1. Hadley We can hear the smoke alarm going off the second we turn the corner, and of all the McMansions (as Mom calls them) on the street, I just know it''s coming from ours. Mom said she''d pay me ten bucks to get my little brother and sister "out of her hair" while she gets ready for the Women in Content 2024 conference, which is later today in Manhattan, about a forty- five-minute drive from our new house on Long Island. We''re all leaving for the conference in an hour, and I wanted to spend that time lying on the carpet in my new room and reading the new Veera Hiranandani book, but that clearly wasn''t going to happen--not while Nash and Quinn were throwing balls of packing paper and jumping on sheets of Bubble Wrap--so I agreed to take them for a walk around the block. My older brother, Colton, was mixing up cookie dough when we left. Colton''s notorious for putting something in the oven, turning his attention to something else, and forgetting all about the baking, so I expected the cookies to be crisp at best, but I didn''t think he''d let them go long enough to set off the smoke detector. Sure enough, though, the beeping gets louder as we near the house. Quinn, who''s six, reaches the edge of our lawn and becomes an immovable statue, his eyes closed and his hands over his ears, but my sister, Nash, who''s two and a half and fearless, grabs my hand and pulls me up the front steps and into the danger zone.
It''s smoky inside, even in the living room. Everything''s beeping--the smoke alarm in the kitchen, the one in the living room, the oven timer--and it''s all beeping in slightly different tones and rhythms, a cacophony of dissonance. Smoke billows out of the open oven door, and the smell of burnt dough fills my nostrils. Mom''s standing on a chair in the kitchen wearing nothing but a bath towel, waving a magazine at the smoke detector on the ceiling. Nash grabs my arm with both hands and starts to scream. "Fire!" she yells. "It''s just smoke, Nashie!" Mom shouts. "No fire.
Hadley!" she calls to me. "Come here and grab my phone! Quick!" I want to run outside to join Quinn, to cover my ears and pretend none of this is happening, but Mom will post about this no matter what, and if she says that I ran away and cried, it will only make me dread the first day of my new school even more. So I make my way into the kitchen, lugging Nash on my wrist like one of those weighted bracelets a fitness company sent Mom, hoping she''d mention them to her followers. Mom''s phone is on the counter. "Get a video!" she shouts over the beeping. "Mom, shouldn''t we--" I start, but she yells, "Quick, before the beeping stops! Make sure you get Nash screaming too. Great work, Nashie girl. Keep it up!" Nash stops screaming for a second to catch her breath.
She looks at Mom''s phone in my hands, waiting, and I know that the sooner I do this, the sooner it will all be over. I wriggle free from Nash''s grip to wave some smoke away from my face and open the camera on Mom''s phone, then press the record button and pan around to get some footage of her on the chair. I''m actually glad for the smoke because it makes it less likely to reveal anything under Mom''s towel. Nash starts her screaming again in earnest, upping the volume as the camera turns toward her. The back door opens, and in walks Colton, oblivious, wearing his big Beats headphones. I get it all on camera, and I know it will make great content, especially when Colton''s eyes go big and he shouts, "Shoot! My cookies!" Mom hops off the chair she''s been standing on, edges Colton out of the way, and starts swinging the back door open and shut, open and shut. After about ten seconds, the smoke clears enough to quiet the detector above it, and the one in the living room stops about thirty seconds after that. The security system makes a ding-dong noise every time the swinging door passes its sensor, but after a few more open-and-shuts, Mom lets it hang open.
Colton turns off the oven timer, Nash''s sobs subside to sniffles, and I stop the video and place the phone down on the counter. Mom leans against the counter, closes her eyes, and takes a few deep breaths. "Were you trying to burn down our beautiful new house, C?" she says, suddenly serious. We''re back to reality. "Were you waiting for your siblings to leave so you could murder me by asphyxiation?" "Ha, no," Colton says. "It was an accident." "You promised you''d set the oven timer," Mom reminds him. "I set it," Colton points out, "but I didn''t hear it because I was outside with my headphones on.
The noise-canceling feature on these is really good." He snaps his fingers, points to Mom, and says, "Will someone from Beats be there tonight? You could pitch them this video for sponcon!" "Where are the cookies?" Nash asks from behind me. "Nashie, shh," I whisper, scooping her up in my arms. "Where are the cookies?" Mom repeats, staring at Colton. I only just notice that she must have been putting on eye makeup when the alarms started beeping, because one eye is rimmed in black and the other isn''t, making her look like the dog from Target ads. "The cookies"--she slides her hand into an oven mitt--"are burnt to a crisp." She removes the sheet pan and holds it out, fresh smoke rising. She''s about to tilt the tray and let the cookies slide into the trash can when the security system''s robotic voice says, "Visitor approaching.
" The doorbell rings. I turn around, assuming it''s Quinn, who, last I saw, was still frozen on the front lawn, though it doesn''t really make sense that he''d ring the bell, except maybe to get our attention without having to talk. The front door is still wide-open, and on the steps are two firefighters, one man and one woman, both in full firefighting gear, and I wonder, as I often do, why my life can''t be normal and boring. "Hello?" the man calls into our house. "We got a call about a smoke alarm going off at this property. Everyone okay in here?" Mom does a quick check of her towel (which is still fully wrapped, thank heaven), puts on a smile, and rushes to the front. I look at the security camera screen to see if I can see the fire truck, then instantly wish I hadn''t, because instead I see that half the neighborhood is gathered on our lawn. I guess it shouldn''t matter, because the other half of the neighborhood will probably witness this humiliation soon enough, along with the rest of the world, when Mom posts about it online.
But we only just moved from Brooklyn to a town called Merrick on Long Island, and I''ve been holding out a tiny, tiny hope that no one here has heard of PhoebeAndJay, in which case I''ll do my best to skim through middle school as a quiet, forgettable, invisible girl that people barely know exists. "Everything''s fine!" Mom assures the firefighters. Her towel has been coming loose from all her movement, so she holds the top with one hand to try and keep it from falling. "Thank you for coming, but we''re fine. Apart from me being naked and looking like a cyclops." She actually says that, out loud, to firefighters, and my face gets so red that the firefighters will probably worry I got second-degree burns. "My fourteen-year-old was baking," Mom goes on, gesturing with her head toward Colton, who grins and waves from the kitchen. "Ah," the male firefighter says.
He looks at me and smiles. "Any cake left for us?" "Cookies," Nash informs him, running over as fast as her chubby little legs will take her. "They burnt." "Boo," the man replies with an exaggerated frown. Then he turns to Mom. "Would you like us to walk through and make sure everything''s okay?" "Not necessary," Mom insists. She smooths the air with her hands, which almost makes her towel drop, but thankfully it doesn''t. "We''re good.
Just an ordinary Saturday in the Harris house. In fact, do you mind if I take a selfie? I blog about the circus that is my family, and I might as well get some laughs out of this." "Wait," the female firefighter says, recognition dawning. "Are you . Phoebe Harris? From PhoebeAndJay?" Mom turns to me and Colton with a look that says How about that? "Phoebe Harris," she announces, "in the flesh." She motions to her bath towel and adds, " All the flesh." My flesh turns an even brighter red, and I use my fingers to comb my long hair in front of my face like curtains that I can hide behind. "Holy smokes!" the female firefighter says, and I wonder if all firefighters say that or if maybe, for them, it''s more extreme than any curse words.
"I thought you looked familiar! I love your blog!" she continues, flapping her hands with excitement and looking around our house with a sudden awe. "You''re C ." she says, pointing to Colton, "and that''s little ." "N," Mom tells her. "Of course! And you''re H? Holy smokes, how old are you now?" "Twelve," Mom answers for me. "At least I think so. With four of them, it''s hard to keep track." I am twelve, and I keep quiet because I know my mom knows all our ages; she only says she doesn''t because she knows it''ll get a laugh, and sure enough, it gets one now.
"Twelve!" the woman says, placing a hand on the chunky part of her vest over her heart. "A young woman. I''ve been following you since ''don''t make my poop slide''! You used to be so adorable." "Aww," Mom says. "What do you say, H?" I force a small smile and say, "Um, that''s, well ." because I''m never sure how to respond when someone says I used to be cute, since it implie.