Ann Martin - Mallory On Strike

Just as I closed my notebook and put the cap back on my pen, my father called me from the kitchen.

"Mallory! Are you in the rec room?" Dad shouted. "Breakfast!"

I stretched my arms and arched my back. I had been working solidly for two and a half hours, and the rumble in my stomach made me realize that I was starving.

"Be right there, Dad!"

I have to admit it, I felt great. I'd finished my homework, and now I was going to devote the rest of the day to being an authoress.

I took a deep breath when I reached the top of the steps. The house smelled like frying bacon, which is one of my favorite foods, and I hurried to the kitchen table.

"Where've you been, Mallory?" my mother asked as she set a platter of pancakes in the middle of the table. "I haven't seen you all morning."

"I finally finished my homework!" I flashed everyone my biggest smile and slid into a spot between Claire and Margo. From the looks of their clothes, they had already been in the backyard, making mud pies.

"Good for you!" my mother said. "Then you won't mind taking Claire and Margo into the bathroom and washing their hands. They're a

mess."

Claire gave me a toothy grin. "I made mud pie surprise."

"What was the surprise?" Vanessa asked, coming into the kitchen. She tried to stifle a yawn as she slumped onto a seat at the table.

The back of her hair was tangled in a big knot that stood up like a bird's nest.

"Walnuts," Claire and Margo called back as 1 ushered them into the bathroom.

"Where did you get the nuts from?" I asked, grabbing a washcloth and running some water on it.

"The walnuts were really rocks, but we pretended we made a chocolate walnut pie," Margo explained. The girls squeezed their eyes shut as I first cleaned their faces, then wiped off their hands.

"Sounds delicious," 1 said, trying not to laugh. It actually did sound good. Not the rock and mud part but the chocolate with nuts. It made me hungry just thinking about it. I quickly dried their faces with a towel, and we hurried back to the table.

The second 1 sat down, Byron knocked over his milk, reaching for the syrup.

"Uh-oh," he said solemnly, as it ran all over the table.

"Mallory, honey," my mom called. "Would you get that? I'm helping Jordan get these knots out of his shoelaces." She looked directly at Nicky. "Somebody tied his shoes together."

I leaped out of my chair once more and grabbed a sponge. With eight kids, you can imagine that spilled glasses of milk are a daily

occurrence in our house. Usually it can be kind of irritating. But today, because it was only ten o'clock and I had already finished my homework, I didn't mind.

It wasn't until after breakfast that things started to get out of control. I helped load the dishwasher and then followed Vanessa up to our room. Once inside, I shut the door and faced my sister, who was busily pulling on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

"Vanessa?"

"What?" she said without looking up.

"I'm working on a very important story for my creative writing class."

"Oh," Vanessa answered. "What's it about?"

"I'm not sure yet. I have to plan it out. But I need absolute privacy to work on it."

My sister just stared at me. Finally I spelled it out for her.

"Which means I'm going to need our bedroom all to myself today. So ... would you mind staying out?"

Vanessa scrunched her eyebrows together in thought. She was obviously considering my request. "For how long?" she finally asked.

"All day. Or at least until I've stopped working."

Vanessa's eyebrows were still pressed-to-

gether, which meant that she wasn't too keen about not being able to come into her own room. Thinking quickly, 1 added, "I'll give you a quarter."

After a few more seconds of thought, she nodded. "It's a deal. But you have to pay me now."

I figured she must want to buy something, so I didn't mind handing over the money in advance. I opened the door of my nightstand and reached into a little tin decorated with horses, where I keep some of my baby-sitting earnings. I pulled out a shiny quarter and placed it in her palm.

"Don't forget," I reminded her, "you have to stay out until I'm done working."

"I'll remember," Vanessa said, dropping the coin into her purse. Then she scooped up a few books and left the room.

I leaned two pillows against my headboard and sat up on the bed with my notebook in my lap. As I took the cap off of my favorite pen, I sighed. "It's going to be a perfect day," I thought.

Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong. Not five minutes after Vanessa left, a knock sounded on the door.

"No fair, Vanessa!" I complained. "You promised."

"It's not Vanessa." My mother opened the door and stuck her head into the room. "It's me. I have a tiny favor to ask."

Tiny was an understatement.

"I saw an ad in the paper for a used lawn mower at this garage sale," my mother continued, "and your father and I want to drive over and take a look at it. The triplets are coming with us. Would you watch the other kids for thirty minutes?"

My pen hadn't even touched the page and already I had to stop working. "Okay." I shut my notebook reluctantly and went downstairs to baby-sit.

At least my parents were true to their word. They were back in a half hour. But before I could return to my story, another knock sounded on my door. This time it was my father.

"Mal? May I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure, Dad," I said, trying not to sound too irritated.

"Listen, I'm going to help Margo and the boys set up the badminton net in the backyard," he said. "Would you mind making Claire a PBJ?" (A PBJ is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich — another Pike family favorite.)

"She just ate breakfast," I said, not budging from my bed.

"I know," my father said. "But she wants to have a picnic with her dolls in the backyard."

"Oh, all right."

1 slammed my notebook shut and followed my father. I made Claire a sandwich as quickly as I could, then sliced it into little doll-sized triangles. This time I didn't even get to the kitchen door before my mother called me to do something else.

"Mal, honey, would you help me fold these clothes?"

"Mother!" I blew my bangs off my forehead in exasperation. "1 have to work on my story, you know."

"This will only take a minute. Then I promise to leave you alone."

It didn't take a minute. It took an hour because Margo got hit in the face with a birdie from the badminton set. It didn't break her nose or anything, but it still hurt a lot. Mom had to comfort her and I had to make another set of PBJs for Claire because the neighbors' dog came over and skarfed them all down when her back was turned.

Once I was back in my room, I tried to shut everything out of my mind except writing. But just when I'd have a possible story forming in my head, Dad or one of my brothers would interrupt and I'd have to start all over. This

went on all afternoon. I wanted to scream. I took my pen and scratched in big, bold letters on the top of my blue-lined notebook paper: Two may be company, and three may be a crowd, but ten is a mob!

"Mallory!" my mother called at six o'clock. "It's suppertime. Please come down and help me serve."

"Mallory!" I repeated, imitating my mother in a singsong voice. "Wash the dishes, scrub the floors, take out the garbage. Be my slave!"

I wanted to throw my notebook against the wall. Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to calm my temper.

I don't know why I felt so resentful about being asked to do chores. I've been doing them my whole life. I guess I just felt as though I'd wasted a lot of things. Like my quarter. I paid Vanessa to leave me alone, and it was Mom and Dad who turned out to be the problem. And what about the rest of my day. Six hours of work on my story, and I had only written one sentence.