Perch Girl.

My bedroom, along with being adjacent to the TV in the living room and staying exceptionally organized (thanks to Grammy), is my mom's old room. It is also in a prime location to hear the phone in the kitchen ringing and to hear when anyone goes to the basement. In the beginning of the year, I slept on the mattress that was already on the bed. I would, however, equate the comfort level of that mattress to the comfort level of sleeping on a concrete slab, so I immediately began devising my super secret plan to get a new mattress. Why did it have to be super secret, you ask? Because, in my experience with my grandparents, I've discovered that if there is a problem with something they will just go out and buy a new something to replace it, so in order to prevent them from going out and purchasing a new mattress, the plan had to stay super secret. Like with my car. The other day, my car stopped starting again (I love it when it does this. It just fills my soul with joy and happiness.) Of course, when Papa tried to start it, it started immediately, but he still decided he needed to take it to Neil the Mechanic, who cleaned out the engine again. Papa told me that it was almost as dirty as last time I cleaned it. It wasn't in the Top 10 Dirtiest Engines this time, but it was close. Probably a 12 or 13. Oh well. At least it starts for now. Luckily, my car isn't very high-tech so it has less parts that could possibly fail. I used to have an automatic starter, well I guess I still do, but I had to take the starter off my keychain because the button would get unknowingly pressed while in my purse and I would walk out and my car would be running. Grammy had a problem like that the other week. She was trying to lock the little car and pulled on the handle and the car alarm started going off. I could hear it from the basement so I ran upstairs to help her turn it off, but we couldn't find the key. I ran to ask Papa where the key was because he drove the car last and I figured he had it in his pocket, but he said the key was on the table by the door. I told him it wasn't there, but he said I didn't look hard enough because it's there.
Anyway, after waking up the entire neighborhood, the alarm finally went off. Just then, Papa walked to the front door and said:
Papa: How did you stop it?
Grammy: It just stopped.
Papa: Well, the key's right here on the table!
Julie: You just put that there!
Papa:I told you it was here the whole time.
Julie: He just put that there, Grammy.

Papa just chuckled.

Now, if either of them ever informed me of their decisions to buy replacements, I could possibly eliminate the super secret aspect of my mattress mission because it would give me the chance to tell them not to buy a new mattress.
That is not the case. They are both bad about doing things without telling anyone. Like that time the ambulance came to our house because Grammy was having a lot of pain in her left arm and I slept right through it and I didn't even find out the ambulance was there until the next afternoon when Mom told me. The morning after the ambulance, they just came into my room really early and told me they are going to Jeff City to the hospital and then they left. They left me, the youngest and most able driver, sitting on the edge of my bed sleepy-eyed and confused and just drove to Jeff City.
Or those times that I just walk outside to go somewhere and my car is gone. And by gone I mean it is in the shop for 3 weeks.
Or that day Papa went and bought a new TV.
Or that time Papa went to lunch in Bland for lunch and then went to WalMart and there was a fire in the backyard and Grammy couldn't find him.

Anyway, my life was narrowed down to:
-The decision to become a hunchback because of my constant back pain and be forced to flee America to find refuge in some forgotten castle, haunting the local village and baking scones to ease the pain of my frightening appearance. I'd be the modern-day Frankenstein and I'd have to resort to murder and other evil deeds when the society flees from me in fear, making me an outcast to civilization.
-Or, the decision to somehow find another mattress without alerting Grammy or Papa to my plan.

I chose the second decision. So, I called my mom, and after vowing her to secrecy, told her my predicament. She understood why this needed to be an undercover operation and on the weekend of the turkey supper, they snuck a futon mattress into the car. While Grammy and Papa were occupied somewhere else, my family and my friends Abby and AJ snuck the futon on top of the mattress. Grammy noticed right away, so I just told her that it's all better now and she just laughed. Papa never noticed because he told me: "I try not to go near that room."
Now, Grammy calls it my Perch because it makes my bed really tall, like I'm the princess from The Princess and the Pea. Except I'm Perch Girl. Like in that episode of the Nickelodeon show Hey Arnold! where there is that boy who would never leave his door stoop and everyone called him Stoop Boy and they would yell: "Hey Stoop Boy! Get off your stoop! Why don't you ever leave your stoop, Stoop Boy? Are you scared??? Stoop Boy! Stoop Boy!"