Bridget was peeking into my backpack. “Saturday? Um… yeah. I think so.” Then she gave me a hopeful look. “Can I have, like, all the bags?”
She was acting weird. This was weird. Maybe I was paranoid, but it almost sounded as if Bridget’s attendance at my slumber party depended on whether I gave her the rest of the candy.
“Burke likes the chocolate that much?”
“Totally!” she said. “He loved it!”
“Okaaaaaaaay.”
I sensed Bridget had more to say.
“Well, he loved the candy so much that I sort of told him that I was the one who made it.”
Wait. What? Whoa.
Bridget… lied? I couldn’t process this. Bridget never lied. About anything. Ever. The closest Bridget has ever come to lying is forgetting. Like, she’ll say something didn’t happen that totally happened but only because she doesn’t remember it happened until I remind her. That makes her a little ditzy, but not a liar. But why would Bridget be dishonest about something so… dumb? But from the desperate expression on her face, it was clear to me that she saw this situation as anything but dumb.
“Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease,” Bridget begged. “And remember! I made them! Not you!”
I nodded and silently handed over the rest of the bags of chocolate.
“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” Bridget gushed as she crushed me with a hug. “I’ll totally be your best friend forever!”
As Bridget took off in search of her boyfriend, it hit me: That was the first time in twelve years of best friendship that I had to do something to earn the title I’d always taken as a given.
Chapter Ten
When I got home from school, Gladdie had a fresh batch of lavender lemon bars waiting, which sound nasty, but I promise are quite delicious once you get over the idea of eating flavors you associate with dish detergent and potpourri.
“So. Uh. Gladdie?” I began. “I was kinda wondering…”
“What is it with your generation?” Gladdie asked.
“Uh… what?”
“All those ‘sos’ and ‘uhs’ and ‘kindas’ are unbecoming of a dynamic young woman such as yourself,” she said. “Be direct! Say what you need to say!”
Just say what I need to say. HA! As if it were that easy. Because what I needed to say was: I’m under pressure to host a sleepover this weekend, and I’m being bossed into inviting certain friends and not others, and according to my sister’s latest IT List, I’m supposed to care about parties and cliques and being Hot and not being Not, but all I really care about is everyone getting along with everyone else.
But what I said instead was this: “I want to have a sleepover this weekend.”
“What a marvelous idea!” Gladdie exclaimed. “I’d love to catch up with Bridget and Dori!”
Bridget would come, if only to get her hands on more candy. And Dori was pretty much forbidden by Manda to come, though I couldn’t see any reason why she would want to be there anyway, even if she had made the guest list. That is, unless she, too, had been advised by someone to have fun with her enemies.
“Do you think Mom and Dad will mind?” I asked.
“Your parents will be pleased as punch,” Gladdie replied. “They want you to develop positive female friendships.”
Something about the way she said it indicated that she’d had a long conversation with my parents about my need to “develop positive female friendships.”
“It was actually my friend Manda’s idea,” I said. “And there’s another girl, Sara.”
“A party!” Gladdie said, rubbing her hands together with gusto. “I love parties!”
“And one more girl,” I said. “Hope.”
“The more the merrier!”
Isn’t that the philosophy behind IT List #1: 1 BFF < 2 BFFs < 4 BFFs < 8 BFFs < INFINITY BFFs? I could take care of that and IT List #3: PARTY!!! at the same time! I’ve made so much progress since the first day of school, haven’t I? I’m doing a much better job at rocking my sister’s Must Dos this time around. Looks like Bethany Darling’s little sister is finally getting the hang of this junior-high thing!
“Woo-hoo!” I cheered.
“Woo-hoo!” Gladdie cheered back.
I needed to call Hope about the sleepover right away. As I dialed her number, I realized I’d never called Hope before. I’m not much of a phone person, but I was in the mood to actually talk to Hope instead of bleep-blooping messages back and forth. I guess she felt the same way because she sounded pretty psyched when she picked up.
“Hey, Jess!” she said. “I’m so glad you called!”
“How are you feeling? Sara said you had a stomach thing.…”
“Yeah, sort of,” Hope said vaguely. “Anyway, I’d finally gotten my strength back and was feeling so much better when Manda gave me orders for custom-made handcrafted invitations for the Awesomest Sleepover Ever.”
Yikes. That’s a lot to live up to.
“Did she really call it that?”
“She did. Oh! And I have to finish them by tomorrow morning for distribution before homeroom.”
“Are you serious?”
Hope laughed. “Totally serious.”
This was taking bossiness to a whole new level, even for Manda.
“Why do we even need invitations?” I asked. “Everyone invited already knows about it.”
“Aha! Knowing Manda, the invitations aren’t really about the guests. It’s about everyone else.”
“What do you mean?”
“She wants everyone who isn’t invited to see who is invited.”
Of course. A selective guest list is what makes a gathering exclusive. Exclusivity is what makes a clique the type of clique that other girls want to get into. Exclusive cliques are for Hots. Everyone else is a Not. This is the total opposite of #1 on the IT List. Sigh. Just when I thought I was making progress.
Anyway, back to the conversation with Hope.
“But if she’s so eager to have an exclusive party, why doesn’t she just throw one herself?” I asked. “Why put it on me?”
“This way Manda can still be the ‘nice’ one,” she said. “Because you’re the one being exclusive.”
As soon as she said it, I knew it was true. I actually had to admire Manda’s manipulative brilliance. She’s by far the MVP All-Star in Girlie Head Games.
But that didn’t mean I had to let her outplay me.
“Don’t listen to Manda. We don’t need invitations,” I said. “And you’ve probably got too much work to make up from your absences.”
“I do,” Hope said. “Speaking of, what’s up with this Spanish work sheet on fake cognates?”
Ack.
“Manda and Sara didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
I thought for sure that they would’ve already told Hope all about my embarazada blunder so they could all “laugh it up, laughy” at my expense.
“Well, it all started when I tripped over Sara’s bag.…”
“It’s like she puts her bag in the aisle just so you trip on it and she can yell at you for tripping on it.”
“Exactly! Anyway, so Señora Epstein asked if I was okay and…”
I gave her the whole story. And she laughed. A lot. But that was okay because before long, I was laughing right along with her.
“You should have seen her face when she pointed out my mistake,” I said. “It turned green then white then red.…”
“Like the flag-of-Mexico sweater she loves so much!” Hope added, and we both cracked up some more.
“So what else have I missed?” Hope asked.
When I’d told Hope about announcing my pregnancy to the Spanish class, the experience seemed more humorous than humiliating. Would the same thing happen if I told her about other stressful stuff happening at school?
There was only one way to find out.
“Did you know I’m in the midst of a scandal?” I asked. “The Scotty Scandal?”
Hope responded with a musical “ooooooh.?
??
“Apparently I’m an expert flirt and Scotty has fallen under my spell.”
Hope snorted. “Who thinks that?”
“Manda and Sara,” I said. “And Dori, too, I guess, because she’s been acting superrude to me lately. But it’s not true! I don’t like Scotty that way. And even if I did, I’d never go after someone else’s boyfriend!”
“I know that,” Hope said. “But it’s kind of a compliment, don’t you think? I mean, you don’t see anyone accusing me of having that kind of power over boys.”
I kindasorta understood what Hope was saying and was about to argue that I’d be way more flattered if everyone was gossiping about skills I actually possessed, like running or factoring polynomials. But that’s when my bedroom door flew open.
“BURKE IS BREAKING UP WITH ME.”
Bridget flopped backward onto my bed in despair.
“Sounds like you need to go,” Hope said.
Though she was trying to be cool about it, I could hear a hint of disappointment in Hope’s voice. And that made me even less psyched about wasting the evening coaching Bridget through another breakup freak-out.
“Just give me a second,” I said into the phone.
“No,” Hope insisted. “It’s cool. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And she hung up.
I stood directly over Bridget, who was as red-eyed and sniffly as I’d ever seen her. Bridget and Burke’s relationship was brand-new, but it felt like I’d already talked her through a bazillion breakup freak-outs. Usually I was up for the task of being the good friend who cared about analyzing ALL THE DETAILS. Usually. But not tonight.
“So what if Burke is breaking up with you?” I asked. “Who cares?”
Bridget sat up, shocked.
“Who cares?” she shot back. “I care!”
“What I meant was,” I backpedaled, “there are plenty of other guys at Pineville Junior High who’d take Burke’s place in a heartbeat.”
This is totally true. On the last day of summer before seventh grade, Bridget had gotten her braces off, trimmed her white-blond hair, and bought the right clothes for her curves. Suddenly all the boys noticed her, and she noticed the boys noticing her, and all the other girls in my class noticed the boys noticing her, and… well, that’s when everything started to get really complicated.
Bridget sniffed. “I don’t want anyone taking his place,” she said. “I want the boyfriend I already have. I want Burke.”
“Personally, I don’t see what’s so great about Burke.”
“He’s gorgeous and popular and plays football. He’s perfect!”
Burke smells like deli meat, chews like a cow, and considers farting an art form. (Fart form?) But I didn’t say that.
“No one is perfect,” I said instead.
“Burke is perfect,” Bridget insisted.
“Burke is tall,” I conceded. “It’s not the same thing.”
His height advantage doesn’t make Burke perfect, no matter what Bridget says.
“If he’s so perfect,” I argued, “why has being with him made you so paranoid?”
A wounded look crossed Bridget’s splotchy face. It would’ve been less offensive to mention Burke’s fascination with farting. I’d obviously crossed some sacred boyfriend/girlfriend line because Bridget stood up stiffly, like a stranger and not someone who’d hung out in my bedroom thousands if not bazillions of times before.
“You just don’t understand,” Bridget said as she walked to the door. “And until you have a boyfriend, you never will.”
I watched her go, wishing she had walked out in silence. What she’d said wasn’t untrue. No, it stung because she was so right. I had no hope of understanding what was going on inside my friend’s head and heart until I got a boyfriend of my own.
The problem is this: Despite my budding reputation as an “expert flirt,” I have zero interest in getting a boyfriend. Especially if it means turning into a girlfriend who behaves like Bridget.
Chapter Eleven
True to form, Bridget didn’t acknowledge her breakup freak-out the next morning at the bus stop. She also didn’t say anything about how I’m obviously losing patience with her breakup freak-outs, which, quite frankly, is a conversation I need to have with her even if I don’t want to have it.
“So your sleepover is, like, perfect timing because Burke has mandatory team bonding and can’t hang out on Saturday night, and it totally works out for Dori because Scotty will also be busy at mandatory team bonding and won’t be able to hang out with her, so…”
Uh-oh. I was under strict orders from Manda not to invite Dori, which was convenient for me because I was pretty sure Dori hated my guts because she was under the TOTALLY MISGUIDED IMPRESSION that I had the hots for her boyfriend.
“Dori’s coming?”
“Of course!” Bridget replied. “Duh!”
Then she bonked me on the head with the Official Inflatable PJHS CHEER!!! Wand. On game days, she and the rest of the CHEER TEAM!!! go around bonking students on the head with these adorable red, white, and blue blow-up weapons. The CHEER TEAM!!! is actually allowed to do this. I’m not kidding. The administration is totally okay with them physically assaulting the rest of us with cheeritude.
“Gladdie said she couldn’t wait to see 3ZNUF back together again,” Bridget went on. “Did you know that she was baking all our favorite treats? Platinum Blondies and PB & Jellyrolls? Your grandmother is the best, Jess. And—YAY! The bus!”
For the rest of the ride to school, I tried to figure out why Dori would even want to come to my slumber party when she’d been going out of her way to show that she was not a fan of me lately. It got even more confusing when I got off the bus.
“Heeeeeey, Jess!”
I actually looked around to confirm that I was the person Dori was so happy to see.
“So! Saturday night! Yay!”
“Huh?”
This earned me a bonk on the head with Dori’s Official Inflatable PJHS CHEER!!! Wand.
“The sleepover! Can’t wait! Woo-hoo! A good old girls’ night in while the boys are at mandatory team bonding!” She looked sharply at Scotty when she said that. “Woo-hoo! 3ZNUF! What fun!”
We may not be besties anymore, but I don’t dislike Dori. I generally disagree with Manda and Sara when they say mean things about her. However, in this case at least, Dori was proving them right by being such a try-hard. She was putting waaaaay too much effort into sounding excited to spend time with me. The weirdest part about her act? It seemed to be more for Scotty’s benefit than for mine. But why?
Bridget bounded off the bus.
“Awwwwww!” she gushed at the two of us. “Together again!”
She linked one arm with Dori’s and the other arm with mine. This sounds like no big deal, but it was in fact a HUGELY SIGNIFICANT GESTURE because it required her to unlatch herself from Burke’s bicep, if only for a few seconds. And in that brief moment of bonding, I felt kind of bad for being so cynical. Maybe Dori had come to her senses about all the rumors and was ready to rebuild our friendship after all.
Or not.
“So, Scotty!” Dori said emphatically. “We’ll all be at Jessica’s house on Saturday night while you’re at mandatory team bonding. So. Don’t! Get! Any! Ideas!”
And Scotty just shrugged and said, “I don’t have any ideas,” which is probably the truest thing anyone has ever said in the history of the universe.
“It better stay that way!” Dori cautioned.
And then she looked at me like I was supposed to say something, but I didn’t know what that something was, because this wasn’t making any sense to me at all.
I swear it was like I was hearing half of a satellite transmission of an intergalactic conversation. Like, one part of the discussion was happening right in front of me with words I could understand. But the other half was happening in a galaxy far, far away in an alien language that translated “Hello!” into something like “Vnpykghtioqew!”
I guess I waited t
oo long to say whatever it was I was supposed to say because Dori decided to say it for me.
“And don’t you get any ideas, either, Jess!” And then Dori released a gust of the most forced laughter I’ve ever heard. “Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.”
And that’s when I realized that Dori was paranoid. She still believed in The Scotty Scandal and wanted to hang out on Saturday so she could keep an eye on me! As if I’d sneak out of the slumber party and Scotty would ditch his team-bonding night and he and I would, like, meet up somewhere in secret and…
ACK.
I was still processing all this when Bridget and Dori untangled themselves from me, picked up their CHEER!!! wands, and bonked me on the head. (It might be my overactive imagination, but I swear Dori bonked me harder than was absolutely necessary.) Then they locked arms with their respective boyfriends; waved giggly, giddy good-byes; and flitted away, leaving me behind to wonder WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED.
“What the heck just happened?” asked Hope.
I spun around and saw her standing behind me on the sidewalk. She was back! I’d never been so happy to see her. I would have hugged her, but I’m not much of a hugger and I don’t think she is, either.
“I was attacked by a pack of evil, peppy pixies,” I replied. “You know. The usual.”
“Uh-oh!” Hope said, sounding genuinely alarmed. “Have you seen Manda or Sara yet today?”
“No,” I replied. “Why?”
“Well, your day is about to get worse—oh no!” Hope’s eyes widened. “Duck!”
“Wh—?”
But it was too late.
Bonk. SQUEAK! Bonk. SQUEAK! Bonk. SQUEAK!
“What the heck!”
Manda and Sara were laughing their heads off. They were wearing Spirit Squad tees and armed with even bigger blow-up weaponry than Bridget and Dori’s.
“You’ve been struck with the Spirit Squad Squeaky Stick!”
And just to make their point, they hit me a few more times.
BONK. BONK. BONK.
SQUEAK! SQUEAK! SQUEAK!
“Quit it!” I snapped.
Manda stopped.
“Sorry, sweetie!” she said, not sounding at all apologetic. “But that’s payback for telling Hope not to make the invitations.”