The Sisters Club (10 page)

All during dinner, I kept looking at Alex,
who was looking at Scott Towel like she was all gaga in love — like she actually
wanted
him to drop his fondue! I mean, what are the chances you’ll actually marry the person whose name you write over and over a hundred times in your seventh-grade notebook?

Zero to none.

Gaga Alex didn’t seem at all like the sister who used to come to Sisters Club Meetings.

“Stevie?” Alex asked. “Are you actually going to eat that? Or just hold it there for a year? You’re causing a traffic jam, you know.”

“I’m concentrating,” I told her (on not dropping my fondue so I won’t have to kiss anybody!). I dipped my zucchini carefully into the fondue pot. The plan was for Scott Towel to drop his fondue, NOT me.

Dad cracked one of his really bad jokes. “Honey,” said Dad, in front of everybody, even the Boy. “I just want you to know, I’m so fon-due you!” Like “fond of” you. Get it? Ha, ha, ha. Dad must be from the Planet Cardigan, like those grandpa sweaters Mr. Rogers wears. We’re talking
Old School.

Mom actually thought it was funny. Alex had a look on her face like she wanted to crawl under the table and disappear.

“Ee-uw! Dad! You made me dip my zucchini in chocolate!” I said.

The Boy spoke. “This is all good,” he said.

“For melty, lumpy cheese glop, you mean,” said Joey.

“This tastes much better than the fondue I made on TV,” said Mom.

“Stevie, you’re getting to be quite the cook,” said Dad. “Good for you.”

“Good for
us,
” said Alex. Everybody laughed, even Mom.

I think they actually liked the fondue. Even Alex said it was way better than Chinese takeout. I couldn’t help it, though — I kept half-expecting to find a rubber ear à la Joey floating in the cheese glop.

I guess she was too busy with her Bump-into-Scott routine. We planned it that Joey would sit next to Scott Towel. Even better, it turns out he’s left-handed and Joey’s right-handed. “Like normal people and NON-boys,” Joey pointed out. So it was perfect for bumping elbows.

“If you’re left-handed, it means you’re creative,” said Alex. “An artist.”

“I think it just means you bump into stuff more,” said Joey. “See?” She bumped Scott’s elbow, trying to get him to drop his fondue off the fork.

After that, every time Scott Towel (a.k.a. Scotch Tape) reached for the fondue, Joey went
BUMP!

The Boy scooched his chair closer to Alex.

As soon as Mom and Dad weren’t looking, Joey bumped his elbow again, then played innocent. Still nothing happened.

The Boy gave Joey a “Cut it out” look, but he didn’t say it out loud. He just took a sip of water.

I tried to signal Joey, to make my eyes say, “It’s not working! Do it again!”

That’s when it happened.

The Boy had a hunk of bread on the end of his fork. He dipped it in the cheese and started to lift it out. He waited for a second while the cheese went
drip, drip, drip,
and just at that exact moment, I saw Joey go in for the kill.

BUMP!

His cheesy bread slipped and fell and landed —
PLOP!
— right smack-dab in the middle of the cheesy cheese.

I looked at Joey. Joey looked at me.

Scott Towel was still chasing his cheese lump around the pot, hoping he wouldn’t get caught.

“LOOK!” shouted Joey, pointing to the lump in the pot.

“Empty fork!” I shouted. “Empty fork!”

“Uh-oh. Bad news,” said Dad. “Looks to me like he dropped it.”

“I didn’t — really it was — she bumped me!” He pulled his fork out of the fondue pot and knocked over his glass of water.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”

“It’s OK,” Mom said, handing him paper-towel napkins to sop up all the dripping water.

“Alex first!” Joey shouted. “Kiss Alex first!”

Scott Towel turned tomato-red, worse than Pizza Fondue. He pretended to wipe up some more water drips and disappeared under the table. Nobody knew what to do. Alex looked like she might cry. Joey pushed back the tablecloth to see what he was doing under there.

Finally, Scott pulled his head out from under the table. On the way back up, he accidentally bumped into Joey’s ear — with his lips!

Everybody was silent. Like the whole family had turned to stone.

“Bluck! Frog lips!” Joey yelled. She actually said
frog lips
! No lie. Then she got up from the table and ran to our room.

Without dessert.

I, Middle Sister, Glue Girl, ran after her.

I had to make sure Joey was OK (not to mention saving my
own
life). After all, neither of us
ever
thought this would end up with Joey getting a big, wet, boy ear-smooch.

“Open up!” I banged on the door to our room. Nothing.

I looked down the hall, at the stairs, trying to think of how to get Joey to open the door before Alex caught up with us. “Hey, Joey! Let me in! Hurry up, before Frog Lips plants a wet one on me.”

Click!
Joey opened the door.

“Phew, that was close,” I said to Joey.

“It’s too late for me,” Joey said, still swiping at her ear with her sleeve.

“Just think of it like . . . a doggie slurp,” I suggested.

“Ye-ah. A
Scotty
dog!” She gave her ear one last swipe, then went back to scribbling in that notebook of hers.

“Look what I’m making!” She held up a
NO KISSING
sign. A pair of lips with a big red circle and stripe through it.

Against my better instincts, we laughed ourselves silly just thinking about the look on Scott Towel’s face.

“Maybe I should draw an ear with a red line through it, too,” Joey said.

I cackled some more, to cover up for feeling guilty about starting the whole Fondue Freak Show.

All of a sudden, we heard
Wham! Wham! Wham!
on the door. Definitely Alex. It was her “You better open the door” knock.

“Nobody’s home!” Joey called.

“Let me in!” yelled Alex.

“Not by the hair of our chinny-chin-chins!” I called. That got Joey giggling all over again.

Alex burst in. “You guys are
so
not funny!” Alex said. “I ask you to be nice and you go and ruin everything, you . . . you . . . purple-hued maltworms!”

“What did we do?” I asked innocently. Like I didn’t know.

“You two embarrassed me big-time in front of my friend. He looked like he wet his pants, ’cause you made him spill that water . . .”

“Scott Towel wet his pants!” Joey said. I bit my cheeks to keep from laughing.

“And now Dad’s taking him home, and we didn’t even get to practice the play or anything.”

“At least
you
didn’t have to practice kissing!” said Joey.

“I hate you!” said Alex. “I hate you both! I don’t care what anybody says about sisters. I’m never speaking to you again. Ever.”

I knew Alex was mad — but I didn’t know Volcano Alex was about to erupt. I mean, really explode.

“I quit!” Alex shouted at us. “Do you hear me? I quit the Sisters Club! Forever and ever!”

Since Alex wouldn’t talk to me, I thought
I’d listen in on her talking to Sock Monkey. As in
spy.
I was lying on the floor (under the bed) where I could hear most of what she was saying through the old iron grate, where the heat comes through.

“Are you living under the bed now?” asked Joey.

“Shhh! Can’t you see I’m eavesdropping?”

“On who?”

“Alex and Sock Monkey!”

“What are they saying?”

“Mostly just
Beauty and the Beast
stuff. Stuff about us, too!”

“What stuff?”

“The usual. Evil wicked stepsister stuff.”

“She’s really mad this time, huh?” said Joey.

“Volcano mad!” I said. “But at least volcanoes only erupt every two thousand years.”

“What’s wrong with her, anyway? Why’s she acting funny like this?”

“Mom says maybe it’s hormones. Dad says it’s a midlife crisis, between being a kid and a teenager. Maybe it’s a mid-
love
crisis! I just heard her say she
wanted
Scott Towel to kiss her!”

“No way!”

“Way!”

“I wish she would talk to us,” Joey said. “Do stuff, like we used to.”

“Me too, Duck.”

“And stop thinking we’re purple mealworms.”

“Purple-hued maltworms?”

“Whatever.”

“Is she really quitting the Sisters Club, you think?”

“You can’t quit your sisters, Duck. Sisters are forever. Remember?”

“I miss Alex and the Sisters Club. I even miss her bossing us.”

I didn’t say anything. But the real truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth was that I missed my sister, too. She could have been talking to me, whis-pering secrets to me. Instead, she was spilling her guts to a stupid old pair of socks with eyes. Telling it she
wanted
to get kissed. By a B-O-Y! I just didn’t get it.

“Hello? Earth to Stevie.”

“I know, I know. You want to show me something.”

I slid out from under the bed. Joey cracked up. “You should see you. You have dust bunnies all over your hair!”

“And I found a LEGO fairy, two quarters, and the silver locket from your pioneer doll.”

“Hey! I’ve been looking everywhere for those! By the way, I lost two quarters.”

“Did not!”

“Did, too!”

I handed Joey the locket and the LEGO and put the quarters in my pocket.

“Are you coming or not?”

“Not.”

“C’mon, Stevie. Please? You have to.”

I followed Joey downstairs. One sister mad at me was enough.

Joey had been helping Dad paint the volcano. She took me by the hand and led me around to the back of the volcano. “Look! Look what I did! It’s so funny!”

I crouched down on my knees and saw where Joey had painted initials with a big red heart around them.