Hello, Mallory
Ann M. Martin
Chapter 1.
Spectacles. Eyeglasses. Bifocals. Trifocals. No matter what you call them, glasses are glasses, and I have to wear them.
Hello. I'm Mallory Pike. I'm eleven. Apart from the glasses, this is the thing you need to know about me: I have seven younger brothers and sisters. That's right, seven. And three of them are triplets, identical boys. If you think it's easy to blend in when you come from an eight-kid family, wear glasses, and furthermore are the only one you know with a head of curly hair, you're wrong.
The triplets are ten years old. Their names are Adam, Jordan, and Byron. Occasionally, they make me crazy, but mostly they're all right. The good thing about triplets is that they always have each other. Built-in friends.
The next kid in my family is Vanessa. Vanessa is nine and hopes to become a poet. Sometimes she goes around for days on end
speaking in rhyme. Talk about making me crazy. But Vanessa is all right, too, and in a lot of ways we're very much alike.
My eight-year-old brother is Nicky. I feel kind of sorry for Nicky because he has trouble making a place for himself in our family. He wants to play with the triplets most of the time, since they're boys, but the triplets think Nicky is a baby. That leaves Nicky with us girls, and Nicky is going through this phase where he hates girls.
Margo is seven. She's going through a bossy phase, even though she's almost the youngest in the family. She bosses everyone and everything, even my parents, her dolls, and Pow, this dog that lives down the street. It's always "Do this," and "Do that." Mostly, we ignore her. I mean we ignore the bossiness, not Margo herself.
Last in our family is Claire. Claire is five. I guess being the baby in a big family isn't always easy, but you'd think she wouldn't exactly need to draw attention to herself. That's just what Claire does, though, by being extremely silly. Over the summer, she started calling our parents Moozie and Daggles instead of Mommy and Daddy, and she attaches "silly-billy-goo-goo" to people's names. Like, if she wants a drink, she'll say, "Can I have some
juice, Mallory-silly-billy-goo-goo?" Sometimes she'll add, "Puh-lease, pun-lease, with a cherry on top?" It's annoying, but at least she doesn't do it as often as she used to. Besides, Claire is huggable and affectionate, so it's easy to overlook the "silly-billy-goo-goo" stuff.
Then there are my parents. My mom doesn't have a job. I mean, a job outside of the house, like being a doctor or an insurance salesperson or something. She says us kids are her job, and that with eight of us it's a big job.
My dad is a lawyer, but not the kind you see on TV, making wild speeches in a crowded courtroom. He's what's called a corporate lawyer. He's the lawyer for a big company in Stamford, Connecticut. (We live in Stoney-brook, Connecticut, which isn't far away.) Mostly, he sits at a desk or attends meetings. Once in awhile, though, he does go to court, but I bet he doesn't make speeches. I think he just stands up a lot and says, "Objection!" and things like that.
Every single one of us Pikes, even my parents, has dark brown hair (Mom calls it "chestnut brown" to make it seem less ordinary) and blue eyes. Nicky and Vanessa and I wear glasses (all the time — not just for reading, unfortunately), but as I mentioned earlier, I am the only one with curly hair. I'm also the
only one with freckles across my nose. I really stick out. If only Mom would let me get contacts. But she won't. Not until I'm fifteen. And she won't let me get my ears pierced until I'm thirteen.
Being eleven is a real trial.
I will admit one thing, though: No matter what age you are, being the oldest of eight kids sure teaches you responsibility. And it taught me a lot about baby-sitting. I love sitting, even though I haven't done much of it on my own yet. But guess what? These girls I know asked me if I'd be interested in joining their
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