Almost Famous

"Snow White and the Six Dwarfs? Well, I'll be." She sounds like she's singing. "Well, I'll be. I'll be." She says again, shaking her head and holding back a laugh.

We stand at attention and give her our best dwarf smiles. It's hard to stay so still because the Library is magical. It's one of my favorite places; you don't need money and can take home as many books as you can carry. But the walk is far, so you have to be careful not to get too greedy.  

Mom comes up with the idea of Snow White and the six dwarfs, but it starts to come undone when Jimmy makes a fuss about not wanting to be a dwarf. He wants to be the Wolfman. Mom says he can be a dwarf in a Wolfman mask, and this makes him happy. Our baby brother Andrew wants to be a baseball player, and since he is the baby, he gets what he wants. My sisters and I want to be Snow White. We wait with wide eyes and wet lips to see who will be crowned. Mom doesn't want us to fight, so she gives the part to Cathy Smith. "Cathy is the tallest," she says, placing her wedding tiara on Cathy's head. My heart sinks. We are left to play Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, and Doc as Cathy moves around the yard looking like a movie star.  

But there is no time to complain. The show must go on. And we still need to walk to the Library across town. So we head out, Snow White and the four and a half dwarfs, half a Wolfman, and a baby baseball player. Our chances of winning are not looking great. 

"Snow White and the Six Dwarfs? She says again. And we nodd with frozen enthusiasm, hoping she won't notice the creative licensing we've taken. Well, how do you like those apples? There are six!" She pokes at the air with a red-tipped finger trying to count us. 

Little Bo Peep stands in the corner with her mother. She raises her hand to the librarian like we were in school.

"Why do they have pillowcases tied to their head? She asks, pointing in our direction while keeping her gaze on the librarian, as though making eye contact with us will give her cooties.

I glare back at her.

"These are not pillowcases. They're our beards!" Joan yells at her directly, cutting out the middleman.

"And we stuffed the pillows under our shirts to make us look fat!" Erin adds while doing jumping jacks and beaming with pride at our cleverness. We are there to win. The stakes are high; the winner will get a book to take home. A book that is theirs for keeps and never has to be returned. And they get their picture in the newspaper. The newspaper. The one that everyone reads.

After we lay waste to the candy in the library jack-o-lantern and chase each other around the Library for a few rounds of tag and hide and go-seek, the librarian is ready to announce the winner. I stare at Little Bo Peep from the corner of my eye, and my heart races. I want this! I want to be famous and in the newspaper.

Bo Peep stands in her perfect costume under the protective arm of her mother, one child to one mother. I try not to watch as her mother uses her free hand to dig in her purse for a hairbrush. She removes Bo's bonnet and smooths her daughter's perfectly golden-waved hair. I feel like I am watching a Prell commercial.

I look at my mother. Her hands are full. She chases after the two boys as they systematically take down the entire Library, row after row, they pull books and topple displays. She stops to re-tying a pillowcases beard that has come loose and re-adjusting the pillows that have slipped from beneath a shirt. She attempts to converse with the librarian or anyone who will make an effort. She even engages the enemy.

"What a little dolly, isn't she sweet." My mother smiles at Bo's mother. My bearded heart swelled with anger. I wonder if my mother wants to be the mother of one as much as I'd like to be an only child.

When her name is called, Bo Peep saunters up to the librarian to accept her award. My heart flutters and falls as our mother shushes our "boos."

Bo Peep is handed a book and turns with a smile that should have been mine. The librarian, sensing the heartbreak, and hoping to avoid a riot, spontaneously announces that we can all be in the picture for the newspaper.

We greet the news with a pirate's cheer. My arms fly, and my feet dance in a circle. We are going to be in the newspaper! We are going to be famous!

"Say cheese," says the man with the big camera. But I don't need to be coaxed. A smile is plastered across my face so hard that my cheeks hurt. I have to hug myself to keep my feet still.

When the picture shows up in the paper, it looks like we're the first-place winners. Bo Peep and her staff are pushed to the side. Her costume is store-bought and perfect, but we have her outnumbered. We're famous. It would have been a sweeter second-place victory if there had been a third-place winner, but no one else showed up. So second place doubled as last.

Our mother buys extra copies to clip out the picture. She sends them to our relatives and pins one to our refrigerator so we can see ourselves whenever we get a glass of milk.

Prompt: Write about a time that you lost, even though you were sure that you won.