James, who had been her ultimate role model for months.

  Then I pulled out of my pocket what Isabel might call the pièce de résistance—which means, “Boy, oh boy, you can’t top this.” I unfolded that paper with all the drama you can imagine and smoothed it fifty times because it was getting pretty battered by then, I’d looked at it so often.

  “Listen to this, Melissa: ‘Midnight Cruise. Treehouse Rendezvous. Never on Sunday. Cream Cheese in Florida.’”

  Melissa did not say a word until I was finished.

  I sat back and said, “What do you think?”

  “Well, maybe she’s writing to her boyfriend.”

  “Boyfriend? Myra Sue Reilly with a boyfriend?”

  “She’s one of the prettiest girls in Cedar Ridge High School. Why wouldn’t she have a boyfriend?”

  “Because my daddy will not let her have a boyfriend yet.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking disappointed, but I wasn’t going to let myself get sidetracked by this.

  “What do you think of this list?” I said, waving it around.

  “I dunno. And that list sounds like . . . like . . . I don’t know what that list sounds like.”

  Well, good grief. I reckon Melissa has little to no imagination. I was hoping she’d come up with something I hadn’t thought of.

  “So what are we gonna do?” she asked.

  I leaned forward and said in a low voice, even though there was no one to hear me, “We’re going to find out what she’s up to.”

  “How’re we gonna do that?” Melissa whispered.

  “I don’t know, exactly, but we’re gonna snoop.”

  She grinned. We both loved to snoop.

  Melissa Kay Carlyle Speaks Out, and I Wish She Hadn’t

  We were nearly to the back door when I caught Melissa’s arm and said, “Now, don’t let that Mimi-person scare you.”

  “Well, it scares me that you think she’s scary enough to scare me.”

  “I’m telling you, Melissa, she’s spooky-looking and weird-acting. And what’s worse, it’s like she knows she’s not wanted around here but she doesn’t care.”

  “I have to say, April Grace, if your folks are making her feel welcome, she will think she is wanted.”

  “But Mama isn’t warm and friendly to her like she is to most people, and that old lady still acts like she’s as welcome as the flowers in May.”

  “Hmm,” Melissa said. And that was all. Her helpfulness in this matter was sadly lacking.

  I sighed. “Well, let’s go inside and be real nice to Mama so she doesn’t feel stressed.”

  “I can do that. Your mom is easy to be nice to.”

  In the house, I found all three women in the kitchen. Mama was peeling potatoes at the counter, Grandma was chopping onions, and that Mimi-person was standing, leaning herself against the refrigerator, talking a mile a minute.

  She had cleaned herself up some since Melissa and I had escaped to Grandma’s. The purple cowboy hat was nowhere to be seen, and she wore her hair smoothed back in a ponytail, which really showed off those grayish-white roots.
Her longsleeved, salmon-colored cowboy shirt had pearl snaps and brass collar tabs. Her tight-fitting, stone-washed blue jeans looked like something the girls in high school wore. And guess what? She had on those dumb red cowboy boots again.

  “She looks funny,” Melissa whispered, “but she doesn’t look scary or like a bad person.”

  I stared at that silly Melissa, then dragged her out of the room and back into the hall before Mimi spotted us.

  “Anyone who did what she did to my mama is not a nice person, Melissa Kay Carlyle!”

  “I’m just saying she doesn’t look as bad as you said.”

  I narrowed my eyes at that girl. “What? Are you saying I’m lying?”

  She sort of shrugged, but before she could say anything, the telephone rang.

  “I’ll get it!” screamed Myra Sue as she flung open her bedroom door.

  “I’ve already got it,” I said, picking up the receiver, which was about two feet away from where I was standing. “Hello?”

  “Is that April?” said a refined voice.

  “Hi, Isabel. Yes, it’s April Grace.”

  “Is it for me? Is it for me?” Myra Sue galloped down the stairs and tried to grab the receiver. “Give me that phone!”

  “Get away from me!” I barked at her with my hand over the mouthpiece.

  “My dear, how is your mother doing?” Isabel’s voice said in my ear. “Is that dreadful woman still at your house?”

  “She’s still here, and I guess Mama’s all right, but I think that Mimi-person has her all in a knot.”

  “I was afraid of that when I saw how things went last night. Shall I come and lend my support?”

  Now, I had to think about that for a minute. Isabel’s talent for being a giant pain in her own special way could cause plenty of stress and trouble on its own. On the other hand, she genuinely loved Mama, and I knew she had her best interests at heart.

  “You know what, Isabel . . . I think . . . Excuse me, just a minute, please.” I turned to Myra Sue, who continued to be a Gigantic Drip by prancing and jiggling and grabbing. “Get away from me and this telephone, Myra Sue Reilly! This call is not for you, or about you.”

  “I happen to know Isabel prefers talking to a person of intelligence,” she said, and grabbed at the phone. I turned sharply.

  “Then she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  Melissa stood a few feet away, watching this circus. I sent her a pleading look, and she gave me a nod because she is a person of intelligence. At least most of the time.

  “Myra Sue,” she said, “I really like your nail polish. What’s it called?”

  Boy, oh boy, was that the best she could do? But it worked because my dumb sister stopped grabbing for the phone immediately, smiled all bright, and held out both hands like she was fixing to play Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” in a concert hall.

  “It’s ‘Strawberry Kisses,’” she said while Melissa oohed and aahed over it.

  “I think Mama would like you to be here,” I said in the mouthpiece to Isabel.

  “Then I’m on my way, dear.”

  I hung up and announced, “I’m off the phone now, Myra Sue, you grabby-pants-of-the-universe.”

  “I’m expecting an important call,” she said with such drama, I nearly choked. “I might have missed it!”

  “Oh yeah, I’m so sure,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Who from? Bon Jovi? The Reverend Billy Graham? Or maybe the Queen of England?”

  Then I thought of something. If Myra Sue was busy on the telephone, yakking with some of her dingbatty friends, she’d be oblivious to the rest of the world. Maybe Melissa and I could trundle through that clutter and figure out what her big, fat secret was.

  “Actually, I’m sorry, Myra Sue. Maybe someone did try to call you while I was on the phone just now,” I said reasonably.

  “Duh, April Grace!” she screeched. “That’s what I tried to tell you!” She grabbed up the receiver and started dialing like her fingers were on fire.

  I bit my lips to keep from grinning, then jerked my head toward the stairs for Melissa to follow me up there.

  “Whoa!” she said, stopping on the threshold of Myra’s bedroom. “Are you kidding me? Your mom lets you guys keep your room like this?”

  I whirled around. “You know this is not my room! And Mama lets us keep our rooms however we want to because she says everyone should have their own space because it helps us to learn a little independence and responsibility.” I looked around. “But ole Myra could look up both of those words in the dictionary, and she’d still be a slob.”

  “My mom would come unglued,” Melissa declared, stepping over a pile of Myra’s dirty jeans.

  “It’s worse since she’s gotten all sneaky,” I said, pointing to a pile of papers on the bed. “And I hate sleeping in here. It’s like all this junk makes noise.”

  Melissa blinked at me. “Really?”

  “Well, not literally. But sorta, yeah.”

  She stepped over a purse and a squashed box of Kleenex and three People magazines to get to Myra Sue’s dresser.

  “Would you look at all this nail polish and perfume?”

  I scrunched my mouth. “That part of the mess is all from Isabel St. James. There’s some makeup somewhere, too. Isabel called it a mercy kit when she gave it to Myra.” I shook my head in pure disgust and sneezed three times. “She needs to give her a vacuum cleaner and a mop and call it a disaster repair kit.”

  Instead of helping me, that silly Melissa started piddling with all those bottles.

  “April,” she said in a funny tone of voice. “What’s on that list again?”

  I sighed. “You need to help me with these papers, not be over there playing with—”

  “Wasn’t one of them Cream Cheese in Florida? And wasn’t another Never on Sunday, except it should have been spelled s-u-n-d-a-e?”

  I clomped across a bunch of junk to get to her and grabbed up one of the nail polish bottles she held out. It was cherry red.

  “Never on Sundae!” I read the label aloud. Then I grabbed up all those nail polish bottles and read every single label, and guess what? Every item on that list was a color. “Cream Cheese in Florida” was a light, toasty brown; “Treehouse Rendezvous” was kinda odd with a little green or something mixed in. Eww. Midnight Cruise was dark, dark red.

  “Well, I am purely put-out!” I declared, clunking those bottles back down on top of the dresser. “That list is nothing more than a rotten ole shopping list.”

  Melissa heaved a sigh and shrugged like it was No Big Deal. Except it was to me. I heaved a sigh bigger than Melissa’s.

  “What do you want me to do, April?”

  I sneezed, then coughed, then blew my nose on three separate tissues.

  “Let’s go through these papers, ’cause ole Myra is always huddled over these notebooks. She tells Mama she’s doing homework, but I know better than that. Myra Sue is not a homework kind of girl. See if you can find that notebook she sleeps with it like it’s a teddy bear.”

  Melissa joined me at the bed, and we had just picked up a mess of those papers when the door crashed open.

  “Get out of my room!” Myra Sue honked at us like a barnyard goose. She charged across the room like a goose, too. A mad goose. “Get away from my private papers! You awful, nasty, creepy, cootie brats.” She yanked the pages out of our hands, tearing some of them, then she threw them on the floor and shoved us both out the door. “Get out!”

  Boy howdy, when Myra Sue slams a door, it makes all your mucus membranes vibrate.

  “Girls! What on earth is going on up there?” Mama called from downstairs.

  I had time to tell Melissa, “Don’t say a word about this,” before Mama appeared in the upstairs hallway. She gave me a funny look.

  “Myra Sue won’t let us be in her room.”

  “Well, I’ll see about that!” Mama said. “You girls have to share while Sandra is staying with us.” Mama went right past me and opened Myra Sue’s door without
knocking, which showed just how mad she was because, like I said before, Mama always knocks.

  “Young lady, you will allow your sister and her friend to be in this room, and you will get along with them. Do you hear me?”

  “But they were in my things!”

  We crept toward the door and looked in. Mama stood in the middle of the room, her arms straight down at her sides, her fists curling and uncurling.

  “How could anyone not help but be in your things?” she said. “Your things are everywhere! Clean this room, Myra Sue Reilly. Clean it right now.”

  “But I have homework—”

  “Clean this room right now!” Mama pivoted and stalked out. She brushed past Melissa and me like she didn’t even see us.

  Myra Sue glared at us. I figured I’d discover her secret a lot easier once her room was clean.

  “You have to help,” she said to Melissa and me, all snippy and mad.

  Now, if I thought helping her clean her room would solve this mystery of her secret life, I’d do it. But I knew as well as I know my own name that she’d land on me like a buzzard on roadkill if I got within a foot of whatever she was hiding. There was no way I was gonna help that girl pick up her own dirty laundry and used tissues and damp towels.

  “We ain’t doing a blessed thing. This is not our mess, Myra Sue.” I coughed.

  “OH!” she screamed and stomped her foot. “You’re gonna regret this, missy! If you hadn’t been snooping in my stuff, Mama would not have come up here.”

  “La-di-da!” I said airily. “Come on, Melissa. Let’s go see what’s on TV.”

  At the top of the steps, Melissa stopped and said, “If you’re so concerned about Myra Sue having a secret, why don’t you tell your mom?”

  “Because I have learned from experience not to tell anyone anything until I have solid proof. Whatever Myra’s doing is probably so dumb, it’s not worth mentioning to any of the grown-ups right now. I want to keep my eye on her.”

  “Well, if it’s that dumb, why do you care anyway?”

  I bugged my itchy eyes at the girl.