My Extra Best Friend

My extra-special thanks to

Kathy Dawson and Steven Chudney—editor, agent, and friends for keeps!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

I’m Ida May and I could use a little light. That’s because I’m digging around in my bedroom closet, trying to find my flashlight. If I
had
a flashlight, it would make looking for one a lot easier. The lightbulb on my closet ceiling burnt out last week. I’m too short to change it, even if I stand on my desk chair. Even if I stack ten chapter books on it first. The books make me tall enough, but then I’m too chicken to let go of the chair and reach up to the ceiling. I’m better at reading books than wobbling on them.

My BFF, Stacey Merriweather, is tall enough to reach the ceiling with just a chair and her tip-toes. I know because we play in here a lot. We both have VBIs. Very Big Imaginations. Which means we’re good at changing small, messy spaces into
something else. Rabbit holes. Spaceships. Castle towers.

Jenna Drews, my other BFF, has a big imagination too, but her closet is a lot neater than mine. She even hangs her clothes in the order of a rainbow. Red. Orange. Yellow. Blue. Purple.

I hang mine in the order of a bag of M&M’S.
If
I remember to hang them up at all. It’s summer vacation, so I’m too busy going to the pool and eating slushies and having sleepovers with Stacey and Jenna to remember little things like finding hangers and making my bed and cleaning my fish tank.

I better do that last one soon, though, or my goldfish, Pic, will probably pack up his food flakes and plastic seaweed and favorite marble and move to a cleaner tank while I’m at camp.

That’s why I’m looking for a flashlight. It’s on the
What to Bring to Camp
list that came with a letter from Camp Meadowlark. Flashlight. Sleeping bag. Bug spray. Swimsuit. There’s also a list of stuff
not
to bring. Cell phones. Fireworks. Candy.

It’s Saturday, and we leave for camp tomorrow and stay there for a whole week. Me, Jenna,
Stacey, Randi, Brooke, Meeka, and Jolene. All my friends from fourth grade.

At first when we decided to go, I had hummingbirds in my stomach because I’ve never been away from home for more than a sleepover. But then Jenna told me about all the fun stuff we’ll do. Swimming. Hiking. Crafts. She’s been to camp before. And Stacey assured me that living someplace else for a little while isn’t so bad. She moves a lot because her mom lives here in Purdee, Wisconsin, and her dad lives somewhere else.

As long as I get to be with Jenna and Stacey, I don’t care where I live.

I shift stuff in my closet, tossing aside old dress-up shoes and dolls, until I find my flashlight. I knew it was in here because Stacey and I used it the last time we played runway models. It’s Stacey’s favorite game. I like treasure hunters better, but when you have a best friend, you don’t always get to choose.

Pressing the button on the flashlight, I make its bright beam skip around until it lands on my fairy princess sleeping bag. “You’re on my list too,” I say to the fairy princess.

She smiles up at me. When I was little, I liked to crawl inside and hop over to my mirror so I could see what I would look like if I had royal blood. Sometimes I’d even duck my head inside and imagine myself wearing her gold crown and permanent smile.

But I don’t do that anymore. I can borrow a real crown anytime I want because Brooke Morgan has tons from all the pageants she’s been in. And now that I have
two
BFFs, I’ve got my own permanent smile.

The bright beam flickers.

I give the flashlight a jiggle.

The beam blips out and everything is dark again.

“Batteries,” I say. “One more thing I need for camp.”

I pick up my sleeping bag and step out of the closet. Something else comes with it. An old brown blanket with a shaggy yarn tail.

Right away I know what it is. Half of the horse costume that my last best friend, Elizabeth, and I wore for our Halloween party in third grade. She was the front end of the horse. I was the butt end.

That was when Brooke and Jenna started calling her Eliza
butt.
Because they mixed us up and thought she was in back. People mixed us up a lot back then because we looked the same and were always together.

Then Brooke and Jenna started calling me I-
duh
because they thought it was dumb to dress up like a horse in the first place.

I think name calling is way dumber.

But that was a long time ago. Before I started being friends with Jenna and sometimes Brooke.

“I wonder if Elizabeth still has her half,” I say to my sock monkey, George, as I pull the costume loose from the sleeping bag. He’s supervising from my bed. “Probably not. She left everything behind when she moved from Wisconsin to New Mexico, including me.”

I fiddle with the horse’s tail. “Not one letter from her, George. Not even a postcard. Even though she said she didn’t want to move to a place with cactus instead of trees.
Yucca
. She didn’t want to wear leather fringe and ride a horse to school. Plus, she knew her teacher would make her learn how to spell
Albuquerque
. Maybe even how to rope
cattle. Elizabeth didn’t want to learn how to do any of those things, but I guess she changed her mind.”

I drop the costume and rub my stomach. Not because of the hummingbirds. Because of the sore spot that starts to ache every time I forget not to think about her.

There’s a knock on my bedroom door.

Jenna’s head pokes in.

Stacey’s too.

And Brooke’s.

“Ready?” Jenna says, stepping inside. She’s dressed in her red one-piece and orange flip-flops. A yellow beach towel hugs her neck.

“Oops,” I say, tossing the sleeping bag and horse costume aside. “I forgot we were going to the pool. I’ve been packing for camp.”

“Do it later,” Brooke says, slipping past Jenna and hopping onto my bed. “If we don’t beat the boys, they’ll steal the sunniest spot.
I
need to work on my tan before we leave for Camp Prairielark.”

“
Meadow
lark,” Jenna corrects her. “And tanning is totally unhealthy.” She checks her watch.
“Still, if we don’t get to the pool soon, the boys will
rule
the place.”

“
Girls
rule,” Stacey says. “Boys
drool
!”

We giggle.

“The point
is,
” Brooke butts in, “packing can wait.
I
can’t.” She melts back on my bed like a drama queen. Right on top of George. “Ew,” she says, making a face and pulling him out from under her. “This thing stinks.”

George narrows his black button eyes.

Brooke dangles him by his skinny tail. “What’s it made out of? Gym socks?” She tosses George aside. He grunts when he hits the floor.

“Be nice to George,” Stacey says, picking him up. “Next to me, he’s Ida’s best friend.”

“Next to
me
too,” Jenna adds quickly.

“Exactly,” Brooke says. “Who needs stuffed animals when you’ve got friends like us around?” She pulls out a pair of buggy sunglasses and stretches out again.

Stacey and Brooke are both wearing see-through cover-ups. They bought them when they got new swimsuits last week. Pink and purple. Two-piece.

When I mentioned to Mom that I would be a much better swimmer if
I
had a new two-piece swimsuit, instead of the one-piece I got at the start of the summer, she said I could fulfill my Olympic dream when I grew a size bigger. I even tried
begging
for the bright blue two-piece the mannequin was wearing at my favorite store, even though blue isn’t my best color. Pink is. But begging didn’t work. It never does. Trust me.

“Get changed, Ida,” Jenna says impatiently, “or we won’t get a good spot for our towels at the pool.”