The (Totally Not) Guaranteed Guide to Friends, Foes & Faux Friends Read online

  “We thought it would be cool if the whole team did this together,” Shauna continued. “It might encourage more girls to go out for the team next year.”

  “That would be cool,” Molly said, which from her is, like, a ringing endorsement.

  Even with a major social boost from the Sampson twins, I doubted very much that the cross-country team could be cool, you know, by the Manda-and-Sara definition of coolness. I don’t know why I suddenly felt so pressured to live up to their narrow definition of coolness, but I did. So much so that I just couldn’t commit to my teammates until I knew whether the periodic table was, um, off the table.

  “Let me get back to you,” I said, trying to make eye contact with all the girls. “Okay?”

  The Sampson twins did their telepathic thing again.

  “That’s cool, no pressure,” Shauna said.

  “But it really won’t be the same without you,” Shandi said.

  The Sampson twins seemed pretty blasé about my noncommitment, all “whatever” in the true sense of the word and not all sarcastic-like. But Padma’s and Molly’s faces fell.

  “Oh, sure,” Molly said with a hard tone I’d never heard before. “Why commit to us when you have so many other options?”

  “No! That’s not what I meant!”

  Padma stiffened. “No, really. I should’ve known better. You’re, like, popular now. Why do something with us when you’ve got so many other friends?”

  How wrong they were! I wasn’t popular. I was just a hot topic right now for my involvement in events that didn’t even happen to me AND mostly didn’t happen the way everyone thought they did. Sure, it’s kind of flattering to be noticed. But that’s not friendship. That’s just gossip.

  I wanted to tell them this. But all four girls had already taken off for the track. And even though I could have, I didn’t try to catch up with them. I felt like they had every reason to leave me behind.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The post-PARTY!!! bounce in social status has had an unexpected consequence among my friends: a truce. That’s right. The unimaginable has happened. For the rest of the week following the sleepover, Bridget and Dori joined us at the round table for lunch!

  “There’s no reason why we can’t all be friends,” Manda said on Day One of the Cafeteria Table Truce.

  “Omigod! I totally agree,” said Sara, making room for the other girls.

  “Me too!” said Dori.

  “Me three!” said Bridget.

  And Hope flashed me a look that said, “THIS WON’T END WELL.”

  I’ve tried to be more optimistic, if only because it was my sleepover—inspired by my sister’s IT List—that brought us all together. Still, after a week of getting along at lunch and a girls-only weekend trip to the movies (the boyfriends all refused to watch Girl Power 6: Super Chicks!), I’m still skeptical that this alliance will last. I can’t be sure if the Manda-Sara/Dori-Bridget truce is motivated by IT List #1: 1 BFF < 2 BFFs < 4 BFFs < 8 BFFs < INFINITY BFFs or IT List #2: Have fun with your enemies.

  Hope thinks it’s the latter.

  “You really don’t think Manda and Sara have had a change of heart about Dori and Bridget?” I whispered to Hope as she sat down next to me for the movie.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Hope sighed and answered simply, “History.”

  The lights went down, and Hope didn’t elaborate. To be honest, I don’t want to know what happened in the past. I know ignorance isn’t bliss. It’s dangerous. There’s a quotation on the wall of our Social Studies classroom that reads: “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.” But when it comes to these friendships, I can’t help but feel I’m doomed if I do and doomed if I don’t.

  Do or don’t what, you ask?

  JUST ABOUT ANYTHING.

  This is not a positive attitude to have about one’s friends. It’s enough to make me want to spend every lunch period eating at Coach/Nurse Fleet’s desk.

  When Manda isn’t making a bid for the Nobel Peace Prize, she and Mouth are still ACKING me out. Fortunately, there’s not enough room for everyone’s boyfriends at our lunch table, so I’m spared their PDAs while I’m trying to eat. On the upside, Manda and Mouth’s make-outs are getting easier to avoid because they’re on a schedule: before homeroom, before all eight periods, and before the buses roll out. It’s like clockwork, which is why Hope and I turned Manda and Mouth’s make-outs into a new unit for measuring time: the M3. There are ten M3s per school day.

  It makes me feel better to know that there’s someone else who is as immature about kissing and boyfriend/girlfriend stuff as I am.

  “Mouth’s periodic-table costume would be tungsten,” I said to Hope as we passed the couple in the parking lot this morning, Day Eight of the Cafeteria Table Truce. “Get it? TONGUE-sten?”

  “Ew! That’s so gross!” Hope snorted with laughter. “But funny.”

  That joke reminded me that there were only forty M3s until Halloween. This sounds a lot longer than it is.

  “So…” I said to Sara in homeroom. “We never settled on a group costume.”

  “We didn’t?”

  “No,” I said. “We didn’t.”

  She gave this some thought. “Omigod! Right! We didn’t. You and I. Didn’t.”

  “So…?” I asked.

  “We—Manda and me and, um, everybody—don’t want you to stress about the Chibi Girls. So go with nerdium if you still want to.”

  “Really?”

  “Really!”

  Whew! They had come around to my periodic-table idea after all! It would have been nice if they had thought to tell me sooner, but I wasn’t about to get all hung up on those details. I was just relieved to feel like I was sort of a part of the group again. And there were plenty of elements to choose from, so I could invite the Sampson twins and Padma and Molly to be a part of the periodic table, too!

  For the rest of the day I looked forward to settling the matter at cross-country practice. I’d felt kind of awkward around them lately, ever since they accused me of—gasp!—POPULARITY.

  “Hey, Shauna, Shandi, Padma, Molly,” I said when I saw them in the locker room. “So I checked with my friends, and I’m totally free to do a group costume with you! And I’ve got a pretty great idea.…”

  The Sampson twins, Padma, and Molly exchanged looks.

  “Gee, thanks,” Padma said, not sounding thankful at all. “But Shauna and Shandi’s idea is awesome, so we’re doing that. We’re covered.”

  “Oh.”

  I’d hoped I’d at least have a chance to argue for my costume. But that wasn’t happening.

  “Sorry!” Molly said, not sounding sorry at all.

  Padma and Molly slammed their lockers shut and headed out to the track. The Sampson twins lingered.

  “No one likes feeling like a half friend,” Shauna said.

  Shandi just nodded solemnly. Her sister had said it all.

  It’s hard to believe the Sampson twins are only a year older than I am. They’re already at, like, Gladdie levels of wisdom. For the rest of practice I thought about Shauna’s words. After twelve sad laps, here’s what I figured out:

  Half friendships are all I have!

  Bridget is my friend when Dori isn’t around. Dori is my friend when Bridget makes her. Sara is my friend when she wants to spread intel or get ammo. Manda is my friend when she wants someone to boss around. And Hope? Well, she’s a tricky one. We’re kind of having another friendship breakthrough right now. (“Only fifteen hundred more M3s until we graduate from junior high!” she said cheerfully after Mr. Odd’s particularly snoozy Physical Science lecture today.) But I’m kind of paranoid that I’m just setting myself up for disappointment. I guess I haven’t really gotten over how she froze me out at my own sleepover. What’s to stop her from ditching me for Manda and Sara again? Maybe winning the prize for best group costume could be just the thing to bring us all together. But would winning wreck my chances at developin
g deeper friendships with my teammates?

  Ack.

  Finally, as anyone could have predicted, my partnership with Aleck is turning out to be less of a collaboration and more of a battle for/against crazy.

  Here are my ideas for our Cooperative Woodshop Project:

  1. A box.

  2. A yo-yo.

  3. A holiday ornament.

  Okay. I admit it’s not the most creative list. But if we had chosen any of the above, we’d be finished by now.

  Here are Aleck’s ideas for our Cooperative Woodshop Project:

  1. A hot-air balloon.

  2. A break-dancing robot.

  3. A double-necked electric guitar.

  Every day we argue over the impossibility of these projects.

  “We cannot build a hot-air balloon out of balsa wood.”

  “If Reese’s had that attitude, we wouldn’t have the peanut-butter cup.”

  AND SO ON.

  At this rate, we’re never going to finish our project. WHATEVER IT IS.

  Ugh. The only lesson the group Halloween-costume drama and my Cooperative Woodshop Project have taught me is this: Sometimes it’s so much easier to work alone.

  Chapter Twenty

  Trick or treat?

  This Halloween was a whole bunch of both.

  If you recall, I’d told Manda, Sara, Bridget, Dori, and Hope at the PARTY!!! how simple it would be to make their periodic-table costumes: black leggings and white T-shirts with the letter symbols for their elements. After debating my various options, I’d decided to go with lead after all. I did this as a gesture of goodwill. You know, to prove to my friends that I could take a joke and it was possible to put all pettiness behind us and that there were no hard feelings from the PARTY!!!

  HA!

  Since the periodic-table group costume was my stroke of brilliance, I assumed they’d follow my directions. So imagine my surprise when I showed up at the bus stop in my Pb tee to find Bridget wearing a neon pink wig, pounds of makeup, and a tangerine T-shirt with a turquoise letter H for hydrogen. Okay. I’m not going to lie. I was a little bit annoyed that she hadn’t listened to me. But I quickly decided to take the high road because I know how much Bridget loves to dress up and I was still so flattered that they’d all agreed to go with my idea instead of Manda’s.

  “Oh, wow!” I enthused. “I love your, um, unique interpretation of the theme!”

  “Gee, thanks, Jess,” she said shyly. “That’s, like, really cool of you to say so.”

  Bridget fiddled with her pink bangs.

  “I guess I thought we’d all try to look the same,” I said. “You know, as I’d carefully instructed.”

  “Ohhhh… yeah…” Bridget said vaguely. “YAY! The bus!”

  And this brought the discussion to a close. As it always does.

  When I got off the bus, Dori and Scotty weren’t in their usual spot. I didn’t think anything of it, because Hope had caught my attention from all the way across the parking lot. I couldn’t miss her. She was wearing platform sneakers and had styled her hair into a high top-of-the-head ponytail that made her about ten feet tall. Even at a distance I could see the hot-pink letter B on her shirt.

  BORON? Really? Of all the elements to pick from? What a quirky choice for a quirky girl. That’s what I was thinking when I saw Manda and Sara pushing their way through crowds of zombies, vampires, and werewolves to catch up to her. Manda had a letter C stretched across her impressive chest. Sara had an I on hers. Carbon. Okay. It made perfect sense that Manda saw herself as an essential element found in all life-forms. But iodine? Why would Sara pick iodine…?

  As I approached the group, I heard them break out into a familiar tune.

  “Giggle giggle giggle POP!

  HA-ha-HA-ha-HA-ha-HA!”

  Did you figure it out before I did?

  Manda wasn’t carbon.

  Bridget wasn’t hydrogen.

  Sara wasn’t iodine.

  Hope wasn’t boron.

  MY FRIENDS HAD GONE CHIBI WITHOUT ME.

  Okay. So I never wanted to Chibi in the first place. But that’s not the point! The point is that these girls who are supposed to be my friends INTENTIONALLY MISLED me.

  Correction: They intentionally MISS LEAD me.

  Get it?

  BECAUSE I WAS THE FOOL DRESSED AS LEAD.

  Har dee har har.

  According to my sister’s IT List, there’s no I in clique. But there are two Is in Chibi. And even though I should have put it all together at that point, I nearly fell over when I saw for myself who they had picked to be the second I instead of me.

  “I’m so, so, so sorry I’m late!” Dori apologized. “I missed the bus because it took me forever to put on these fake eyelashes!”

  Two weeks ago, Manda/Sara and Bridget/Dori loved sharing with me how much they couldn’t stand each other. And now they were besties and I was the one on the outs? I TOTALLY LOST IT. Which is ironic because lead is known for being a very stable element and HOLY COW EVEN IN A CRISIS MY NERD SELF ALWAYS WINS OUT OVER MY TRYING-TO-BE-NORMAL SELF.

  “You… you…” I spluttered. “I… I…”

  That’s about all I could get out of my furious mouth.

  Only Hope acknowledged my left-outness.

  “I thought you knew,” she said. “I swear.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “They told me you knew we were going to be the Chibis and you didn’t care because you were going ahead with your periodic-table idea anyway and…”

  The more Hope talked, the madder I got.

  “SHUT IT UP, SHUTTY!”

  This made no sense, of course. I was too angry to make any sense.

  So I stormed off before I could say more stupid things and Hope could make more excuses I wasn’t in the mood to hear. The other girls didn’t notice my exit because they were too busy being showered with attention. Everyone wanted them to sing “Giggle Pop” on command. And they were only too happy to comply.

  “Giggle giggle giggle POP!

  HA-ha-HA-ha-HA-ha-HA!”

  Every “HA-ha-HA-ha-HA-ha-HA!” was a dagger to the heart.

  To make matters worse, without any other elements to back me up, my costume made NO SENSE AT ALL. I should have been heading to homeroom, but I was on my way to the locker room to grab a spare T-shirt I could change into. I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, which is how I ended up right in Aleck’s path. In a hallway filled with superheroes and video-game villains, he, like me, was wearing a plain white T-shirt with black lettering. Only his said simply: COSTUME.

  “Hey, Clem!”

  He looked right down at my chest, which would have been pervy and inappropriate if there was anything worth looking at down there.

  “Pb,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  He scratched his head, and his hand went deep into the tangle of his hair.

  “Peanut butter?” he guessed.

  I walked away without correcting him. He called out after me.

  “Where’s the jelly?”

  Winners of the school-wide costume contest got a fifty-dollar gift card to a bookstore. This was annoying because I was the only one—okay, besides Hope, maybe—who would’ve spent the prize money on reading material instead of whipped-creamy cocoa and cupcakes at the in-store café that they would later moan and groan about eating because calories and fat and UGH.

  The Chibi Girls were shoo-ins.

  That is, until the Pineville Junior High girls’ cross-country team arrived on the Halloween scene. I heard the laughter before I saw them.

  “Best! Group! Costume! Ever!”

  And it was. It really and truly was.

  Shandi and Shauna were dressed as different birds. Padma wore a bear costume. And Molly looked hilariously tiny but tough in an oversize PJHS Football uniform. I almost keeled over. My teammates had dressed up as Mighty the Seagull’s Last Dance!

  “We usually have our costumes planned out six months in advance,” said Shandi, decke
d out in a less elaborate version of the red-white-and-blue-feathered costume I had worn during my secret stint as the school mascot.

  “But we didn’t come up with this one until last month,” said Shauna, who wore a much-larger-than-life version of the lovesick goose who had chased me all over the field.

  “My friends in North Dakota will never believe this,” said Padma, dressed as our rival school’s mascot, who had also chased me all over the field.

  Molly’s helmet dipped below the black lines smudged under both eyes.

  “Sorry we didn’t include you.”

  This time she actually sounded apologetic.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  It really was okay. It was oddly satisfying to know I’d inspired my teammates—even if they didn’t know it. Part of me wanted to tell them that I had been the mascot. But I held back. Not because I didn’t trust them to keep my former secret identity a secret—because honestly, all that had happened way, way back in September, which felt like a bazillion years ago and hardly needed to stay a secret anymore—but because I didn’t want them to think I was somehow trying to take credit for their idea. They had come up with something hilarious and genius and school spirited, which is exactly the sort of thing that wins over vice principals judging costume contests. This was my teammates’—my friends’—moment. I was happy enough to watch them enjoy themselves.

  AND OKAY, I WAS ALSO HAPPY THAT THEY BEAT OUT THE CHIBI GIRLS.

  I didn’t see my teammates again until practice. By the time I got there, they were already out of their costumes and in their gym clothes. After a conspiratorial huddle, the foursome approached me at my locker.

  “Here’s your share of the winnings,” Shandi said, holding out a ten-dollar bookstore gift card.

  I eyed the prize but didn’t reach for it.

  “C’mon. It’s easier to divide fifty dollars by five instead of four,” Shauna coaxed.

  “But I didn’t do anything!”

  “If it wasn’t for your performance on that field,” Shandi said, “we would’ve never come up with this idea.”

  Wait. What? Whoa.