Juliet had been playing football with Sam for about an hour when Mom called her in for lunch. Juliet was reluctant to leave. "Aw, Aunt Dena, ten more minutes?" she asked. "No," said Mom flatly. "Come on in." Mom has learned not to take any bull from anyone, raising 16 kids and all.
Juliet pouted and whined and finally came in. She looked totally messy and sloppy. "Yuck, I'm not going anywhere like this," she said. She went into my room and closed the door. I tried to follow her in, but the door was locked. Great. I knocked on the door. "Juliet?" I asked. "What?" her voice called back. "Can I come in?" I heard a sigh. "No. I'm changing." "I don't care," I replied. "I do," Juliet said snobbily. "This is my room!" I yelled. "And I'm using it!" Juliet shouted back. I gave up. When you're arguing with her, you can't win.
After waiting almost half an hour, Juliet came out, looking perfect as always. We all piled into the van and I was sitting next to her again. "I just can't escape you, can I?" Juliet asked me. Me?! I hadn't done anything. I'm an agreeable person. But Juliet had some kind of problem. I just turned to look at Zela. "She's driving me crazy," I whispered. Zela gave me a sympathetic smile. "Ignore her," she said. "All of what she says is a lie, anyway." Maybe so, but she still bothered me. "Where're we going?" Clarisa asked. "Bakin' Bob's," Mom answered. "But it's not breakfast," Reese joked. Typical Clarisa. "Yuck, I hate that place," Tara whined. "It makes me break out," Juliet complained. "I hate to say it," Aunt Sarah said, "but my girls are allergic to their greasy cooking." I wanted to kick Aunt Sarah. I wished Juliet would break out. "But it's Bakin' Bob's, not Fryin' Bob's," Reese pointed out. "It's still really greasy," Aunt Sarah said. "Do you think we could go to Jemma's instead?" Juliet's face lit up. We Clorensons all made disgusted faces. We all hate Jemma's. But Mom, seeing Juliet's face happy (that girl is really hard to please) said, "Sure, Sar. Dan, make a left here."
Dad turned into the parking lot, and we all went in. We were seated at two tables with the adults at one and the kids at a bunch pushed together. "I'll have a root beer," Juliet said right away. Well! Someone sure was snobby. The waitress hadn't even asked us what we wanted! "Um, okay," the waitress said, looking a little surprised. No! I thought. Don't take that from her! You put her in her place!
But the waitress left and returned with the root beer for Juliet, then asked, "What would the rest of you like?" I ordered a coke. Duscha ordered a diet coke. Tara, who was sitting next to her, patted her stomach and said, "I hear ya, sister," then added, "I'll have the same." I decided Tara was okay, a little snobby but okay. Duscha must not have thought she was so bad because she seemed to be pretty good friends with her already.
When the waitress came back to take our orders, Juliet started. "I'll just have the soup," she said. "It's on us," Dad called from the adults' table. "Oh!" said Juliet. "Then I'd like the steak, soup, salad, rolls, extra butter on that, fruit cup, no watermelon or cantaloupe but add in blueberries and honeydew, veggies and dip, AND a refill on root beer." She held up her empty glass. All us Clorensons looked around at each other in amazement. "Plain or deluxe?" the waitress asked. "Oh, deluxe," Juliet answered. Deluxe?! The plain was enough to feed all of us! "If we all eat like this," Duscha whispered to me, "we'll go to the poor house."
I guess the rest of us must have been a little scared too, because we tried to make up for Juliet. "I'll just have salad," Zela said. Dayton, Maya, and Allegra shared a hamburger and part of Zela's salad. Duscha and Dalia shared a steak. The triplets and I shared a steak too. Eva ate some too, and ordered the soup, which the 4 of us ate out of too. Clarisa, Sheena, and Vida shared spaghetti, and Rachel ordered a soup, which she shared with Aleesha. Tara felt bad too and ordered a salad. Juliet seemed oblivious to what she'd made us do.
The waitress finally brought back all our food. It took a whole tray to carry Juliet's food. The rest of our food took up only one tray. Jeesh! We were all hungry by the end of the meal while Juliet only picked at her steak. She kept complaining about how her fruit was moldy, or the veggies were bitter, or the dip was chunky, or the soup was cold, or the salad was sour, or the rolls were hard. Everything had something wrong with it.
So Eva snatched the rolls, Clarisa took the soup, I reached for the salad, and before long, the fruit, veggies, and steak were no longer in front of Juliet.
It was a free-for-all. If you wanted soup, you'd grab a spoon and take a few bites. If you wanted steak, you'd take a fork and dig in. Even everyone's regular food was there for the taking. It was great. Tara was really cool. She barely got any of her own soup. She felt so bad that Juliet had ordered so much and eaten so little. All in all though, it was pretty cool. Tara and I got to be better friends. I wished it was her I was sharing a room with. I wished it was Tara who was my age. Instead it was Duscha who got a new best friend. That lucky!
Later when we got home Tara gathered us all in Duscha's room--Juliet was at Sam's again. "I'm so sorry about all the trouble she's caused," she said. "She's not really like this. I mean, she's kind of a brat sometimes, but hardly ever. I'm really sorry, especially to you, Mikayla. She seems to see you as competition of some sort, though I don't know why. Kayla, you're one of the nicest people I've ever met!" I smiled.
"Anyway," she said, "I'm sorry. I've tried to make up for it, but I just can't." We all nodded.
After an annoying dinner, we all got ready for bed. Juliet had pajamas from Victoria's Secret! I didn't even fit in that stuff yet! I'm only 5'0", so all that low-cut stuff is too low-cut for me. Plus, Mom and Dad would never let me get silk lingerie for pajamas. "Nobody sees you anyway," they'd said. Exactly. So who was Juliet trying to impress? She was brushing her hair, putting on makeup...oh, no. She couldn't be....
We all got into bed. I noticed Juliet had a chain of blankets. Oh, no. No, it couldn't be happening...my older sisters had all been there before, sneaking out to meet boys. I was very experienced. Sneaking out would be pretty easy, considering my room is upstairs and Mom and Dad's was downstairs. And Juliet's parents were in the basement. It didn't take a lot to pull this off.
After about 20 minutes, something softly hit the window. Juliet got out of bed, opened the window, and dropped half of the blanket chain out the window, tied the other half to my bed post, then sat there for a minute, trying to figure out how to get down it in her sheer little silk dress pj's. Finally she just slid down. I hoped that stupid silky short dress would fly up over her head. It didn't.
Sam was waiting in a gray t-shirt and boxers. I sat at the window, keeping an eagle eye on them. "Hi," said Sam. "Hi," said Juliet. Then he kissed her. That brat! She smiled. "Was it hard sneaking out?" she asked. Sam nodded. "I better go back." He turned, then Juliet grabbed his shoulder, whirled him around, and kissed him. Hard. "That's for good luck," the scum bag said. Sam gave her a hug. "See ya." "Bye, Sammy."
Sammy?! I couldn't stand it any longer. I untied the blanket from my bedpost, let it drop to the ground, the shut the window and locked it. Juliet could find another way in. But just thinking of Sam liking her like that made me cry. I cried myself to sleep.
The next few nights were just the same: Juliet sneaking out to meet Same, him kissing her, me watching them from my room, then getting mad and locking Juliet out.
By the end of the week I was positive I couldn't take another week of this. No one else had seen what I'd seen. I had to tell someone about this. And then it dawned on me. Tell on her! Then she'd be in major trouble and her parents would kill her! But wait. That would be tattling and I'm way past that. But I knew Juliet would keep doing it. Unless I told. But I had a great idea.
Our nights go like this:
6:00-eat dinner
6:30-do something as a family (usually play Clue)
7:30-the adults go in the kitchen and the kids go in the basement. We have 2 TVs down there (since there's 16 of us!), one for video games, one for TV. So we all do stuff down there.
8:45-get ready for bed
9:00-be in bed (the girls in Duscha's room usually read, the girls in mine usually go right to sleep)
So when we kids were downstairs, I whispered to Christa, "Juliet has been sneaking out at night to see Sam." Christa's eyes grew wide. "What do they do?" she asked. "Kiss," I informed her. Christa's mouth dropped open, and she ran to tell Vida. That was all I had to do. By morning everyone would know. We kept the secret past Tara. She seemed to like Juliet okay (even though we sure didn't) and we didn't want her to be mad at us.
At 8:30, Duscha whispered to me, "So, is it true? About Juliet?" I grinned. "Yep," I said. "She goes down there every night. Then they kiss and Sam leaves. Oh, and every night Juliet has a new pair of slinky Victoria's Secret pajamas!" "Jeez!" yelled Duscha. "Mom won't even let me buy that stuff!" I gave her a knowing look.
At 8:45 we got ready for bed (of course), and Juliet had the slinkiest outfit possible. It was a two-piece. And it was tiny. Tiny is stretching it. It was microscopic.
She got into bed, pretending to go to sleep. At 9:20, she snuck out and met Sam. But this time I said, "Look what Juliet's doing!" Everyone that was in my room raced to the window. We all gasped, then we went to bed before they could see us.
In the morning, Juliet had just a plain old t-shirt on, I guess so her parents wouldn't see her slinky pajamas. Aleesha grinned like she had a huge secret. "Juliet has a boyfriend," she sang. "I do not," Juliet said. "Yes, you do," sang Aleesha. "It's Sam!" Juliet went pale. "I don't know what you're talking about." "Oh, come on!" yelled Jena, who's usually very quiet. "We all know that you sneak out every night in Victoria's Secret pajamas to go kiss Sam!" Everyone gasped. "Oops," said Jena. "Go, Jena!" I whispered to her. She was sitting next to me. Aunt Sarah gave Juliet a stern look. Uncle Dave stood up. "Will you please join us in the living room?" he said to Juliet. The three of them left the table. I was laughing hysterically on the inside.
"These pajamas are meant for adults," I heard Aunt Sarah say. I guess she hadn't bought the pajamas for her. "Where did you even get the money for seven pairs of expensive pajamas?"
"So," said Dad, so we wouldn't all be listening in. "Who made breakfast?" "I did," said Mom. "I always do. Dan, it's the Dobbsons that take turns making breakfast. At our house I do all the breakfast making." Dad looked embarrassed. "Oh," he said. Mom laughed. "Not like he'd know anyway," she said. "You're dealing with someone who sleeps until 5 minutes before he has to leave. He barely even gets to taste my chocolate chip pancakes, which I make specially for him!" We all laughed.
The three Willoughbys came back into the room and sat down. "We've decided," said Sarah, "that Juliet may not go out of the house without Mikayla or one of her older sisters present. And she may not invite anyone into the house or into the yard. At night, everyone must lock their windows because Juliet doesn't know how to open them. And please, all of you, keep an eye on her to make sure she's not getting into trouble. And as for the pajamas...well, I'll be confiscating those. I don't know how she got them in the first place." Wait a sec. I would be escorting Juliet everywhere? Great.
After breakfast, we were getting ready in our rooms. "You do know this is your fault, don't you, Mikayla?" Juliet asked. "My fault?" I asked. "I didn't squeal." "You told someone," she said. "Not necessarily," I said. "What makes you so sure no one else saw you?" "Well, um, I saw you." "So maybe you missed seeing someone else. I'm pretty sure Zela saw you too, right, Zee?" Zela paused. "I sure did," she said. Note to self: thank Zela later! "And so did...Rachel." Rachel looked at Zela like, WHAT?! But then she said, "Yeah. I saw it too." "So who squealed?" Juliet demanded. "Not us," I said. "We're way past that." Clarisa walked into the room. "Reese saw it too," Rachel said. Reese looked unsure a second, then she said, "I saw it with my own ears." I smiled. Thank you, I mouthed. Reese nodded. "So who told Aleesha and Jena?" Juliet shouted. "Well, I'm not positive," I said, "but I'm pretty sure they saw it themselves." Juliet looked astonished, then she scowled. "Come on, Mikayla," she said. "Let's go outside." "Why me?" I asked. "Because it'll look like I have a baby-sitter if anyone else comes," Juliet answered shortly.
I put on my shoes and we went outside. "Let's go to Sam's," said Juliet. "How 'bout let's NOT," I said. "We're going to Allyson Tapers's." Ally was my best friend, along with Aleesa Richards. "No!" said Juliet. "Well," I said. "Your choices are, you could go to Sam's yourself and be killed, or you could come to Allyson's with me and meet a really cool girl."
Juliet pouted and followed me to Allyson's. I knew Ally would hate Juliet. We rang the doorbell and I said, "Ally, this is my cousin, Juliet." Suddenly Juliet was all smiles. "Hey there!" she said. "Hey, Juliet! Come on in!" We went in. Well, to make a very long story short, Ally and Juliet became best friends and suddenly I was just that friend from down the street. I now hated Juliet more than ever. First Sam, now Ally. Well, I wouldn't let her steal Aleesa too. Or anything else. I was through chaperoning Miss Social Butterfly.
