who had been dipping her empty Popsicle stick into the paint can and painting her fingernails red, stopped and looked up. “Ellie,” she asked, “what’s that smell?”
Maryellen turned and saw smoke billowing out of the kitchen door just as Carolyn came running up the driveway waving her piano music and shouting, “Ellie! The brownies—they’re burning!”
Joan, rushing out to see what the fuss was, flung open the front screen door and knocked Maryellen backward on her roller skates. As Maryellen fell over Scooter and landed bottom-first in a bush, red paint went flying—all over her, all over the front step, and all over Jerry’s white tennis shorts and shirt.
“Hey!” exclaimed Jerry.
“Oh no!” shrieked Joan.
Tom, making siren noises and clanging the bell on his fire truck, pedaled to the kitchen door and turned on the hose. He squirted water through the kitchen screen door, trying to put out the fire in the oven like a fireman. Beverly held up her hands, which were covered in red paint, and wailed. Mikey, unperturbed, picked up the paintbrush and began painting red stripes on Scooter, who didn’t seem to mind.
And it was at that exact moment that Mrs. Larkin’s car pulled into the driveway, horn honking “Honk, honk!” to announce its happy arrival.
“MOM!” Joan, Carolyn, Maryellen, Beverly, and Tom yelled at the top of their lungs.
“Fire!” yelled Jerry.
“Paint!” yelled Mikey.
“Ar-oooo!” howled Scooter, not to be left out of the ruckus. “Ar-ooo! Ar-ooo! Ar-ooo!”
The car screeched to a stop, and Mrs. Larkin, Betty, and Florence jumped out.
“What’s going on?” Mrs. Larkin shouted, over and above all the noise. “Oh, my stars—look at this mess! How on earth did this happen?”
Suddenly, everyone was quiet. None of them had ever seen Mom this mad before. Even Scooter was cowed, and maintained a dignified silence.
Maryellen stepped forward. At this moment, she certainly had her mother’s undivided attention, and oh boy, did she ever wish she didn’t. “Mom,” she began. Her voice sounded as wobbly as her knees felt. “I was only trying to paint the door. I didn’t mean to make a mess. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Joan repeated. “You’ve ruined Jerry’s tennis clothes. You’ve ruined our date. You’ve ruined the front of our house. And all you can say is you’re sorry?” Joan put her hands on her hips and leaned toward Maryellen. “This is just the kind of disaster I was talking about earlier. Mom lets you get away with murder, but you’re not a baby anymore! When are you going to grow up?” She stormed off with Jerry, holding him by the arm, but gingerly, so that she wouldn’t get red paint on her tennis dress.
“Oh, Ellie,” moaned Mom. She closed her eyes and pressed her red fingertips to her forehead. Then she opened her eyes and said, “Ellie, I will speak to you about this privately. Carolyn, please help Betty and Florence get settled, and then give them a glass of iced tea on the back patio.”
“Sure, Mom,” said Carolyn. Everyone skedaddled, and Jerry and Joan drove away. Mom and Maryellen were alone.
Maryellen picked up the paintbrush and the paint can and tried to explain. “I only wanted to—”
But Mom interrupted. “No explanations right now, please. And just leave the mess,” she said flatly. “We’ll deal with it later, after Betty and Florence have left. Right this very minute, I’ve got to tell you that I am disappointed in you. Dad would be, too. It is childish to get so carried away that you don’t stop to think. I understand that in a big family like ours, it’s hard to get your fair share of attention. But Ellie, honey, like it or not, you are just one of six children. You cannot be the center of attention all the time. And in any case, there are better ways of getting attention than showing off and slathering red paint all over. Didn’t you promise me just this morning that you’d act more responsibly?”
Maryellen nodded. She was too close to tears to speak. She was sorry to have upset Mom, and she was even sorrier that her surefire way of pleasing Mom had completely backfired. What a flop! What a failure! What a disaster.
She sure had failed Mom’s test. Now Joan and Mom would never agree to the All Girls Room. Worse than that, instead of thinking that she was more grown-up, Mom and Joan now thought of her as even more messy and irresponsible than before.
The full moon was so bright and shone such a strong silver light into the bedroom that Maryellen could not sleep. Lying on her upper bunk, she tossed and turned and flushed hot and cold just thinking of the red paint disaster. No one had said anything about it at dinner or later while everyone was watching TV. Even Joan didn’t mention it, and her silence was strange considering how mad she’d been earlier. But Maryellen knew it was on everyone’s mind. Especially hers.
“Jeez Louise, Ellie,” Joan said sleepily. “Stop spinning around. What are you doing—practicing your underwater somersaults? Go to sleep, why don’t you?”
“Sorry,” said Maryellen. She flinched, expecting Joan to jump all over her again the way she had earlier when Maryellen had used the inadequate word sorry.
But Joan didn’t. In fact, her voice was kind when she said, “Listen, Ellie-jelly, don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re upset because your red paint idea didn’t work out. But everybody makes a mistake once in a while. Your mistake today just happened to be a lulu.”
“All my ideas seem to be mistakes,” said Maryellen. “They’re all lulus.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Joan. “You had one good idea today.”
“I did?” asked Maryellen. She could hardly believe her ears. “What was it?”
Joan giggled a little. “You told Jerry to, uh, get on the ball,” she said.
Maryellen gulped. “You’re not mad about that?” she asked.
“Well, no,” said Joan. “In fact, I’m glad you said something.”
Maryellen was flabbergasted. “Glad?” she repeated.
“Mm-hmm,” said Joan. “Thanks to you, Jerry finally gave me his fraternity pin.”
“He did?” squeaked Maryellen.
“Yep,” said Joan. “I was hoping that he would pin me before he went back to college in the fall, but of course I couldn’t ask him. Girls don’t propose to boys.”
“So that means you’re engaged to be engaged, right?” Maryellen asked. “And does that mean you’ll be getting married soon?” Now that Joan was being so nice, Maryellen wasn’t sure she wanted her to leave—not right away, at least.
“No, we won’t be getting married for a while yet,” said Joan. “So don’t say anything to Mom and Dad. Jerry and I want to talk to them together, because it’s a pretty
