Not Fair! Read online

  To Barry, who knew from the beginning

  Thank you to all my family,

  Brenda Bowen, Nöelle Paffett-Lugassy, and Richard Tchen

  Angel Talk

  One for you and one for me, and one for you and one for me.” The Little Angel of Fairness counted out chocolate Kisses. Chocolate was her favorite, and Kisses were the best. There was one left over.

  “I get it,” said the Little Angel of Friendship.

  The Little Angel of Fairness pushed her glasses up her nose and neatly arranged her pile of chocolate Kisses into a pyramid. “We have to share it.”

  “It’s too small to share. Plus, if you give it to me, then you’ll feel terrific for being generous and I can feel terrific for giving you the opportunity to be so generous.”

  The Little Angel of Fairness laughed. She unwrapped the tinfoil from the candy Kiss and took out a pair of tiny scissors. “I’ll cut it in half, and you can choose the half you want.”

  “You’re going to cut it with scissors?”

  “That’s all I have. Aren’t they cute?” The Little Angel of Fairness cut carefully, but one piece of the Kiss was slightly bigger than the other, anyway.

  The Little Angel of Friendship put his hand out toward the big piece. Then he grinned and popped the smaller piece in his mouth.

  “Well done,” said the Archangel of Fairness. “You’re both acting like perfect angels this morning.”

  “What else would you expect?” said the Little Angel of Friendship.

  “Perhaps a bit of humility.” The Archangel of Fairness raised her eyebrows in a look of mock scolding. Then she smiled. “Put away your chocolate for now, my little angel, and say good-bye to your buddy.” She leaned over the Little Angel of Fairness. “You have a job to do.”

  “Yay!” The Little Angel of Fairness kissed the other little angel on the cheek. “When I get back, we can play a spinning game with the gold coins I’ve been collecting.”

  “But I was supposed to choose our next game,” said the Little Angel of Friendship.

  “You’ll like this game.”

  “You always choose,” said the Little Angel of Friendship. “And I’m always forced to go along.”

  “So what? You always have fun. My games are the best.” The Little Angel of Fairness stuffed her chocolate Kisses into her right pocket. “Oh, I’m so excited. I have all my feathers except for one small patch. This job will fill it in, and I’ll earn my wings, I just know I will.”

  “Good luck,” called the Little Angel of Friendship.

  The Little Angel of Fairness waved goodbye. Then she took the archangel’s hand and held it tightly. “Where are we going?”

  “To a driveway in front of a garage.”

  What kinds of bells are in a garage? wondered the little angel; for every time angels earn their wings, a bell will ring. What kind of bell would ring when she earned her wings?

  She put her hand in her left pocket—the one where she kept her gold coins—and she clinked them together softly. They sounded almost like a small, tinkling bell.

  Bikes

  Hank loosened the nut with a wrench. Then he jiggled his bicycle seat and pulled upward until it was an inch higher. “Just right,” he said softly. He opened the pack of spaceship decals he’d bought at the pharmacy and pressed one onto his right handlebar. It shone silvery and perfect.

  “Your decals are pretty,” said Jessica, coming up behind him. She had a book tucked under one arm. “Will you fix my seat now? It needs to be raised, too. I’m growing as fast as you are.”

  “You’ll never be as tall as me.” Hank looked at Jessica’s bike, leaning against the side of the garage. “There’s a cobweb in your spokes. When’s the last time you rode that thing?”

  “I forget.”

  “I’m not going to waste my time working on your bike if you aren’t even going to ride it.”

  “I’ll ride it,” said Jessica.

  “Where?”

  “Where are you going to ride yours?” asked Jessica.

  “In the high school’s Homecoming parade on Saturday afternoon. All my friends are going to be in it.”

  “I’ll ride in the parade, too.”

  “No way,” said Hank. “The bike part of the parade is only for guys.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Come on, Jessica, you can’t butt in on a guy thing.”

  “I can do anything you can.”

  “Then fix your own seat.”

  “I’m not strong enough, and you know it.” Jessica wrinkled her nose at Hank. “Can I at least have some decals to decorate my bike?”

  Hank clutched his decals to his chest. “I paid for these with my own money.”

  “I don’t have any money,” said Jessica.

  “So what? I paid, and these decals are mine.”

  “Remember when you needed sequins for your school project? I let you take a bunch off my dancing costume.”

  Hank swung one leg over and perched on his bike seat. His feet just reached the ground. “You hated your dancing costume. You hate dancing.” He rolled forward. This height for the seat felt good.

  “So what?” said Jessica. She took a step and planted herself right in his path. “I shared with you.”

  “It’s not the same thing. Besides, these are spaceships. See?” Hank flashed the decals in front of Jessica’s face, then jammed them in his pocket. “They don’t go on a girl’s bike.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, I don’t really want them, anyway,” said Jessica. “Spaceships have nothing to do with real ships.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Hank.

  “The theme for Homecoming is always pirates. The high school football team is the Pirates. You know that.”

  “Of course I know that. But I don’t care,” said Hank. “Just because the team is the Pirates doesn’t mean I have to like pirates. But I do like spaceships. And you can’t have any of my decals.”

  “You stink,” said Jessica.

  “Go read your dumb book,” said Hank.

  “It’s not dumb.” Jessica patted her book. “You haven’t read it. You never read. I read all the time and I’m a year and a half younger than you. Besides, I just finished my book.”

  “Then go read another one,” said Hank.

  “I will. I’ll know everything, and you’ll know nothing,” said Jessica. “And that’s how it should be, ’cause you stink.”

  Angel Talk

  He does stink,” said the Little Angel of Fairness.

  “All right, then,” said the Archangel of Fairness. “Help him learn.”

  The little angel stuck a chocolate Kiss in her mouth. She held one up to the archangel. “Want one?”

  “Thanks.” The Archangel of Fairness unwrapped the candy.

  The little angel smiled. “I know: I’ll take half of his money and give it to his sister.”

  The archangel looked surprised. “So you think money is his problem?”

  “Don’t you?” asked the little angel.

  “No.” She ate her chocolate and licked her fingers. “Besides, if you give Hank’s money to Jessica, that won’t teach him anything about fairness.”

  “All right, then, I’ll find a way to make him share his money with her so she can buy decals, too.”

  “That’s a little better,” said the Archangel of Fairness, “although I don’t really like putting so much importance on the money side of things. And, anyway, little angel, he might have spent all of his money already.”

  “Well, I can fix that,” said the little angel. “Oh, yes, I can fix that with something that will be just perfect.”

  Gold

  Hank put his favorite bowl on the table and set his favorite spoon beside it. Then he looked through the set of twelve min
iature boxes of sugar cereals.

  “I get the marshmallow ones,” said Jessica. She ripped open the cellophane and grabbed a box. “Mom must really be afraid of her test next week to buy such great junk food.”

  “It’s important. Her midterm, or something like that. I can’t wait till she finishes this stupid computer course.”

  Jessica dumped cereal in her bowl. She picked out a tiny marshmallow and popped it in her mouth. “Yum. I wish she’d buy this kind of cereal all the time. Taste this.” She handed Hank a marshmallow.

  Hank ate the marshmallow thoughtfully. It was crusty, then chewy, and then it gave an amazing burst of sugar. He picked up the box and read the ingredients on the back. “This cereal rots your teeth. The first ingredient is sugar.”

  “You’re lying. Sugar’s the second ingredient. But I don’t care, anyway. I like sugar.”

  So did Hank. He chose a box with pictures of fruit all over it and poured. Many-colored, doughnut-shaped rings filled his bowl.

  Clunk!

  “What was that?” asked Jessica.

  “Look.” Hank held up a gold coin.

  Jessica turned her empty cereal box upside down and shook hard. “No fair.”

  “That’s life.” Hank slipped the coin into his pocket. Its weight felt comfortably important.

  “Let me see it,” said Jessica.

  “Later, maybe. If I feel like it.”

  “What are you going to do with it?” asked Jessica.

  “I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I could get a million pairs of new sneakers.”

  “You can’t get sneakers with pretend money. Let’s play pirates,” said Jessica.

  “How do you know it’s pretend?”

  “Give me a break.”

  Hank put his hand in his pocket and felt the coin. It was real metal, at least. And it was so heavy. “You can’t be a pirate, anyway.”

  “Sure I can.”

  “No you can’t. There were no girl pirates.”

  Jessica wrinkled her nose at Hank. “There had to be girl pirates. There are girl everythings, it’s just that most people don’t know it. Plus I’d make a better pirate than you any day.”

  “Well, too bad,” Hank said, gobbling his cereal. “I got the gold coin, and you didn’t.”

  “Doubloon,” said Jessica.

  “Mom!” screamed Hank. “Jessica just cursed at me.”

  “That’s nice, honey,” called Mom from her study.

  “Taking that class is turning Mom into a lunatic,” said Hank.

  “You’re the lunatic,” said Jessica. “ ‘Doubloon’ isn’t a curse word. It’s what pirates called gold coins.”

  Hank finished his cereal and drank the milk from the bottom of the bowl. “How do you know?”

  “Hank, if you’d only read now and then, you’d know things, too. The newspaper has an article about doubloons, because of Homecoming. There’s going to be a fair all weekend, and this year everyone’s going to be paying for everything with doubloons.”

  “Where are people going to get doubloons from?” asked Hank.

  Jessica screwed up her face. “I don’t know. I didn’t finish the article.” She looked through the newspaper.

  Hank grabbed the paper from her and read. “The high school is selling them. It’s sort of like buying tickets for the rides at the state fair.”

  “Maybe they’re giving them away in cereal boxes, too,” said Jessica. “Maybe that’s why you got one now.”

  “I don’t think so,” Hank said, quickly putting his hand in his pocket. Yes, the coin was heavy and too hard to bend. “Mine is special.”

  “Hey,” said Jessica, “we can buy a whole bunch of Homecoming doubloons and play pirates all the time.”

  “Not with my money. I think I’ll just hang on to this special gold coin—this special doubloon,” said Hank, emphasizing the last word. “And if you don’t eat fast, you’re going to miss the school bus.”

  Angel Talk

  Exactly how is that gold coin helping?” asked the Archangel of Fairness.

  “I’m not sure yet, but it is money, at least.” The Little Angel of Fairness smiled. “I think I’ll get Hank to buy something nice that he can share with Jessica. She has a sweet tooth, just like me. Maybe I’ll get him to buy a lot of chocolate Kisses.”

  The Archangel of Fairness looked off to the side.

  The little angel followed her gaze. There was nothing there. She knew from past experience that when the archangel looked off at nothing, that meant the archangel wanted her to think harder. “Or maybe I’ll have him sell it to a bank for regular money that he can divide fairly with her.”

  The Archangel of Fairness tapped her foot and hummed to herself.

  “Or . . . ,” said the little angel slowly, hoping another, better, idea would come to her. She unwrapped two chocolate Kisses. “Want one?”

  “No thanks. I’ve eaten too many sweets lately.” The archangel looked down and appeared to be checking her slippers.

  The little angel put both Kisses in her mouth. “I’ve got it,” she said.

  “What?” asked the archangel.

  “You’ll see.”

  More Gold

  The next morning Jessica was already eating when Hank came down to breakfast. Jessica was surrounded by miniature cereal boxes—all open. She looked at Hank and stuck out her tongue.

  Hank smiled and reached for one of the regular-sized boxes of cereal. “Looks like I got the only doubloon.” He poured a bowl of Wheat Chex.

  Clunk!

  Hank searched through the cereal with his fingers. “Another one.”

  “Ahhhh!” screamed Jessica. She beat her fists on the table. “Ahhhh!”

  “Stop acting like a baby,” said Hank. He ate his cereal while turning over the new doubloon in his other hand. This really was remarkable: two doubloons, and they weren’t even in the same kind of cereal box. “Boy, am I lucky.”

  “You have to share now. You’ve got two.”

  “Nu-uh. If you’d been meant to have a doubloon, one would have come out of your cereal box. These were meant for me.”

  “I’ll tell Mom,” said Jessica.

  “We’re not supposed to bother Mom while she’s studying, and you know it.”

  “This is so unfair,” whined Jessica. “You don’t even know what to do with doubloons.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” said Hank. And he had, ever since he’d put his shorts on this morning and felt that weight in his pocket again. “I might get a Ferrari.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The best car in the world. They start at sixty thousand dollars. Or maybe seventy. Any guy knows that.”

  “You can’t even drive. And you can’t buy anything with pretend doubloons, anyway, Hank. Anybody with a brain knows that.”

  Hank almost said the coins were real, but he caught himself in time. They looked real; they felt real. But real gold doesn’t come out of cereal boxes. He put the doubloon in his pocket. It made a nice clink against the other one.

  “Come on, Hank. Forget about buying sneakers and crazy cars. If you were really meant to have these doubloons, you were meant to play pirates with them. So play with me when we get home from school today.” Jessica got on her knees on her chair and leaned out halfway across the breakfast table till her face was close to Hank’s. “Come on, Hankie. Please.”

  “I hate it when you call me Hankie. Pirates don’t say things like that. That’s girl talk.”

  “I can talk like a pirate if I want, you scurvy swashbuckler. And there were at least two famous girl pirates: Mary and Anne.”

  “You made that up. Those are the most common names in the world.”

  “So what? They’re real. They were both on the fiercest pirate ship. A warship was sent to capture the pirates, and at the end of the sword fight, Mary and Anne were the last two pirates left standing.”

  “That’s probably because no one wanted to kill a woman.”

  “They were dre
ssed as men. No one knew they were women. And Anne was a better sword fighter than any of the men. So there,” said Jessica. “I read about them last night, Mr. Stinky. I got a whole book on pirates from the school library yesterday.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, ’cause of the Homecoming parade and everything.”

  Hank finished his bowl of cereal. “Well, after school today you can just keep reading. That’s what girls do. And I’ll keep counting my money. That’s what guys do.”

  Angel Talk

  Two coins don’t seem any better than one,” said the archangel.

  “That’s because he’s even more stingy than I thought. He was supposed to give one to her.” The Little Angel of Fairness took out a chocolate and let it melt slowly in her mouth. “I don’t understand why he’s so unfair with money.”

  “You’re on the wrong track, little angel.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I said it before: Money isn’t the true problem,” said the Archangel of Fairness. “Think about it. If you were Hank, what would you be doing now?”

  “Playing pirates with Jessica.”

  “Exactly. But Hank won’t.”

  The little angel nodded. “Because he thinks girls can’t be pirates. And, oh, he thought girls couldn’t have spaceship decals. And he doesn’t want a girl to ride in the parade. He’s got the wrong idea about girls.”

  “Bingo,” said the archangel.

  “Oh,” said the little angel. “All along I’ve been trying to find ways to get him to share the gold coins with her—half and half, like I always share with my friends. But not giving people a chance is just as bad as not sharing.”

  “There are lots of ways to be unfair,” said the archangel.

  “And this way is driving Jessica crazy.”

  “So, now that you know the real problem,” said the archangel, “what are you going to do about it?”

  More and More Gold

  The kitchen was empty when Hank came down to breakfast. He picked up the box of Cheerios.