Monkey Business (6 page)

“That's totally weird,” said Claire, shuddering. “A dress code for a birthday party is insane, and yet, so totally Nikki.”

“Why would I do any of that?” I asked, feeling that same sense of uneasiness from the sleepover in the pit of my stomach.

Rachel shrugged and turned back to her peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich, taking a large bite and chewing. Like having a mouth full of food was an excuse not to explain herself. Except it wasn't. But did I even need her explanation when I kind of knew what she was getting at?

“Are you asking me if I'm going to have the same party as Nikki because we both live in Canyon Ranch?” I asked pointedly.

Rachel gave an exaggerated shrug. “You said it. Not me.”

Emma cleared her throat and said, “I have lived in Canyon Ranch since I was born and I've never even been in a limo.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Now, let's get back to the concert money,” Emma said as she pulled out a notebook and pen and made some calculations. “I'm just saying it's not as impossible as it sounds. Think about it. There are five of us. Today is April fifteenth, and the concert isn't until July fourth. That's almost three months away. We've got plenty of time to figure out how to raise the money.”

“It's a lot of money. At least for me,” Rachel said, staring at me.

“It's a lot for all of us,” I said.

Claire nodded and pulled out her phone to use the calculator. “But Emma is right. When you break it down, you can see we have to come up with two hundred and fifty dollars a month. That's about fifty-six dollars a week, or eight dollars a day. Divide that by five, and each of us has to raise less than two dollars a day.”

“Totally manageable!” said Emma.

“But that's if you include today. If we start tomorrow, we're already behind,” said Rachel.

“Not necessarily,” said Emma. “Let's start by pooling what we have so far.”

“Good idea. Who has money?” asked Claire, looking around the table. “I have twenty dollars left over from what my grandma gave me for Easter.”

“You get money for Easter?” asked Rachel.

“Only this year because my grandma felt guilty for celebrating with her boyfriend's family instead of us.”

“I counted my savings after my dad broke the
news to me last night,” said Yumi. “I have eighteen dollars and seventy-five cents, mostly from babysitting for my little sister.”

I scratched my head and thought for a moment. “I haven't counted my money in a while, and I'm not even sure where my piggy bank is, but I think I have something like six dollars, plus a jar of pennies.”

My friends nodded, none of them very impressed.

“The jar is pretty big,” I felt the need to add. “There's probably at least three dollars in there. I'll count it when I get home from school.”

“Perfect,” said Emma. “If we assume your estimation is correct, that's nine dollars. And adding that to Yumi's and Claire's money, it means we have forty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents.”

“I have thirty dollars, plus I got a quarter as change when I bought my lunch. So that makes seventy-eight dollars.” Emma turned to Rachel. “See! We're actually way ahead of the game.”

“Yeah,” said Claire. “What do you have?”

Rachel shook her head. “I'm totally broke. I only get seven dollars a week for my allowance, and I already spent this week's money on frozen yogurt.”

My ears perked up. Rachel got seven dollars a week for an allowance? That was a big allowance as far as I was concerned and I decided to tell her so.

‘That's a lot of money,” I said.

“It's only a dollar a day,” said Rachel. “You can't buy anything for a dollar.”

“I don't even get an allowance,” I said.

“You don't?” asked Emma.

“Nope.” I shook my head. “My mom says I have to help out around the house because it's my house too. I shouldn't be rewarded for making my bed or doing my dishes, for instance. It's my bed and my dishes and part of the garbage is mine too. When my mom asks me to do something, I'm supposed to do it.”

“So what happens when you need to buy something?” asked Claire.

“Well, I just ask,” I said with a shrug. “If I want to go to a movie or I want a new outfit or something, I'll tell my mom, and if she has the money, she'll give it to me. And if not, she'll tell me. Or she'll say that whatever jeans I want are too expensive and I can get a less-fancy pair or we can wait until the ones I want are on sale.”

“Well, whenever I want to go to a movie, I have to use my own money,” said Rachel.

“But you always get money, every single week no matter what,” I pointed out. “Which means you could see two movies every month if you wanted to—and buy popcorn.”

“As long as I do my chores,” said Rachel. “It's not like I can just ask.”

“I told you it's not that easy,” I said. “I don't always get what I want.”

Rachel frowned as if she didn't believe me.

“Let's get back to the concert,” said Emma. “Right now we've got seventy-eight dollars.”

“Which means we don't even have enough money for one ticket,” said Rachel.

“True,” said Emma. “But we do have plenty of cash to start a business with.” She turned to Yumi and asked, “You said you've been earning money babysitting?”

“Yup,” said Yumi. “I'm in charge of my baby sister every single night for twenty minutes while my mom makes dinner.”

“How much do you make?” I asked.

“Five dollars an hour,” said Yumi. “So that works out to be eleven dollars and change every week.”

“You are so lucky,” said Claire. “Maybe we can all babysit for Suki.”

Emma scratched some numbers into her notebook. “We'd have to babysit for one hundred and fifty hours to make enough money.”

“We do have three whole months,” Yumi pointed out.

“Yeah, but do you think your parents need that much help?” I asked.

Yumi thought about this for a minute. “Well, Suki has another babysitter. I'm more of a mother's helper, which means I watch her when my parents are in the house but busy with something. They say I can't babysit for real until I'm fourteen.”

“Too bad,” said Emma.

“Yeah,” said Yumi. “Anyway, I don't think she'd pay all five of us to watch Suki at the same time.”

“Okay, so much for babysitting,” said Emma, crossing it off her list.

“Wait, I know a five-year-old named Sienna,” said Rachel. “She moved into Annabelle's old house and her mom also has a baby. Maybe I could be a mother's helper.”

“Good idea,” said Emma. “Definitely look into that and report back. And in the meantime let's think of some sort of business we could run.”

“Why don't we set up a lemonade stand?” Claire suggested. “It's perfect now that the weather is warming up. Who doesn't love lemonade?”

I looked around at my friends. The smiles on our faces told me that we all loved lemonade.

“I sold lemonade on my corner last Fourth of July and I totally cleaned up!” Rachel said.

“I know, I was there,” said Claire. “And how fun was it?”

“It was the best,” said Rachel as they high-fived each other.

“How soon can we get started?” I asked.

“Well, we need lemonade and a stand,” said Emma. “And we probably have to do some sort of advertising so people actually know we have a stand.”

“And we have to figure out where to set it up,” said Yumi.

“Wherever there are thirsty people,” Rachel said.

“And wherever it's super-hot,” I said. “Good news—I've been checking the weather constantly ever since
we moved. Saturday is definitely swim weather. Which means it'll be lemonade weather too. How about we meet after school at my house. We can figure everything out.”

“Done!” said Claire. “This is going to be awesome!”

“Is everyone else in?” I asked.

My friends nodded. Even Rachel.

The bell rang. We all high-fived and then cleaned up our lunches and went to class.

I had science with Tobias and Oliver.

As soon as I sat down, Oliver smiled at me and said, “You're in a good mood. Fun lunch?”

“It's got nothing to do with lunch,” I said. “I'm just excited because my friends and I figured out how to get to the Panda Parade.”

“The what?” asked Tobias.

“The Panda Parade. It's this big concert that's happening in Indio in July.”

“My grandparents live in Indio,” said Tobias, brushing his greasy black hair out of his eyes. “It's so boring there. It's all flat and hot, and there's nothing but desert and mini-malls as far as the eye can see.”

“Well, it won't be boring when I'm there for Fourth of July weekend, because the Panda Parade is going to be amazing.”

“Again, the what?” asked Tobias.

I told them all about the concert.

“I'm allergic to pandas,” said Tobias.

“There aren't actually going to be pandas there,” I told him. “That's the problem. The pandas are endangered, meaning they're not enough of them in the world. So all my favorite bands are getting together to throw a benefit concert in Indio.”

“Sounds fun,” said Oliver, tossing his pen in the air and catching it again. “I should go.”

“You should!” I said.

“Except I don't know what my plans are for the summer,” said Oliver. “I need to check with my mom. We may not be around.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” I asked. “Where are you going?”

“We usually go to Europe so I can visit my grandparents.”

Oliver's mom is from Jamaica and his dad is from England. It made sense that he had family in other countries. It just never occurred to me that he'd be leaving mine!

“No way! For how long?”

“The summer,” said Oliver.

“The entire summer?”

Oliver shrugged. “I think so. A month or so, anyway.”

“That's so long!” I said without thinking about the fact that Tobias was listening to every single word we said.

“Aw, poor Oliver and Annabelle,” he teased. “The lovebirds are going to be torn apart. … How will you two survive?”

I was about to tell Tobias to shut his mouth, but Oliver did before I had the chance to.

“We mean it!” I said, socking him on the shoulder for good measure.

“Ouch! You two are the worst lab partners ever,” said Tobias, slumping in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. His dark hair hung over his eyes, but this time he didn't bother pushing it back. “I'm totally outnumbered.”

I had to laugh because I had felt the exact same way at the beginning of the school year when Tobias and Oliver were all buddy-buddy and I was the new kid. I suppose my experience could have given me some extra sympathy for Tobias. Except I couldn't forget the way he had tortured me earlier this school year—kicking my chair and calling me Spazabelle and even stealing my homework once. So it was hard to feel bad for the dude.

“Deal with it,” I said.

“You are harsh,” he replied.

I simply smiled at him and said, “I kind of have to be to deal with you.”

“Nice one,” Oliver whispered.

I grinned and nodded and said, “Yeah, I try.”

Some days I wish I had a gigantic fast-forward button for my life, because whenever I'm excited about doing something after school, classes seem to move super-slowly. It's like the universe knew I had big plans and it was making my teachers even more boring than usual. And this particular afternoon seemed worse than ever.

When the dismissal bell finally rang, I scrambled to my locker to meet up with my four best friends. We gathered all our things and made sure we had the right books for our homework (because we're nerdy like that), and then we walked to my place.

My mom and Ted were still at work, so I let everyone inside with my key, which I kept clipped to a special hook inside my backpack so it didn't get lost.

Pepper barked and jumped on me right away, as usual. I led him to the backyard so Rachel wouldn't start sneezing.

“Anyone want a snack?” I asked after making sure the back door was firmly closed. “We have carrots
and cheese sticks and oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies. …”

“Cookies!” Claire and Emma said at the same time, and the rest of us laughed.

“Yeah, why'd I even ask about the healthy stuff?” I wondered out loud as I headed for the kitchen.

Everyone else filed into the living room and sat down on our new white sofa. That made me realize something. I wasn't sure if we were allowed to eat in the living room. My mom and Ted had never said not to, but then again, I'd never seen them take food in there before.

I figured it would be okay, but I still felt like I should be responsible and say something. So when I brought the plate of cookies over and set them down on the coffee table, I said, “Careful with the food in the living room, okay, guys? Everything is new.”