Free Annie's Adventures by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

scientists should look like ladies. Unless they're men, of course."
    It was true, we couldn't deny it: Mommy would say that.
    "What about you?" Rebecca sneered at Annie. "No dress?"
    "I'm still the driver." Annie held up her Daddy disguise. "So I get to wear this."
    Then she ripped the fedora off Daddy Sparky's head.
    ***
    At Kids' Castle, Annie pulled the Hummer around back so no one would observe her dive into the back seat wearing her Daddy disguise and then emerge in a frilly dress—she'd even stuck a bow in her short hair!
    "You'll make everyone suspicious," Rebecca scoffed. "With that bow in your hair, you don't even look like you!"
    But Annie ignored her. It took Jackie, Marcia, Petal, and Zinnia all working together to carry in the huge present we had gotten for Will.

    "Annie, Durinda, Georgia, Jackie, Marcia, Petal, Rebecca, Zinnia—how good of you all to come!" Mrs. Simms said.
    We really liked Will's mother. She always got our names right.
    "My, how pretty you all look!" Mrs. Simms went on. "I have trouble dressing one boy, but look at the job your mother does with eight."
    Annie scowled at this. Our appearance that day had nothing to do with our mother and everything to do with her.
    "And what an enormous birthday present!" Mrs. Simms clapped. "I'm sure Will will love it, whatever it is. But where are your parents?"
    All around Kids' Castle, there were parents. Parents, parents everywhere, and not a single pair were ours. It was enough to drive a person to drink juice boxes.
    "They just had, er, some errands to run," Annie said. "Don't worry."
    Will was playing with Mandy Stenko on the jungle bars, but when he saw us, he came over. He had on dressy clothes, his hair slicked back.
    "I'm really glad you all could make it." Will looked relieved. Who could blame him? Without us, he'd have been stuck with just Mandy.
    "We wouldn't miss it for the world," Zinnia said.
    "So, you're nine now." Rebecca punched Will lightly on the shoulder.
    Will rubbed his arm. Apparently, the punch hadn't been that light.
    "Don't worry," Will said amiably, "you'll get there too. I mean, if you just keep getting older, it's bound to happen, right?"
    Mrs. Simms showed us where to put our present, which we had wrapped as well as we could. We placed it next to the only other present.
    "Who wrapped your present," Mandy Stenko shouted to us from where she was swinging upside down on the jungle bars, "your cats?"
    It was, sadly, true: our present did look ratty—at least the wrapping paper did—when placed beside Mandy's perfectly wrapped one.
    " Our mother," Annie replied with the testiness of a Georgia or a Rebecca, "was too busy coming up with inventions to save the world to bother with something as silly as wrapping a present perfectly, especially when Will's only going to rip the paper off."
    Will rescued the moment by inviting us to join in the play.
    But that wasn't as much fun as it normally would have been, because Annie kept yelling at us not to hang upside down or do tumbling.
    "But we have tights on!" Georgia objected.
    "Doesn't matter," Annie said.
    This really was too much. For although Mommy would have made us wear dresses to a party, she never would have stopped us from hanging.
    "A woman," Mommy always said, "should always look like a lady. But, " she would add, "a scientist should never let fashion get in the way."
    Even if Annie was sometimes good at being Daddy, she was definitely no Mommy. So we mostly sat on our hands in chairs as Mandy had all the fun with Will. Mandy's mother had let her wear jeans and a T-shirt to the party, and as Rebecca put it, she looked like a mechanic.
    When it was time for pizza, at least we had something to do. But Annie insisted we use utensils so we wouldn't drip on our dresses.
    Our absent Mommy had been given credit by Mrs. Simms for our pretty clothes. Our absent Mommy had been accused by Mandy of being a poor present wrapper. And everywhere we looked, there were still parents milling.