Addie Bell's Shortcut to Growing Up by Jessica Brody
I can tell instantly from Grace’s reaction that it was the right thing to say. The best thing to say. She grins. “I’ll be there!”
“Five, six, seven, eight!” Grace calls out.
The first verse of “Love Is a Four-Letter Word,” one of our favorite Summer Crush songs, kicks off and we start dancing.
Walk one, two, three, out four, head roll, ball change, kick.
Down one, hair flip, shoulder, shoulder, step, pause, and turn.
“Then I thought we could do something like this,” Grace says, doing a swinging twirl kick.
“Awesome!” I try the move and nearly wipe out. We both break into laughter. “Then at the end,” I say, righting myself, “we can do cool jazz hands.” I fall to one knee, stick out my hands, and wiggle my fingers.
“Jazz hands?” Grace gives me a skeptical look. “Aren’t those a little immature?”
I can’t help but giggle. “Maybe.”
We practice the routine five more times until we’re both breathless and our legs are sore. Grace collapses on her sleeping bag and spreads her arms out like she’s going to do a snow angel. “Gosh, I love Summer Crush so much. I can’t wait for their next album! What do you think it’ll be called?”
I don’t have the heart to tell her that, unfortunately, this will be the last album. That our favorite band is breaking up. So I just plop down on my own sleeping bag and say, “I have no idea. But definitely something to do with stars. Or hearts. Or stars. Or maybe hearts.”
Grace giggles. It’s a little private joke between us. We once noticed that all four of the Summer Crush albums had either the word star or heart in the title. Queen of My Heart, Stars and Stripes, Royal Heart Flush, and finally the most recent, In the Stars.
“Or maybe they’ll go with something completely new and different,” Grace says. “Something like…”
“Moon!” we both shout at the exact same time. Then we do the thing we always do when we have one of our weird psychic moments. We point to each other with open mouths and start cackling like little old ladies.
“That was crazy!” Grace exclaims.
“The craziest,” I agree, with a smile the size of Texas on my face.
Gosh, I missed this so much.
Lying here, on my sleeping bag next to Grace, I suddenly realize that I don’t really care if Summer Crush breaks up. I don’t care if Berrin releases the worst solo album in history, Maddox starts hawking perfume, and Donovan and Cole turn into bad reality TV stars. Because even though we’ll never have another Summer Crush album to look forward to, even though we’ll never again stay up until midnight waiting for the songs to release online, I know for sure now that Grace and I will never split up. We’ll always be friends. And that’s something even better to look forward to.
Even so, I might send a strongly worded fan letter to Summer Crush pleading with them to stay together, just in case.
“What do you want to do now?” I ask, rolling onto my stomach.
Grace shrugs. “How about we work on our English project?”
I pop up to my knees. “Yes! I actually had a great idea for that.”
“You do?” Grace looks a little apprehensive, particularly after the disagreement we had yesterday. I’m sure she thinks I’m going to suggest we make a music video to an old rap song or something.
“A fairy tale!”
She frowns. “But I thought you said last night that you didn’t want to do a fairy tale.”
“I changed my mind! Plus, I came up with the best fairy tale!”
Grace’s eyes grow as large as pancakes. “What is it?”
“It’s actually a story Mrs. Toodles told me. About a woman with magical powers. She was called la Dame Étoilée, which in French means ‘the Starlit Lady.’ ”
“Ooh, French,” Grace says approvingly. “This is going to be good. Mrs. Toodles always has the best stories.”
I smile and launch into the tale of la Boîte aux Rêves Cachés. I tell her about Marie Antoinette and her personal mystic, who was kept a secret until the revolution, when her identity was discovered and she was executed as a witch, all her belongings destroyed. I try to tell it as well as Mrs. Toodles did, inserting dramatic pauses and changing my voice at just the right times for just the right effect. It seems to be working. Grace is resting on her elbows, staring at me intently as I speak.
“So what happened to the box?” she asks when I finish.
I shrug. “That’s the mystery. No one really knows. It was passed down from mother to daughter for generations and then it just…disappeared.”
I think about the gem-encrusted jewelry box on the top shelf of my closet and smile. Probably better that no one knows about it. I wouldn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.
“This is great,” Grace says. “We can film it like a movie.”
“Yeah!”
“And you can play the Starlit Lady!”
“And you can play the daughter who finds the jewelry box!”
Grace jumps to her knees. “Yes!”
“And we can ask Rory to play Marie Antoinette.”
Grace’s smile falls right off her face. “Do you think she’ll do it? She never seems to want to do anything with us.”
I wave away her concern. “Trust me, she’ll do it. We’ll just remind her that Marie Antoinette had tons of shoes and makeup and she’ll be in.”
Grace giggles. “Cool. We can build the Box of Hidden Dreams out of cardboard and fabric. I saw a YouTube tutorial about it.”
“Perfect!” I say, and we both jump to our feet to get started.
“This can be the Starlit Lady’s cottage,” I say, rolling up the sleeping bags and pushing them into a corner.
“Maybe we can have a scene of her drinking tea with her daughter before she’s executed,” Grace suggests, pointing to the teapot and teacups on the table.
“Great idea!”
Two hours later, we have our first shot all ready to go. Grace has constructed the most amazing jewelry box out of nothing but a cut-up Kleenex box, some old curtains my mom had in the basement, glue, and ribbon.
She places it on the table next to me and adjusts the camcorder on the tripod. “Just a little to the left,” she says, and I scoot my chair over. “Perfect.”
Grace is so much better at manning the camera than I am. She’s so meticulous and analytical; she always finds the best angles and lighting.
“Okay, ready?”
“Ready,” I say, trying to get into character. I’m wearing a long evening gown that we found in the back of my mom’s closet, a giant hat, and loads of jewelry. It’s pretty over-the-top, but it looks great. The only problem is, every time I move, I jingle like crazy and Grace and I both crack up laughing. I hope we can get at least one take of this first scene without breaking into hysterical giggles, although I know that’s probably impossible.
Grace is about to push record on the camera when she suddenly stops and frowns at the viewfinder.
“What?” I ask, adjusting my hat. The small motion makes all sorts of jangling noise.
“It’s an interesting story,” she says thoughtfully, and for a second, I almost feel like she’s putting something together. Does she know what happened? Is she getting some weird reverse echo from the future?
No, that would be impossible.
She bites her lip in concentration.
“What’s wrong?” I ask anxiously.
She shakes her head like she’s coming out of a daydream. “Nothing. I just think it would be cool if the story were real. Like if the box really did grant wishes.”
I let out a nervous stutter of a laugh. “Yeah, that would be pretty cool.”
She stares at the cardboard jewelry box on the table. “What would you wish for?”
I glance around the Hideaway at the sleeping bags stuffed in the corner; the Summer Crush posters on the wall; the teapot, cups, and saucers set up in front of me; and Grace standing behind the camera, readying to push record. Then my
What would I wish for?
I look back at my friend—my best friend. Then I smile and say, “This.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Jim McCarthy for believing in this book and to Wendy Loggia for turning that belief into a reality. I also must thank Cathy Berner from Blue Willow Bookshop, without whom I’m not sure this book would have ever been written. And to think it all started with the word cheese. (She knows what this means.) Also thanks to the wonderful people at Delacorte Press and Random House who brought this book to life. And to Nicole Gastonguay for making it look worthy of a shelf. Thank you to Joanne and Benny, the dynamic duo, for helping me take this nugget of an idea and shape it into something real. Thanks to Michelle Levy for choreographing the Graddie dance routine. And of course, as always, I am indebted to Terra Brody for her costuming prowess, to my parents for their love and support, to my dogs for somehow always knowing when I need them most, and to Charlie for reading anything and being everything.
But above all else, thanks to my readers, young and old(er). Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you do, never forget that you have magic in the heart. The real kind.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JESSICA BRODY is the author of several books for teens and tweens, including The Karma Club, 52 Reasons to Hate My Father, and the Unremembered trilogy. She splits her time between California and Colorado, where she lives with her husband and four dogs. When she was twelve, she was convinced her life would be perfect if she was sixteen.
Visit Jessica at:
JessicaBrody.com
facebook.com/jessicabrodyfans
instagram.com/jessicabrody
@JessicaBrody
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Jessica Brody, Addie Bell's Shortcut to Growing Up