Ten

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  March

  April

  May

  June

  July

  August

  September

  October

  November

  December

  January

  February

  March

  March

  DUTTON CHILDREN’S BOOKS • A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3,

  Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) | Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand,

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  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.

  Copyright © 2011 by Myracle Factory, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  CIP Data is available.

  Published in the United States by Dutton Children’s Books,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group

  345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  www.penguin.com/youngreaders

  eISBN : 978-1-101-51520-4

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  DEDICATION

  To Frances Adams and Chloe Chatfield: Forever Full of Fabulosity!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Big fuzzy thanks to all the usual crew, who will never be “usual” at all, thank goodness. My darlings, I love you.

  Special thanks to: Barry “Care Bear” Goldblatt, the snuggliest, just-gotta-squeeze-him agent ever; Sarah Mlynowski, for her willingness to drop everything in order to read an early draft, and then—with her characteristic warmth and generosity—telling me not to worry, it was adorable, all was good; Lisa Yoskowitz, for educating me about Hanukkah and gelt; Liza Kaplan, for stepping in so smoothly and facilitating details large and small; Rosanne Lauer, for her fearless copyediting flair; Scottie Bowditch, for her passion and her proficiency, though more for her passion; Allison Verost, for loving Winnie and telling me so; and EVERYONE at Penguin/Dutton/ Julie’s Private Boutique for being simply and plainly fabulous, especially—but not limited to—RasShahn Johnson-Baker, Irene Vandervoort, Steve Meltzer, Danielle Delaney, Eileen Kreit, Jennifer Bonnell, Linda McCarthy, and Casey McIntyre.

  A ginormous dollop of icing-on-the-cake thanks to Ji Eun Kwak, for her *excellent* idea of sneaking Lars (as an adorable ten year old!) into the book; to ALL the sweetie-potato Winnie fans who emailed and wrote and said, “Please please please write another Winnie book!”; to the inimitable Beegee Tolpa, for bringing Winnie & Co. to life in beautiful color; and to Bob, for making me laugh, making me think, and making me shower and occasionally even take a day or two off. Well, an hour or two off. Well, for making me take at least twenty minutes to myself every so often, even when those twenty minutes seemed awfully hard to find.

  And. Oh my goodness gravy. Above Winnie’s house flies a fabulous pink biplane, skywriting the following in an endlessly repeating loop: Julie Strauss-Gabel, you are a goddess, an angel, an editor of astonishing brilliance.

  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

  March

  THE THING ABOUT BIRTHDAYS is that they are shiny and sparkly and make the birthday girl feel special, no matter what. And guess what? Today I was the birthday girl! As of today, I was ten years old. As of today—oh my goodness gravy—I, Winnie Perry, was living in the Land of Double Digits.

  It was a sparkly land, the Land of D-Squared. The air shimmered, making the faces of my sister and brother glow. The smell of breakfast filled my nostrils. Somewhere, unicorns frolicked. Maybe they were invisible, fine. But they frolicked anyway.

  And even though today was a Wednesday, and my party wasn’t until the weekend, I still felt special. Specialer, even, because this way I’d get to have two days that were all about me—today and the day of my party! I didn’t have to feel guilty, either, because Ty and Sandra would get special attention on their own birthdays. Everybody in the whole wide world had a birthday, so it was totally fair.

  “Happy birthday, Winnie,” Mom said, cruising to the table and sliding a plate in front of me. On the plate was a microwaved sausage biscuit with a lit candle stuck in it.

  “Aw w w!” I said.

  “Wish! Wish!” Ty said. Ty was three-going-on-four and loved wishes. He loved everything, pretty much, except lice and occasionally dust balls, if the dust balls were small and dark and tumble-skittered across the floor in a might-be-a-spider sort of way.

  “She can’t wish on a sausage biscuit,” Sandra told Ty. She turned to me, and her shiny hair did its Sandra-style swish. She had very pretty hair, my sister. “You can’t wish on a sausage biscuit, Winnie.”

  I gave her a look. Just because she had pretty hair didn’t mean she knew everything. Just because she was thirteen didn’t mean she knew everything. Sometimes she did. Lots of times she did. But other times she just plain didn’t.

  “Actually, you are wrong about that,” I said, and I screwed shut my eyes and made my wish: Please, oh please, let this be my bestest birthday yet.

  I opened my eyes, pursed my lips, and blew a whuh of breath at that bitsy dancing flame. It went out, and a wisp of smoke curled upward from the wick.

  “See?” I said.

  “I see that you blew out a candle,” Sandra stated.

  “On my birthday, so that means a birthday wish. So plop on your head, you poopy girl.”

  Chocolate milk splurted from Ty’s mouth. “Poopy,” he repeated.

  “Winnie, I hardly think that’s how a ten year old should be talking,” Mom said.

  “Yeah, Winnie,” Sandra taunted.

  “Sandra, hush,” Mom said.

  “Yeah, Sandra. Yeah, poopy mouth.”

  “Poopy mouth!” Ty said.

  “Both of you, hush,” Mom said, gesturing at Ty to remind us of his little ears.

  Ty raised his hand but didn’t wait to be called on. “Whales poop, and so do gorillas,” he said, only, gorillas came out as guhwillas because he hadn’t mastered his r’s yet. “And so do spiders. I think.” He pooched out his lips and twisted them to one side. “Do they?”

  Mom took a moment, which she frequently did, and which involved pressing he
r fingers to her forehead and being very quiet in a way that suggested very loudly that we better be quiet, too.

  She took a cleansing breath, signaling that she was done. “Winnie, you’re growing up, which is great. But growing up does mean acting grown up.”

  Pleh, I thought, scrunching my nose.

  “Being ten is a big deal. It means new responsibilities, new expectations—”

  “New opportunities to be even weirder than you already are,” Sandra said, copycatting Mom’s loving-but-earnest tone. She leaned across the table and took my hand. “New chances for people to mock you and call you Weirdy Pants.”

  “Sandra, don’t call your sister Weirdy Pants,” Mom said.

  Ty giggled. “Weedy pants. Poopy pants. Plop on your pants, poopy head.”

  I fought not to let a grin sneak out. Sandra wasn’t being mean. She was just trying to be funny. And she was funny. But if I laughed, she’d be way too pleased with herself, and her head would puff up like the marshmallows Ty liked to microwave. And those marshmallows were jumbo-sized to begin with.

  Ty’s marshmallows grew and grew and GREW as they spun around in the microwave. They grew until they were trembling white blobs, and then they exploded, splattering the walls of the microwave with sugary glue. Every so often one didn’t explode, and on those occasions, the marshmallow said pluh in a sad marshmallow way and deflated. Pluhhhhhhhhhhh, until all that was left was a sad, flat marshmallow puddle.

  I didn’t want Sandra to explode or deflate. Usually. So I kicked her.

  “Hey!” she exclaimed.

  “Girls,” Mom scolded.

  “I think Sandra needs to remember that she’s three years older than me and should be more mature,” I said. “Don’t you, Mother?”

  “Indeed I do,” Mom said.

  I turned to Sandra and lifted my eyebrows. So there, my eyebrows said, because one of my many talents was my ability to hold entire conversations using nothing but the finely tuned squiggles of hair above my eyes.

  Unfortunately, Sandra possessed the same gift. She lifted her eyebrows right back to say, Oh, really? Like I care.

  Mom regarded me thoughtfully. “It might be worth addressing Sandra’s point, however. Since the subject was brought up.”

  “I made a point?” Sandra said.

  “No,” I said. I had zero memory of any points Sandra might have made. “Sandra didn’t make a point, did she, Ty?”

  “I don’t like spiders,” Ty said. “They are nature, and nature stays outside.”

  “What point did Sandra make?” I asked Mom.

  “Well, about . . .”

  “About what?”

  “About . . . well, about being . . .”

  “Oh! I know!” Sandra exclaimed. “About people mocking you for being weird.” She made a fist and drew it in to her side. “Score!”

  “Hush your piehole,” I told her crossly, because now my feelings were a little hurt. “Mom? You think people are going to mock me?”

  “No, honey,” Mom said. “No one is going to mock you.”

  “Other than me,” said Sandra.

  “But Winnie, it is true that you’re . . .”

  I waited for more words. More words didn’t come, so I filled them in myself. “Adorable? Spunky? The genius of the family?”

  “In a pig’s eye,” Sandra said under her breath.

  I looked at Mom, and my stomach flip-flopped as I caught a glimpse of Concerned Mom, who was closely related to My-Baby’s-Gotten-So-Big Mom, who was closely related to Oh-Sweetie-I-Wish-I-Could-Keep-You-Safe-in-a-Jar-Forever Mom.

  She smoothed her features. “You’re your own self, that’s all. You’re unique.”

  So much drama, for that?

  “Well, of course, I’m unique,” I said. “That’s why my name is Winifred.”

  “Huh?” Sandra asked.

  “Wi-ni-fred,” I said again. “How many other Winifreds do you know, huh?” I didn’t wait for a response. “None, that’s how many, because Winifred is an extremely unique name.”

  Ty clinked his fork on his plastic plate. “Tyler James Perry,” he announced, the Perry coming out as Peh-wee. “That’s my cave name.”

  “Your cave name?” Mom said. “What’s a cave name?”

  “You mean your whole name,” I told Ty. To Mom and Sandra, I said, “He doesn’t mean his cave name. He means his whole name.”

  They regarded me blankly.

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “A hole, like a hole that you dig? And when it’s in the ground, it’s called a cave?”

  “Ah,” Mom said. “Clever girl, my Winnie.”

  “That’s me: clever, unique, and weird. And for the record? I like being me.”

  “Which is lucky, since you’re stuck with yourself,” Sandra said. She chomped off a bite of bagel. “Though for the record, Mom and Dad named you when you were just a baby, before you turned weird. And then later, you consciously decided to be weird, which is, itself, weird.”

  “Nope, I was born this way,” I said.

  She considered, then shook her head. “Nah. For a brief while you were normal. It was before you learned to talk.” She shrugged. “But hey, I’m cool with your being weird. You might have to walk ten paces behind me at the mall, that’s all.”

  “Oh, blah, blah, blah,” I said.

  “I think I’ve made things more complicated than they need to be,” Mom said. She placed her hands on my shoulders. “All I wanted to say is that while being unique is wonderful, it can also be hard.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not saying it will be, just that it might be. On the other hand, growing up itself is hard.”

  “Not for me, it’s not. Growing up is awesome.”

  Mom chuckled. “Well, all right. And do you know what, Winnie? You are an amazing girl, and whatever comes your way, I know you can handle it.”

  “Finally, someone who’s making sense around here!” I exclaimed. “And you’re right, I can—and thank you for the lovely compliment. Thank you as well for my delicious breakfast, which you slaved over, and for my delicious chocolate milk, which you haven’t poured yet, but which I know you will. Most of all, thank you for making me be born, and for naming me Winifred, and for letting me be unique.”

  I paused, knowing there was something I was forgetting, but unable to put my finger on it. Then it came to me. “Oh. And I know Dad helped out, so tell him thanks, too.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mom said. She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “And Winnie? You are very welcome.”

  On Saturday, everyone pitched in to make our house look haunted, because that was the theme of my party. It was a haunted house party, with spiderwebs clinging to the ceiling and a fake black rat out front and scary ooooo sounds coming from a scary sounds CD Mom and Dad gave me, along with my own CD player. I’d asked for an iPod, but Mom and Dad were like, “Uhhhhh, no,” so a CD player it was. Okay by me!

  The scary sounds CD was excellent, but the best part of the haunted house was in our basement. It involved dry ice, extreme spookiness, and Sandra in an awesome black velvet witch dress with an even awesomer pointy black velvet hat.

  The whole caboodle was going to scare everybody’s pants off. I couldn’t wait.

  Amanda arrived first, because she was my best friend, and that’s the way it was supposed to be. And the reason she was my best friend was because she liked my ideas and laughed at my jokes and was willing to Rollerblade when the Rollerblading mood struck us, even though we were both pretty bad and fell a lot.

  She was also my best friend because she was purely and truly nice, from her skin all the way through to her bones. If she was a color, she would be daffodil yellow. If she was a flower, well, she’d be a daffodil. If she was anyone other than Amanda, then I would miss the real Amanda terribly without even knowing it. I wouldn’t laugh nearly as much, or be nearly as silly, and I wouldn’t have an adopted cat named Sweet Pea, who wasn’t mine and didn’t live at my house, but whom I got to share. It would b
e dreadful.

  Chantelle showed up next. While Amanda and I had been friends since forever, Chantelle had come onto the scene in third grade, and she’d quickly become our second-best friend. She loved things like clothes and purses and makeup, even though she wasn’t allowed to wear any yet except in her own house, just for fun. For me, clothes and makeup had nothing to do with fun, and purses were downright antifun. Blech! Even the word purse made me grimace.

  But Chantelle was more than a purse-lover. She was funny and feisty, and when she disapproved of something, she cocked her hip and said, “Oh, nuh-uh.” She also said, “How rude,” if someone was being rude, and she huffed out the rude part with extreme huffiness. It made me giggle, even if I was the one who was supposedly being rude.

  Maxine arrived soon after Chantelle, followed by Louise and Karen. Karen was supposedly Louise’s best friend, but she was more like Louise’s pet, kind of. Even though she was a real live girl like the rest of us.

  The last girl to be dropped off was Dinah Devine. Dinah was round and oatmealy and never got a tan, even in the summer. I didn’t say that to be mean. Unless, yikes. Was it mean? I didn’t dislike Dinah. She was just nervous a lot of the time. Sometimes I worried that she might . . . break. Or cry. Or smile really big with her mouth, but not her eyes.

  But I had to invite her to my parties whether I wanted to or not, because Mom made me. Dad and Mr. Devine worked together, that’s why.

  Everyone deposited their presents in the TV room, and while they were there, they stopped by the tattoo station, which Dad was in charge of. He used a wet paper towel to apply either a tiny skull, a spider, or a black cat on each girl’s cheek—or, in Louise’s case, all three. That was Louise in a nutshell. She was the sort of girl who wanted it all.