The Fix-It Friends--Have No Fear! Read online

  By that time, my dad had drunk enough coffee to be able to talk, so he said, “Okay, so I gotta ask, Ronny Bear—”

  But before he could go on, I raised my eyebrows and gave him a look that said, Dad, we’ve talked about this about a million times!

  And he said, “Sorry, I meant Veronica. Why do you need your funny glasses for school today?”

  “Just helping out a friend in need,” I said. “All in a day’s work.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” said my mom as she walked into the kitchen. Mom was dressed for success in a flowery skirt and dangly earrings. She’s a therapist. I didn’t used to know what that meant, but then she explained it to me:

  “People come to my office, and they talk to me about their problems and feelings. I help them think of ways to handle their problems or just feel better about them.”

  “Are you kidding?” I laughed. “Your whole job is to listen to people’s problems? That’s so easy. A kid could do that!”

  She laughed at me, but I wasn’t even joking.

  I’m also kind of an expert on problems from watching TV at Nana and Nonno’s apartment. They’re my dad’s parents, and they live on the top floor of our building.

  There are four floors in our building, which is the same building my dad lived in when he was a little boy. The bottom floor is where my mom has her office and sees clients. The second and third floors are where we live. The fourth floor is where Nana and Nonno live.

  They are retired. At first I thought the word was tired, and I thought it was weird to have a party for someone who’s tired. But then my dad explained that being re-tired is when you don’t have a job anymore because you’re old.

  When I am sick and stay home from school, I go to Nana and Nonno’s apartment, and it is so much fun. I lie on the couch, and Nana treats me like a queen. She brings me soup and tea and juice and Popsicles. And she lets me watch her shows with her.

  She loves all kinds of TV shows, but her favorites are what she calls “talk shows,” which is weird because every show on TV has talking in it. They should be called “yell shows” or “cry shows” because that’s what people do on them. Real people who have awful problems go on these shows, and the host talks to them about their problems and then gives them advice or sometimes yells stuff at them, like “Get your life together!”

  Nana gets all excited, and sometimes she yells at the TV, which I think is just so hilarious.

  “Look-a dis guy! What a dummy-a!” she shouts.

  Nana comes from Italy, and she has an accent, which I can imitate by just adding a to the end of every word, like “My-a name-a is-a Veronica-a!”

  So I know a lot about problems because of the talk shows. But when I ask Mom to tell me some of the problems people talk to her about, she absolutely refuses. She says they’re private.

  “I won’t tell anyone,” I promise.

  She just laughs. She can be really stubborn when she wants to be.

  It’s her job to help people, and she really likes it when I do that, too. So when she heard I was using the funny glasses to come to the rescue, she seemed really proud, which made me feel great.

  Then I stuck the glasses on my face and felt even better because Pearl laughed so hard that milk came out of her nose. I just knew they would work with Maya.

  Chapter 4

  When recess started, Noah ran up to me and asked if I wanted to play Air Tag. That is one of my favorite kinds of tag. It is also the only kind of tag where I can beat Noah, because your feet can’t touch the ground. But I really wanted to see if my funny glasses would do the trick to help Maya out. So I said, “Not today, Noah. Have fun without me. But not too much fun, okay?”

  Then I raced over lickety-split to the fence, but Maya wasn’t there. Know who was there? Matthew Sawyer, pressing a paper towel on his knee.

  Matthew Sawyer is my sworn enemy. If you see him, watch out! He looks like a perfectly innocent person, but as my mom says, looks can be deceiving. Here’s how you will know it’s him:

  1.  Always wearing striped shirts. Never up-and-down stripes. Always sideways.

  2.  Shoelaces that are always untied.

  3.  No front teeth. Well, hardly any. His top two front teeth fell out, and then a few days later, so did two of his bottom teeth. He is so proud of his jack-o’-lantern smile. He is always sticking his tongue in his tooth hole just because I don’t like it.

  4.  Brown hair that is so super short that it looks like a fuzzy, comfy carpet on his head. This hairstyle is called a buzz cut. I know that because last year, Jude had lice three times in a row, and Dad finally just shaved his hair into a buzz cut. I asked Matthew Sawyer if he’d also had lice, and he said, “No, but that would be so cool! Can you bring me a louse?” Can you believe that?

  I have been in Matthew Sawyer’s class for three years in a row, and every year, he drives me nuts. If Matthew Sawyer were a dog, he would be a basset hound. They never stop barking.

  So there was Matthew Sawyer, sitting by the fence with a hurt knee. Even though I should have known better, I asked him, “What happened to you?”

  “Oh, this?” he asked, looking down at his knee. “Just my flesh-eating bacteria acting up again.”

  Matthew Sawyer’s mom is a doctor, and she tells him all about weird germs, so he is an expert on gross medical problems.

  “I am not falling for that again,” I told him. “What is it really?”

  “Bloodsucking hookworms.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Rabies.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” I exclaimed. “I know you just scraped your knee!”

  “I did,” he admitted. “On a rhinoceros toenail. With fungus on it.”

  I sighed really loudly, and then I asked, “Do you know where Maya is?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  He smiled, but it wasn’t a friendly smile that said, How can I help you? It was a devilish smile that said, How can I make lots of trouble for you?

  “None of your beeswax,” I said.

  “If you don’t tell me why, then I won’t tell you where she is.”

  I growled a little, and then I sighed, and then I said, “Because she’s scared, and I have something that can help!”

  “Oh,” he said. “Sounds boring.”

  “Well, where is she?”

  “How should I know?” he said. “I don’t even know who Maya is.”

  Oooooh, that Matthew Sawyer is the worst thing since the invention of homework! I really wanted to give him a shove, but I knew he’d tattle on me. So I just took a deep breath and kept looking for Maya.

  I ran through the soccer games and the basketball games and the monkey bars, but she wasn’t anywhere.

  So finally I did something I really don’t like to do. I went over to Miss Tibbs, who is the recess teacher. The reason I don’t like to do that is because Miss Tibbs is super strict. If you go near her, you’ll end up in trouble for doing nothing at all! Here are all the things Miss Tibbs has scolded me for:

  1.  Not tying my shoelaces.

  2. Wiping my nose on my sleeve because I didn’t have a tissue.

  3.  Eating the cookies in Minnie’s lunch (even though she didn’t want them!).

  4.  Throwing balls at Matthew Sawyer’s back (even though he was throwing the balls at me first).

  5.  Running too fast.

  6.  Walking too slow.

  7.  Yelling too loud. (“Are you trying to wake the dead?” she said.)

  8.  Laughing too loud. (“Are you trying to give me a migraine?” she said.)

  9.  Whispering too loud. (“I can hear everything you’re saying about me, Miss Conti. If you’re going to whisper, you’d better learn how to do it correctly.”)

  I don’t mean to be mean, but she looks like a witch from a fairy tale. She has thick gray hair that is as long as her ears. She wears big black glasses, and her face is always in a scowl.

  And she always wears b
lack! I’m not kidding. Even on Valentine’s Day and Saint Patrick’s Day and stuff. It’s spooky.

  So I reeeeeeally do not like to talk to Miss Tibbs. But I just couldn’t find Maya anywhere, so I had no choice.

  I said, “Hey, Miss Tibbs, do you know where Maya is?”

  “Hay is for horses,” she said. It’s what she always says. Usually, I try to explain to her that it’s a different kind of hay, but on this day I didn’t have the time.

  “Okay,” I said. “But do you know where she is?”

  “Do you mean the Maya you were talking to yesterday? Miss Tanaka?”

  I nodded.

  Miss Tibbs knows everything that happens at recess. Absolutely everything. If a kid drops a candy wrapper in the most faraway corner of the playground, she knows it, and she marches right over to make him pick it up. If a kid is saying something mean, even in a whisper, she hears it, and she gives that kid a piece of her mind.

  “Miss Tanaka is quite upset today. She was so upset that she decided to stay inside at recess. She’s in the office.”

  “No!” I gasped.

  “Yes,” Miss Tibbs said.

  “NO!!” I gasped again.

  Then Miss Tibbs tipped her chin down and gave me a look that said, Come on, now, you’re overdoing it.

  So I said, “Can I go see her? Please? PLEASE!”

  Miss Tibbs thought about it for a second. She made her eyes really narrow while she was thinking, so she looked even scarier than usual.

  Then she said, “You know, I think a dose of Veronica Laverne Conti might be just what Miss Tanaka needs. Go ahead.”

  I grabbed my lunch box and raced through the red double doors of my school. I was in total disbelief.

  Miss Tibbs knew my middle name? How on earth did she find that out? She really did have magic powers.

  Chapter 5

  The school office is a huge room with a lot of ladies in it talking on phones and typing on computers and looking pretty grumpy. There are some chairs in the office for if you are late or if you are early or if you are in big trouble and have to go see the principal. Principal Powell has a little office inside the big office, with a door that closes. There are no windows in that door, so you have no idea what is going on in there.

  Sitting at a desk in front of Principal Powell’s office is Mrs. Rose Mackenzie … or is it Mrs. Mackenzie Rose? Both her names sound like first names so I can’t remember which comes first. She is the grumpiest one of all the office ladies. She is almost 100 years old, and her hair is completely white. I think she used to be a librarian because she is always shhing everyone.

  The office is a very boring place. There are no kids’ books or magazines and no pads of paper and crayons. There is no TV with cartoons playing. There is absolutely nothing fun or interesting about it.

  I really could not believe that Maya chose to spend her whole recess there. First she was sitting by the fence and now this? I just had to help her.

  When I got there, I saw Maya sitting on her princess hair, right there in front of Principal Powell’s office. That part didn’t surprise me.

  What surprised me was that Jude was sitting next to her. They looked very chummy. He had his head bent down to talk to her because she was so tiny and he was so tall.

  “Jude!” I screeched. “What on earth did you do? Why’d you get sent to the principal’s office?”

  Jude looked up and glowered at me. I love that word because it sounds like exactly what it is. His blue eyes got all glimmery because he was so mad.

  “I wasn’t sent to the principal’s office,” he said. “I’m helping Maya out.”

  I was in total disbelief again.

  “But I’m helping her out!” I shouted.

  “Can I talk to you privately?” Jude said in a low voice. There he went again, acting like a grown-up. He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the hallway.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I’m a recess mediator, remember? I’m on mediator duty today.”

  “Yeah, but that just means you are supposed to stop kids from clobbering each other.”

  “Actually, it means I’m supposed to help kids at recess with any of their problems,” he said, pushing up his glasses. They are always sliding down his nose. “Maya needs help, big-time. She’s so terrified of bugs, she won’t even go outside.”

  “I already know all about this,” I said, very impatiently. “But she was outside yesterday! So what happened?”

  “This morning, she saw a spider on her walk to school, and she totally freaked out.”

  “But Jude—” I hollered.

  “Shhhh!” He glowered again. “You’re going to get us sent to the principal’s office for real!”

  “But Jude!” I whispered. “This is a disaster. Recess is the best part of the day! She can’t miss it!”

  He nodded. “That’s why I’m helping her.”

  I had to laugh. I couldn’t help it. How ridiculous!

  “I’m the people person around here. Let me handle this,” I said. He didn’t look convinced, so I said, “Miss Tibbs told me to!”

  Jude groaned. “Fine. We’ll do it together,” he said, walking back into the office. “Just try not to make things worse.”

  Chapter 6

  Jude and I tried everything to cheer Maya up.

  First, I put on my funny glasses with the big nose and furry mustache.

  “TA-DA!” I shouted.

  Mrs. Rose/Mackenzie and the other office ladies said “Shhh!!” at the same exact time.

  But Maya didn’t laugh. She didn’t even crack a tiny smile.

  Jude tried talking to Maya in his I’m-a-big-stinky-grown-up way.

  “Bugs are more scared of you than you are of them,” he said.

  Then I told her about when I got a spider bite last summer in Texas when we went to visit Mom’s parents, Granny and Gramps: “It only itched for a day, and then it went away, and it was no big deal.”

  Then Jude said we should try to take her mind off bugs and talk about other stuff instead. So he drew a comic strip about a superhero named Super Maya.

  I would never tell this to Jude, but he draws the best comics. They look really professional. He makes up the funniest characters. Usually they are animals that act like humans. Like a detective pig or a raccoon that does karate.

  I don’t know how he can draw such good expressions on their faces, but he can really make them look scared or excited or confused or whatever he wants. He even made Super Maya’s long black hair flow in the air as she flew.

  “Look,” I laughed. “Maya can fly-a!”

  But Maya just gave us a tiny little smile like she was being polite. She really couldn’t get her mind off her troubles.

  I got so desperate to make her laugh that I stood on my head, which turned out to be a big mistake. I lost my balance and I accidentally knocked over the humongous tin can that says PENNIES FOR THE RAIN FOREST on it.

  Every year, all the kids in the whole school bring in all the pennies they can find and drop them in the can. Then Principal Powell gives the money to save the Amazon rain forest. She usually empties out the can before summer break, but I guess she forgot or didn’t have time, because it was still full on the second day of school. Not just full. Overflowing!

  When I kicked the penny can, four billion pennies spilled all over the office floor. It made the most enormous racket you have ever heard. I’m not even kidding. Principal Powell came running out of her office with this scared expression on her face and a half-eaten sandwich in her hand.

  But before she could say a word, I heard Miss Tibbs’s voice from the doorway behind me.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Then Principal Powell walked back into her office and Miss Tibbs turned to me.

  “Miss Conti,” she said. “I expect you to pick up every one of those pennies.”

  “But it—” I started to say.

  “No buts,” said Miss Tibbs. She was holding her finge
r up close to my face like she meant business. “You have exactly three minutes before you need to be in the lunchroom. Recess is over.”

  I gave Jude my best puppy dog look, which said, Please help me! I’m just a poor defenseless little sister after all!

  So he did, and Maya helped, too, and I got to lunch on time.

  One thing was for sure. Well, two things.

  1. A person shouldn’t do headstands outside the principal’s office.

  2. If Jude and I were going to help Maya, we needed some help ourselves.

  Chapter 7

  That night, Dad made spaghetti and meatballs. Dad is a terrific cook. He cooks Italian food mostly because that’s what Nana always made when he was a kid.

  That’s fine by me because I love macaroni. You can put anything on macaroni, and it will taste delicious. Sometimes he puts eggs and bacon on it. He calls it breakfast macaroni even though we eat it for dinner. But spaghetti and meatballs is my all-time favorite meal. Especially with extra Parmesan cheese.

  Pearl hardly eats anything at dinnertime, but even she likes it when we have spaghetti. She doesn’t eat much of the noodles, but she sure loves the sauce. She sucks all the sauce off her spaghetti until her face is all dirty and the spaghetti is all clean.

  Jude and I were telling Mom and Dad about Maya’s problem. But I had a problem of my own. Which was that Jude wouldn’t even let me tell my own story!

  Jude told Mom and Dad, “It was my job to help Maya, but then Ronny just barged in and knocked over about a million pennies and got us all in trouble.”

  I gasped. “Outrageous!”

  Jude kept going. “If I wasn’t there to help her clean it up, who knows what Miss Tibbs would have done to her.”

  Besides hogging my story, Jude was hogging the cheese. How could I eat my spaghetti and meatballs without a whole pile of Parmesan cheese on top? So I grabbed the cheese out of his hands, but I grabbed it a little too hard, and the cheese went flying over my shoulder all over the rug. Not only that, but when I grabbed it, I accidentally knocked over Jude’s glass of water so that it spilled right onto the table—and onto the floor, too.