My Best Frenemy (11 page)

“Leave any outside? ” Kelli asks, walking past Randi to get behind the counter.

“Not much, ” Randi says, dropping her backpack. She pulls my backpack off the stool and sits down, digging snow out of her collar. “What a wiener, ” she says, flicking snow onto the floor.

“Who’s a wiener? ” I ask. “Me? ”

“Not you, ” Randi says. “Rusty. ” She reaches over and breaks off a chunk of my cookie. “Mind? ” she asks, popping the chunk into her mouth.

I scoot the plate toward her. “Why? What did Rusty do? ”

“You know that big tree in front of Mrs. Eddy’s house? ” she asks.

I nod.

“He was hiding behind it. When I walked by he ran out, tackled me, and stuffed a snowball down my neck. ”

“He must have figured out you put one in his backpack, huh? ” I say.

“Huh, ” Randi replies.

“Can I get you anything?” Kelli asks Randi. “Hot chocolate? Cookie? Towel? ”

“No thanks, I’m good,” Randi says, breaking off another chunk of my cookie. But I don’t mind. I’m just happy she’s still talking to me.

The door jingles again and a bunch of boys pile in, talking loud and laughing. Joey, the Dylans, and Rusty.

Randi shoots a look at Rusty. “You are dead meat, ” she says.

Rusty’s eyes and mouth go wide. “What’d I do? ” he asks, all innocent.

“Yeah, what’d he do? ” Joey chimes in.

The Dylans snort back laughs. They scoot down the counter, order four sodas from Kelli, and gallop to a back booth.

Randi’s eyes stay on Rusty. She’s frowning, but I can see a grin around the edges.

I break the rest of my cookie down the middle and hold half of it out to her. “Thanks,” she says, taking it. “I’m starved. Remind me to bring a cold lunch to school on tuna noodle casserole day. ”

“Me too, ” I reply.

Randi munches the cookie. “Not like
mouseroni
and cheese, huh? Gotta love that. ” She loosens up a grin.

“I could live without it, ” I mumble. “In fact, I would eat tuna noodle casserole every day until middle school if it meant everyone would stop being mad at me. ”

Randi chews for a minute. “Well, there’s only one way to fix it, ” she says. “You gotta do a triple-dog dare. ”

“I know, ” I mumble. “Stacey told me. But if I do one, will everything be the same again? ”

Randi bobs her head. “Same same. ”

I think about how much I don’t want to be the odd girl out. And how doing one more dare will get me back in.

“Okay, ” I say. “Do it. Triple-dog dare me. ”

“Can’t,” Randi says, brushing crumbs from her coat. She scoots off her stool. “You told on the whole group, so the whole group has to decide on the dare. ”

“Oh, ” I say, slouching.

Randi gives my back a friendly pat. “Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow. When we’re finished with you, no one will be mad anymore. ”

“Um . . . thanks, ” I say.

Randi gives me another pat. Then she tromps to the back of the café, where the boys are dumping sugar packets into their sodas. She gives Rusty’s shoulder a fake punch and he does a fake yelp. Then she squishes in next to him.

Jade and Meghan scoot off their stools and walk past me to the coat tree by the door. Meghan grabs her stuff and says good-bye.

Jade takes a minute to button up her brown wool coat. She winds a bright red scarf around her neck and steps toward me. “What was that all about? ” she asks.

I give her a shrug.

“Hello? ” she says. “
Mouse
roni and cheese? Triple-dog dare? Everybody mad at you? ”

“Oh, that,” I say. “It’s nothing. Just sort of . . . a game. ”

“A game, huh?” Jade says. She takes a hat out of her coat pocket and pulls it on. “Sounds more like a
mess
to me. ”

I set my journal down on my bed and rub my eyes because it feels like a tiny hammer is pounding behind them.

It taps out a few tears.

I reach for a tissue and blow my nose.

George tips sideways off my pillow and nudges against my arm.

“Thanks,” I say to him. “I know you want to help, but I have to do this by myself. ”

I pick up George and rest my chin on his head. He still smells like the perfume I sprayed on him when I was in kindergarten. Back when my biggest worry was getting stuck next to Zane for rest time because of his drool. And my hardest problem was tying my shoes.

I pick up my journal again.

The next morning I take extra long getting dressed and eating my breakfast and brushing my teeth so I will accidentally miss the bus. I wait on my porch until I see it go by. Then I wait a few more minutes before I ask my mom if she can drive me.

We get to school just as the bell rings, which is what I was hoping for, since I’m not in the mood for being left out before I even get inside our classroom.

All the girls get together in the snow fort during recess to plan my triple-dog dare. I know because I’m watching them from the top of the monkey bars.

“Won’t they let you play with them today?” someone asks.

Tom Sanders climbs up next to me.

I glance away from the snow fort. “No, it’s not that. Our fort is just a little small, so I volunteered to play by myself. ”

“Uh-huh, ” Tom says.

“What about you?” I ask. “It looks like the other boys are playing king of the mountain. ”

Tom shrugs and bumps his boot against the metal bar we’re standing on. “Not really my game, ” he says.

Snow chunks fall from Tom’s boot and land on two kids below us. They look up and frown.

“Oops, ” Toms says. “Sorry! ”

The kids move away. Tom glances at me. “Do you think they’re mad? ”

“Probably not, ” I say. “A few snow chunks on your head is no big deal. ”

“No, I mean do you think the
girls
are mad,” Tom says. “Because you told on them to Ms. Stevens. ”

I bump my boot against the bar. “You know about that? ”

Tom shrugs again. “I might have heard a rumor.”

“Some of them might be a little mad,” I say, looking at the snow fort. “But it will all be good as soon as I do . . . something. ”

“What? ” Tom asks.

“A dare, ” I say. “A triple-dogger. They’re planning it now. ”

We’re quiet for a minute. I keep watching the girls. Tom tries a couple chin-ups.

“I could spy on them for you,” he finally says. “You know, do a little undercover surveillance?” He wiggles his eyebrows.

It makes me smile. “Thanks, but if you got caught they would probably take you prisoner. And then Jenna would make you talk. ”

Tom does a snort. “She doesn’t scare me anymore, ” he says. “Not much. ”

We keep talking and practicing chin-ups until the bell rings. Then I hurry to catch up with Stacey in the coatroom.

“What’s my dare? ” I whisper to her as we hang up our stuff.

“We didn’t pick one yet,” she whispers back. “Jenna and Brooke got into a fight over what the dare should be. Jenna said we should make you go down Ricochet Ridge backward, but Brooke said that was too easy and that we shouldn’t just rush into picking any old dare because planning it is half the fun. So she told us to all think of dares over the weekend and we’ll vote on the best one next week. ”

“I have to wait until next week? ” I say.

Stacey nods. “You know Brooke. She likes everything to be just so. ”

We head into the classroom. “But we could still go to Ricochet Ridge, even without a dare, ” I say. “After school, or maybe tomorrow? You could come to my house first and—”

“Um . . . I can’t, ” Stacey says.

“Oh,” I say. “Okay. We can just meet there if you want. ”

“No, I mean I can’t go sledding. At all. I’m going to Brooke’s after school. Actually, I’m spending the night. ”

“But you were at Brooke’s
last
night, ” I say.

“I know, but my mom has to work tomorrow and my grandma is busy, so staying at Brooke’s will be a big help to them. But we can go sledding on Sunday. Maybe Brooke will even want to come with us! Now that she knows you’re going to do a triple-dog dare I’m sure she won’t mind being seen with you. ”

Stacey’s eyes go bright like this is the best idea ever. She squeezes my arm before zooming to her desk, but I barely feel it.

On Saturday morning I pull the fish filter out a tiny bit to peek at it.

Gunk city. I slide it back in. “Checking it is almost the same as cleaning it, right? ” I say to George.

George frowns.

I turn him around and sprinkle fish food in the tank. My fish swims up to nibble the flakes while I duck down to look through the glass. If I look at just the right angle, my fish looks huge.

I think about giving him a big name, like Godzilla or Goliath.

Tom Sanders told me yesterday that goldfish grow depending on how big their tanks are. The bigger the tank, the bigger the fish.

I think about how big my fish would grow if I kept him in the bathtub. Then I could name him Goliath for sure. But my mom and dad probably wouldn’t be in favor of that plan.

“I need a smaller name for you, ” I say, looking at my fish. “Because I think you’re stuck being small. ”

I think about small names, like mine.
Ida.
Only three letters.

My room is pretty small too. One rectangle bed. One square desk and dresser. One half-moon nightstand. One skinny monkey.

“Maybe people aren’t like fish, ” I say. “Maybe they can grow big even in a small space. ”

“Ida!” Mom calls from downstairs. “You ready? ”

“Almost! ” I call back.

When I woke up this morning the first thing I thought about was my triple-dog dare. And what I could do so the girls wouldn’t make it too smelly.

Or scary.

Or embarrassing.

And that’s when I thought of a way to soften up Brooke. And the others too.

I grab my Christmas money and tuck it inside my bag.

A few minutes later, me and my mom are on our way to the mall.

“New outfit, then?” Mom asks as we drive along.

“Maybe, ” I say. “But first I want to buy some presents for my friends. ”

“But you already exchanged presents at school, ” Mom says.

“Yes, but I want to get them
bonus
presents,” I say, “because they are being so nice to me lately. ”

I reach over and turn up the volume on the radio. Sometimes you don’t feel like sharing all the details. Not even with your mother.

When we get inside the mall Mom asks, “Where to?”

“Let’s start with the Mish Mosh, ” I say.

Almost everyone likes the Mish Mosh because the clothes there are very stretchy and sparkly. Sparkly clothes are not always
my
favorite because of how they can also be itchy, but I know I will be able to find presents there that most of the girls will love.

We walk inside the Mish Mosh and music is playing even louder than it was in our car. There’s a jewelry bin near the door with a sign hanging above it that says
Sale!
“I want to start there, ” I tell Mom.

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll check out the clearance racks. ”

Mom heads to the back.

I head to the bin.

I start digging through all the earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings that are jumbled together.

“Can I help you find anything? ” I hear someone say.

I look up and see a saleslady standing by me. Actually, she’s more of a salesgirl. Just a little older than Jade. She’s chewing gum, which makes her dangly earrings jiggle and shimmer under the bright fluorescent lights.

“No, thank you, ” I say. “I’m just looking. ”

“Well, you let me know if you need any help, honey. ” She walks over to a table of T-shirts and starts refolding them.

I roll my eyes. When your grandma calls you honey it makes you feel special. But when a girl with dangly earrings and red streaked hair calls you that, it makes you feel like a baby.

I dig around in the bin and find a leopard print headband. “Brooke, ” I say to myself because it looks like something she would wear. I set it off to the side. I dig a little more and find a kitten charm bracelet, which makes me think of Jolene because she loves animals. “And these are for Jenna,” I say to myself, picking up a pair of ladybug barrettes. “She would love to wear bugs in her hair, even if they aren’t real. ”