The Sisters Club by Megan McDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

first. Like the bread and vegetables. Then you get non-toe marshmallows for dessert. Or orange slices to dip in the chocolate.
    Me: (With a glare.) I hope that’s the only orange thing tonight.
    Joey: And guess what? (Looks at Scott.) If you drop your food in the cheese, you have to kiss all the girls at the table!
    Me: Joey! (What are those two up to? I’m going to kill them later!)
    Scott: Um, she’s not serious, is she?
    Stevie: That’s the rule!
    Me: You guys! (To Scott.) Aren’t little sisters really annoying?
    Scott: (Nodding.) I know.
    Joey: Does your sister call you Scott Towel?
    Me: JO-EY! (Alex Reel, promising young actress, found dead of embarrassment at the dinner table last evening. . . .)
    Joey: I didn’t make it up, you know. About dropping your fondue and kissing all the girls. Stevie learned it on Mom’s show.
    Mom: It’s true. (Not Mom, too!) It’s an honest-to-goodness custom that goes with eating fondue. Remember, honey?
    Dad: Boy, do I.
    Me: Then you had me and lived happily ever after. OK, can we please talk about something else now?
    Stevie: Does anybody need a paper towel — I mean napkin?
    Mom: Why do we have paper towels for napkins? There should be blue napkins in the cupboard, Stevie. (Joey and Stevie burst out laughing.)
    Joey: I set the table. I really think we need paper towels. Good thing I put out paper towels for napkins, huh, Stevie? (Scott turns bright red.)
    Me: Jo-ey! (Boy is she gonna hear from me later!) (To Scott.) See what I mean? Sisters are the worst.
    Scott: (Covers mouth with hand and coughs.)
    Stevie: At least we don’t go around kissing paper towels, right, Joey? (I’ll never be able to look him in the eye again!)
    Joey: And talking to a sock monkey like it’s a person.
    Me: (OK, that’s it. I’m gonna wrap my sisters up and send them air mail to the moon!) You guys! Mom, Dad, may they please be excused?
    Joey: I’m not done yet. I only had one crouton. One crouton is not dinner.
    Stevie: I made this whole dinner. I don’t want to be excused.
    Dad: Girls. How about . . . Let’s talk about the play. Have you two seen the rose garden I’m making for the outside of Beast’s castle? Each flower is handcrafted out of tissue paper.
    Me: That’s cool, Dad.
    Dad: Scott, tell us about playing Beast. What’s it like? Do you have your costume finished?
    Joey: Are you going to be really, really hairy? (Joey bumps Scott’s arm for like the tenth time.)
    Me: JO-EY!

     

     

     

 
    All during dinner, I kept looking at Alex, who was looking at Scott Towel like she was all gaga in love — like she actually wanted him to drop his fondue! I mean, what are the chances you’ll actually marry the person whose name you write over and over a hundred times in your seventh-grade notebook?
    Zero to none.
    Gaga Alex didn’t seem at all like the sister who used to come to Sisters Club Meetings.
    “Stevie?” Alex asked. “Are you actually going to eat that? Or just hold it there for a year? You’re causing a traffic jam, you know.”
    “I’m concentrating,” I told her (on not dropping my fondue so I won’t have to kiss anybody!). I dipped my zucchini carefully into the fondue pot. The plan was for Scott Towel to drop his fondue, NOT me.
    Dad cracked one of his really bad jokes. “Honey,” said Dad, in front of everybody, even the Boy. “I just want you to know, I’m so fon-due you!” Like “fond of” you. Get it? Ha, ha, ha. Dad must be from the Planet Cardigan, like those grandpa sweaters Mr. Rogers wears. We’re talking Old School.
    Mom actually thought it was funny. Alex had a look on her face like she wanted to crawl under the table and disappear.
    “Ee-uw! Dad! You made me dip my zucchini in chocolate!” I said.
    The Boy spoke. “This is all good,” he said.
    “For melty, lumpy cheese glop, you mean,” said Joey.
    “This tastes much better than the fondue I made on TV,” said Mom.
    “Stevie, you’re getting to be quite the cook,” said Dad.