Beverly Quarter Chapter 17
On Tuesdays, I’m using this newsletter to publish a book called Beverly Quarter: Invisible Frenemy. It’s got nothing to do with the rest of the content of this newsletter. I mean, for real: It doesn’t even contain the word burpee. But I think you’ll like it.
I wrote it to make my kids laugh, their friends laugh, and their parents laugh. I’m guessing most of you have kids, or know kids, or were kids, so you’re my target audience. I explain the book’s backstory here.
Give this chapter a read. If you like it, read it to your kids, their friends, their friends’ parents, random strangers on the street, etc.
I’ll keep publishing the newsletter as usual on Thursdays. This will just be bonus content.
Chapter 17
Sally’s costume looked like a tutu and a tiger Halloween costume sewn together. She tried to wear it every day. Her parents made her take it off on the days they noticed she was wearing it before she ran out the door. She had made it to the park successfully today. When she arrived, Beverly Quarter was already there. She was at the top of the Slide of Death. She did not see Sally coming. She was alone, at least that’s what it looked like. But she was in an animated conversation, half-talking, half-yelling, though it appeared there was nobody there.
“Why?” she said. “That’s so mean! She’ll get in big trouble. She’ll probably never talk to me again! What do you have against her?”
Sally stopped at the top of the ladder and was as quiet as she could be. There was a strange silence.
Beverly Quarter finally broke it. “Fine,” she said. “But you promised this is the last thing.”
Sally coughed the way her mom sometimes did when she was standing in the doorway to her bedroom and Sally didn’t know it. “Who are you talking to?” Sally said.
Beverly Quarter nearly jumped off the top of the slide, she was so frightened. “Nobody,” she said nervously. “My invisible friend, I mean. But she left. We were just playing a game. Hey, that’s your dance costume. Want to play tiger?”
“Sure,” Sally said.
Beverly Quarter pretended to be a hyena and Sally chased her all over the park.
They collapsed in laughter and sat in the wood chips. “That outfit looks so cute on you,” Beverly Quarter said. “You should wear it every day.”
“You keep telling me that,” Sally said. “I wish my parents would let me.”
“They’ll eventually get tired of making you take it off and just let you leave it on,” Beverly Quarter said. “Just keep trying to wear it.”
“Great idea,” Sally said, even though she knew it wasn’t. She changed the subject to the recital. It was a few days away, which in kids’ reckoning of time was a vast epoch. She was simultaneously extremely excited and extremely nervous. She was filled with joy and dread. She was still very scared to stand up on stage and perform in front of everybody.
Beverly Quarter stood up and walked over to the teeter totter. “Fine, I will, now leave me alone,” she said under her breath. She walked back and forth on the teeter totter like it was a balance beam.
“I don’t even know why you keep taking dance lessons,” Beverly Quarter said. “Mrs. Knight doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I don’t think she even likes you. If she did, you’d be a good tiger part, like the head or tooth or claw. She’s making you be the tiger tail because she doesn’t like you.
“Sometimes it seems like she doesn’t even know anything about dancing. It would have been better if you got free acting lessons,” Beverly Quarter said. “I mean, you’re a good dancer, I guess. But you’d be a great actress.”
“I would?”
“Yes. You’d be the best.”
“But I don’t even know how to act.”
“All you have to do is pretend.”
“Well, I can definitely do that,” Sally said.
“HEY!” Beverly Quarter said suddenly. “I have a great idea for how you can be the most memorable tiger ever AND prove to Laurie Knight that you deserved a better part.”
Sally wasn’t sure she agreed she deserved a better part. But she did think she was a better dancer than at least half of the Mackenzies, if not all of them. “Really?” Sally said. “What is it?”