LITMIR.BIZ

      The Room Switcheroo

       CHAPTER ONE

      aryellen Larkin liked to make up episodes of her favorite TV shows and imagine herself in them. This morning, for example, as Maryellen was walking down the hot, sunny sidewalk with her dog, Scooter, to mail a letter to her grandparents, she was pretending that she was in an episode of the exciting Western The Lone Ranger. Her only companion was her trusty horse, Thunderbolt. (That was Scooter’s part.) Maryellen leaned forward as if she were battling her way through a blinding blizzard. If she didn’t deliver the medicine in her hand, hundreds of people would die.

      Maryellen never gave herself superpowers in any of her imagined shows. She didn’t fly or do magic or become invisible or anything. She looked the way she really looked, except maybe a little taller and with better clothes. The main difference was that in her TV shows, everyone paid attention to her. They listened to her great ideas, they followed her advice, and—ta-da!—everything turned out just right.

      Maryellen ceremoniously put her letter in the mailbox, imagining that she was handing medicine to a kindly old doctor in the snowy town in the Old West. “Thank you, Miss Larkin, ma’am,” the imaginary doctor said. “We desperately needed this. You have saved hundreds of lives today.”

      Maryellen smiled modestly and shrugged as if to say, “It was nothing.” Then she turned to go. “Come on, Thunderbolt,” she said to Scooter. “Our work is done.”

      Scooter, a stout and elderly dachshund, had just flopped down and made himself comfortable in the shade of the mailbox. But Maryellen whispered, “Come on, Scooter. Get up, old boy.” So Scooter rose with a good-natured sigh and waddled behind Maryellen, who pretended to trudge through drifts of snow as grateful townspeople called after her, “Thank you, Miss Larkin! You’re our hero!”

      “Hey, Ellie,” said a real voice, calling her by her nickname. The voice belonged to her friend Davy Fenstermacher, who lived next door in a house that looked exactly like the Larkins’ house. Maryellen and Davy had been friends forever.

      “Howdy, pardner,” Maryellen drawled.

      “I’ll race you to the swing!” said Davy. “On your mark, get set, go!”

      Maryellen and Davy ran to the Larkins’ backyard, with Scooter loping along behind them. Maryellen got to the swing first, jumped on, and began to pump. “I win!” she called down to Davy. “You be the Lone Ranger, stuck in quicksand, and I’ll jump down and rescue you.”

      “Okay,” said Davy agreeably. Of course, they both knew that cowboys didn’t usually jump off swings. But the swing that Mr. Larkin had hung in the backyard was so much fun that they used it in lots of the TV shows they made up.

      Maryellen swung high and then jumped off. “Yahoo!” she hollered, swooping through the August air. She landed on the grass with a soft thud. “Come on, Thunderbolt!” she called to Scooter. “We’ve got to save the Lone Ranger!”

      Scooter, asleep in the shade, snored.

      “Better wake him up first, Ellie,” said Davy.

      But before Maryellen could rouse Scooter, her six-year-old sister, Beverly, came clomping out of the house in an old pair of Mrs. Larkin’s high heels. Beverly wore one of Dad’s baseball caps turned inside out so that it looked like a crown. She also wore three pop-bead necklaces and two pop-bead bracelets, one on each arm. Right behind Beverly came Tom and Mikey, Maryellen’s younger brothers. They were four and not-quite-two years old.

      “What are you doing?” Beverly asked.

      “Nothing,” said Maryellen, wishing that Beverly and the boys would go back inside, but knowing that they wouldn’t. Maryellen, Beverly, Tom, and Mikey shared a bedroom, and even though the little kids were cute and sweet and goofy, they drove Maryellen crazy, especially the boys. One time, while she was at school, the boys got into her I Love Lucy paper dolls and she found Lucy’s clothes scattered all over the floor like confetti and Lucy folded up in one of Tom’s toy trucks. Lucy had never been able to hold her head up again. Now that it was summer, Beverly, Tom, and Mikey stuck to her like glue, twenty-four hours a day. They couldn’t bear to be left out of anything fun that she might be doing.

      Sure enough, Beverly said, “I want to play with you and Davy!”

      “Me too!” said Tom.

      “Me!” said Mikey.

      Davy shot Maryellen a sympathetic look. He had years of experience dealing with Beverly, Tom, and Mikey.

      Thinking quickly, Maryellen suggested to Davy, “What if the little kids are in the quicksand, too, and I rescue all of you?”

      “Good idea,” said Davy.

      “Pretend I’m a queen that you’re rescuing,” said Beverly.

      “Oh, brother,” Maryellen muttered. That was another problem with Beverly. She liked to pretend, but she always pretended the same thing: that she was a queen. Dad called her Queen Beverly. “I don’t think they had queens in the Wild West,” Maryellen said. “I’ve never seen one on a TV show, anyway. Have you, Davy?”

      “Nope,” said Davy firmly.

      Maryellen smiled. Good old Davy always backed her up. She said to Beverly, clinching the point, “And Davy and I have watched almost every TV show there ever was.”

      Queen Beverly looked stubborn. Maryellen was just about to give in to Her Majesty when their mother called out the back door, “Ellie, honey, come in for a minute. I need you.”

      “Okay,” called Maryellen, feeling pleased. Mom needed her!

      Maryellen’s pride wilted just a bit when Mom added, “Beverly, Tom, and Mikey, you come, too.” She wished Mom wouldn’t always lump her together with Beverly, Tom, and Mikey as if they were one big bumpy creature with four heads, eight arms, and eight legs. Mom certainly treated Maryellen’s older sisters, Joan and Carolyn, as separate, serious people.

      I’m tired of being one of the “little kids,” grumped Maryellen to herself, for the millionth time. I guess I’m stuck with Beverly, but I’m much too grown-up to share a room with Tom and Mikey. Somehow, I have to convince Mom that I should share a bedroom with Joan and Carolyn so that she’ll think of me as one of the “big girls” and take me—and my ideas—more seriously.

      “Come on, kids,” said Mom. She scooped Mikey up onto her hip and held out her free hand to Tom. Beverly clomped along as quickly as she could in her high heels. Scooter rose stiffly and followed her.

      “What do you need us for, Mom?” asked Maryellen.

      “Just a quick family meeting,” said Mom.

      “Oh,” said Maryellen without enthusiasm. She knew from experience that it was hard to get a word in edgewise during family meetings. They were not at all like one of her pretend TV shows where she was the hero and everyone hung on her every word. Maryellen sighed and said to Davy, “See you later, alligator.”

      “In a while, crocodile,” said Davy. “I’ll wait here.”

      Maryellen walked into the kitchen and slid onto the bench in the breakfast nook next to Joan, her eldest sister. Joan, who was seventeen and therefore nearly all grown-up, looked sideways at Maryellen’s grass-stained shorts and inched away, closer to Carolyn. It was crowded on the bench, but Maryellen wanted Mom to see her next

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