Mia, p.9
Mia,
p.9
Since I had a little boy standing by me, I figured it was okay to fib, and I shook my head emphatically.
“Can’t you tell it’s Zuzu?” Perry asked, trying to get her to play along.
Vanessa jabbed a finger at him and then at me. “If you’re here, then that must be your sister.” She looked straight at me. “The look’s an improvement for you.”
Through the mesh, I glanced at the little boy. To my relief, he was too busy playing with my paw to pay attention to Vanessa.
Before she could do any real harm, she was bumped to the side by a flood of costumed kids, all crying “Zuzu!” With an annoyed expression, Vanessa turned and skated away.
Unfortunately, there were now so many children on the ice that they overwhelmed my elves. Suddenly Zuzu was in danger of being loved to death as children tugged from all sides. When I moved to my left to maintain my balance, the suit was still jiggling to the right. I felt like a bowl of JELL-O in the middle of an avalanche and, just as I thought I was finally going to fall over, my friend Anya Sorokowski cried, “Oh, Zuzu! I’ve been dying to meet you!”
Anya’s my best friend and the same age as I am. She stretched over all the little bobbing heads to wrap her arms around me—actually steadying me, although she was disguising it as a hug. Her face peered through the mesh window. “I thought it was you,” she murmured, “because only you would get yourself stuck in a mess like this.”
With Anya’s help, my brothers managed to free me from the mob of adoring fans.
Anya had brought her six-year-old sister, Alexandra, to see Zuzu. Alexandra was in a fancy pink princess costume, and at first I think she suspected I was her sister’s friend, but then, with my elves keeping the other kids temporarily at a distance, something strange happened. I stopped feeling like I was wearing Zuzu’s costume and felt more like Zuzu herself. I began playing patty-cake with Alexandra. She warmed instantly. Giggling like the other little girl had, she rocked on her skates with happy excitement. It was just as Nelda had said: Zuzu would handle the cuteness.
Suddenly I heard Nelda exclaim, “Oh, look at Zuzu with that little darling. Don’t you want some footage of that?”
The next moment bright lights flooded the rink, and through the mesh opening I caught a glimpse of a man with a huge television camera that had the logo of the local television station. With him was a reporter, Lillian Chin, with a big microphone.
Lillian Chin asked me a question, but all I could do was give a big Zuzu-style shrug and wave to the camera. All the attention made Alexandra shy, so she scurried behind Anya.
Lillian Chin was trying to coax Alexandra into coming forward again when Mayor Chuck “Chuckles” Weyberg roared over.
“My darling Zuzu!” he boomed. The music playing in the background must have inspired him, because he grabbed one of my paws and said, “I’ve had a crush on you, Zuzu, since I was a kid. How about a dance?”
Even if I could have protested, the mayor didn’t give me a chance. The unexpected motion was too much, and although I struggled to keep my balance, I finally toppled like a furry tree. There was a solid thunk as Zuzu’s big fiberglass head hit Mayor Chuck on his head, and we both fell together. I ended up landing on his chest.
I’d been falling on the ice and getting back to my feet my whole life, but never in a squirrel costume. I started to get up, but I lost my balance and fell back onto the mayor. Where were my elves?!
“Stop,” Coach Schubert ordered, “before you flatten the mayor.”
By now, when the coach said to do something, I automatically did it. So I stayed still, crouched on top of the mayor, suddenly aware that in addition to the TV camera trained on us, digital cameras were flashing, and all around us people were laughing.
As the coach helped me to my hindpaws again, I heard someone shout, “Zuzu for Mayor!” And others took up the chant.
With a grimace, the mayor drew his hand across his throat in a slashing gesture, trying to signal the television crew to turn off its light and camera. But the light just kept on shining and the news camera kept on recording.
Nelda and Coach Schubert led me off the rink before I could knock over anyone else. It was a relief to take off the suit and get back to being me. I apologized to Nelda, but she just grinned as she handed me a sports drink. “Didn’t you see all the folks? They loved it.” When she was sure I was all right, she excused herself to get back to her guests, including Mayor Chuck.
I emptied the bottle and was about to go out and do my chores at the rink, but the coach caught up with me and told my brothers and me to go home.
“You’ve done enough today,” she said with a chuckle. “Besides, I’m afraid that if you went out now, people would pay more attention to you than to Nelda’s party, and today really ought to be about her. Or,” she arched an eyebrow, “is there some other politician you want to crush?”
Dad left with us, bringing home some bags of goodies from the buffet, which he distributed among us to carry. As we walked the three blocks home from the rink, Skip peeked into the bag he was holding and smacked his lips. “I can’t wait to dig in to all this stuff.”
Free food was how I’d lured my brothers into going to the Lucerne in the first place. Between the expenses for my figure skating and my brothers’ private hockey teams, our family budget is tight. Besides their regular jobs, both of my parents work part-time as well. Unfortunately, though, local companies are cutting back, so things are even tighter than usual for us right now because Dad’s part-time job has shrunk to just a few hours a week.
Less money coming in means that our parents have cut back on everything, including our food budget. We aren’t starving—not by a long shot—but my brothers are human vacuum cleaners who can practically suck up even the plates from the dinner table.
“Dad, did you include any nuts for Mia?” Perry teased.
Wincing, I said loudly, “Enough with the squirrel jokes, please.”
“Or what?” Rick asked. “You’ll bite us?”
I was tempted to do just that when kindhearted Skip tried to change the subject. “Did you see the princess outfit that Alexandra was wearing? It was like something from a musical.”
“Lucky little girl to have such a nice costume.” Rick started to laugh as he said, “Hey, remember that Halloween when Mom tried to save money by making all our costumes? And the seams were so twisted that everything fit weird?”
Perry laughed, too, as he patted Rick between the shoulder blades. “You looked like a werewolf with a hunchback.”
“Well, a hunchback wasn’t as bad as having three ears, like Mia did.” Skip jerked a thumb at me.
“Yeah,” I agreed and glanced accusingly at Dad. “I wore that kitten outfit only because you fibbed and told me that it meant it was a special breed of cat.” I added, “I got teased for a month afterwards.”
Dad scratched his nose as he pretended a sudden fascination with the sky. “Did I? I’m afraid I don’t quite remember.”
“Mom does all right with a needle and thread, but she never got the knack of sewing those stretchy materials,” Perry said.
“Like you would know which end of a needle to use,” I said, defending her. “Stretch material is tricky stuff. Not everyone can handle it.” I knew that because I had had my own catastrophes with sewing stretchy fabric.
“After that Halloween, you always went as ghosts,” Dad chuckled.
“That’s because all Mom had to do was cut holes in old sheets,” Rick said.
Perry tugged at his ear as if he wanted to make sure it didn’t have a point anymore. “Elves have even simpler costumes,” he said and then sighed. “But appearing as an elf is not quite the way I wanted to celebrate.” Just yesterday, we’d found out that Perry’s hockey team had been invited to an important tournament, where only the very best teams would play. There would be plenty of college and professional scouts there. It was Perry’s big chance.
“Look at it this way,” Skip teased. “You could be the first elf ever to play hockey.”
I started to salivate the moment we came in through the back door of our home. The kitchen smelled of fresh baking, and Mom was taking a sheet of cookies out of the oven.
Dad held his paper bag up triumphantly. “Beloved spouse, the foragers have returned!” he announced loudly over the talk show playing on the little black-and-white television on the counter.
“And a hearty welcome to you, equally beloved spouse, and offspring.” Mom set the cookie sheet on the stovetop as she looked at me. “I guess I don’t have to ask you how your afternoon went.” She paused and then added meaningfully, “Zuzu.”
I wanted to empty the leftovers from the paper bag in my hands and put the bag over my head. “How did you know?” I asked in a small voice.
“The phone’s been ringing off the hook,” Mom explained, “after people figured out you had to be Zuzu. I never knew I had such a talented daughter.”
Suddenly the talk show was cut off abruptly by a sign on the television that said “Breaking news.”
“And now we bring you an urgent news bulletin from Lillian Chin on location at the Lucerne Ice Arena,” a voice said excitedly.
The next moment we were staring at Lillian Chin in front of the Lucerne. “Today,” she said in a breathless voice, “Mayor Chuck Weyberg was viciously assaulted. Police are asking you to be on the lookout for a giant gray rodent with a large, fluffy tail and a huge overbite. She is considered quite dangerous.” She suddenly smiled and added, “But only if you are a politician. The rest of us needn’t worry.”
I looked in horror at the television screen while the station kept replaying my fall, making it look as if I were hopping up and down on the mayor as on a trampoline. The caption at the bottom of the screen read in big, bold letters: “Zuzu Debates the Mayor.”
Then the camera panned to the skaters chanting, “Zuzu for Mayor.”
Oh, yes, I would definitely be wearing that paper sack over my head when I went to school.
© 2008 American Girl. All rights reserved. All American Girl marks, Mia™, and Girl of the Year™ are trademarks of American Girl. Used under license by Scholastic Inc.
Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental and not intended by American Girl or Scholastic Inc.
Illustrations by Robert Papp
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
First printing 2008
e-ISBN 978-1-338-19737-2
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012
Laurence Yep, Mia
