by Jen Calonita
Laura was looking at me. I tried to remain calm as I cleared my throat and spoke. “What day is it?”
“Saturday.” Laura said, and started scrolling through her phone.
“No, I mean the actual date.”
Laura snorted. “I don’t know! June something.”
“June?” I repeated, my heart beating fast. “You mean it’s not the first day of school?”
Laura raised her right eyebrow and put down her phone. “Nooooo, it’s the last week of school. School ends next Friday, you weirdo.”
I sat up, my heartbeat feeling too fast. “Are you sure?”
It was a dream. That’s what it was. A really vivid dream. And whenever I had one of those—like that bad dream when I was getting chased by a clown—I pinched myself hard and woke up. I squeezed two pieces of my skin together and pinched myself. It hurt, but I was here. I pinched myself again. Laura was still staring at me. My mouth suddenly went dry, and the room felt like it was spinning. “Pinch me,” I instructed Laura.
“You’re not having a bad dream about clowns! You’re awake!” Laura was laughing like she’d drunk too much soda, which on sleepovers, she usually did.
“I just want to be sure! Pinch me!”
“Fine!” Laura reached over and pinched my hand hard.
“Ow!” I screamed so loud the other girls looked over.
I was here.
In Laura’s house.
At a sleepover that had happened months ago.
“How is this even possible?” I whispered. My mouth felt chalky.
“The sleepover?” Laura replied, going back to her phone again. “Mom said I couldn’t do anything fun like take everyone to that new rock-climbing place, but she said I could still have people over.” She looked at me worriedly. “You think it’s going okay, right?”
I thought back to the arrow I had clicked on that app. Was it a redo button?
I heard a whooshing sound in my ears. I had to be absolutely positive this was real. “So you’re saying we’re still in sixth grade? Not seventh? And summer hasn’t happened yet?”
“Um, yes…” Laura looked at the other girls. “Someone get Zoe a Coke. She needs caffeine because she’s losing it!”
I grabbed my phone, which was in my sleeping bag next to me. I checked the date: It was June 21. Not September 6. This…this was so weird. But to my surprise I wasn’t panicking. Should I have been panicking?
Then I remembered that the app was still on my phone. I clicked on the icon, and the picture of Laura and me at the sleepover came right up. This time it had a filmy pink haze over it. I tried to scroll, but the app was frozen. Who cared? I didn’t need it anymore. I was getting my second chance!
I screamed at the top of my lungs, and one of the drama queens jumped.
“What is wrong with you?” Laura asked, but she was laughing.
I hugged her. “Nothing is wrong! Absolutely nothing has even gone wrong yet!” I started giggling uncontrollably now too. This was crazy, but it was real. “Tonight is going to be amazing! I can’t wait to take more pictures!”
This was my chance for a retake.
Laura’s basement smelled like a mix of floral detergent from the washing machine churning quietly in a large closet and cinnamon toast, which the twins ate all day long. It had been months since I’d been down here, and I’d really missed it. I’d missed us. I had to get this moment exactly right.
I tried not to look panicked. Be present, I could hear Mom saying. I put my phone back in the sleeping bag. It had been so warm to the touch it was practically pulsing, but I was still here. I turned to Laura, both of us still half in, half out of our sleeping bags. “Bring me up to speed. What have we done so far tonight since, um, I’ve been sleeping?”
Laura gave me an odd look. She was wearing her favorite Hamilton T-shirt, and her blond hair was pulled up into a messy bun. “Well, you brought Taryn’s makeup and said we should do makeovers—she’s going to kill you for that, by the way—but the other girls have way more makeup than we do, so they weren’t interested.”
“Yeah, I don’t know why I did that,” I said. “Who needs help with makeup when you have YouTube, right? All the tutorials are right there. I now know how to make our lashes triple long with this one mascara. It’s to die for.”
Laura looked sort of surprised. “Wow. Will you show me?”
“Maybe,” I said coolly. See? I could be chill. “Have we eaten ice cream yet?” Laura shook her head. “Good. Because we should scratch that idea, too, even though, um, I made my dad stop to buy all the supplies.” I felt a bit guilty about that part. “Making your own sundaes is kind of babyish.”
Now Laura looked hurt. “I love ice cream.”
“Me too,” I said quickly, “but I feel like, isn’t someone here lactose intolerant? Or is it gluten-free? Doesn’t matter. We don’t want anyone to feel bad.” I distinctly remembered Ava shutting down my ice cream bar the first time, with the declaration I don’t do dessert. I was just trying to save Laura—and myself—the humiliation. “Let’s forget about the snacks and just hang out.”
“Yeah, okay.” Laura smiled. “I like that idea.” She leaned over and hugged me. “I’m so relieved! I thought you’d push to do both those things or just sit in the corner with Reagan and Jada, trying to figure out why our urban, green space model came in third place at regionals.”
“Me?” I shook my head. “No, I’m all about hanging out with…everyone.” Well, really just Laura, but I needed to sound like a team player.
“Good! Because I want you to get to know everyone.” Laura motioned to the other side of the room where Jada and Reagan were making lanyard bracelets and talking. “Unlike those two who just want to talk about Future City.” She clutched her L necklace. “None of the girls from the musical are in the club, so I’d rather not talk about how we used to be in it.”
“Used to?” I repeated, cautious.
Laura slid the L charm up and down the chain. “I don’t know if I’m going to do it in seventh grade. I don’t want people thinking I’m…” She trailed off, looking torn. “I don’t know. Are you doing it?”
Was being in Future City like putting a nerd stamp on your forehead? I thought using the SimCity computer program to come up with all these awesome ideas to change urban development and help the environment was cool. And Ms. Pepper always said if we stuck with the club through high school, it would look great on our college applications. Some people even got scholarships. My parents were always going on to Taryn about scholarship potential already. But if Laura thought the club was lame, maybe I had to rethink things too. “I’m probably not doing it either,” I said, and there was that chalky taste in my mouth again.
Laura, however, looked relieved. “I thought it was just me, Zo-Zo. Wait till I tell my mom that you’re not doing it in seventh grade either! We really are so alike. You are the best friend ever.” She leaned in and hugged me.
I squeezed hard and blinked back tears as I tried to remember this moment. “I try to be,” I said softly. Tonight I was a whole new Zoe, even if I felt uncomfortable in her skin. I cleared my throat. “I mean, I am, and you better not forget it.”
Laura shook her head. “Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?”
I laughed. She’s still here, and she’s ready to fight for our friendship.
Laura pulled me in close again for a selfie. “Say ‘sleepover’!”
“Sleepover!” I shouted, and waited for the flash. This was our retake. We would have a new picture to remember tonight with. Everything was about to change.
Ava jumped in front of us as the flash went off.
“Sleepover selfie!” she cheered, sloshing her soda over my sleeping bag. Laura and I jumped out of the way, sliding out of our sleeping bags to avoid the spill.
I’ll be hones
t: I was not an Ava Sinclair fan. I knew I had to try with these girls for Laura’s sake, but Ava seemed to deserve the drama queen nickname. Anytime I saw her, she was making a snarky comment about someone or rolling her eyes, and she was a bit bossy. The first time we were here she had decided everything, from whose sleeping bag would be placed where, to what movie we were watching and what game we played. I had to find a way to stop her from suggesting Truth or Text again.
Ava grabbed Laura’s phone. “Eww. I don’t like this shot at all. Retake!” I heard a swooshing sound as Ava deleted our picture.
Nooo! I swallowed hard and resisted the urge to snatch the phone from Ava. Now how would we get our new-and-improved selfie? We needed a good moment from tonight to make things right between us.
Didn’t we?
I wasn’t sure how the mystery app worked. Did we take a new picture and the old one disappeared with me along with it? Or did I have to redo every moment from now till the first day of seventh grade again to change our friendship? If that was true, I had another three weeks of Civil War reenactments ahead of me. Or not. Maybe there was a button in the app that took me right back to the present. I hadn’t actually looked at the app too closely before I pressed that back arrow button.
There was a way to get back, wasn’t there?
My hands were clammy as I pulled my phone out of my sleeping bag and slipped it into my pocket. The phone still felt warm. I needed to find a moment to look at the app without everyone asking about it. Maybe there were directions I hadn’t noticed before.
Ava held Laura’s phone and spun around looking for the best angle for a photo, her long, sleek black hair swishing back and forth as she moved. “The lighting is so bad down here!”
“So bad,” Laura agreed.
I looked up at the lights. They seemed bright enough, but I nodded anyway. It felt like the thing to do.
Ava’s friend Hyacinth, who towered over all the girls at six feet one inch, walked over holding a bowl of pretzels. “What are you guys doing?”
“Finding the right spot for a sleepover selfie.” Ava stood on the couch and smiled at herself from three different angles. “No. This isn’t good either. Hy, put down the pretzels and help me move this chair. Maybe if we move the sleeping bags over…”
“Good idea!” Laura kicked our sleeping bags away.
Reagan appeared behind me. “What are they doing?”
“Finding the perfect spot for a selfie,” I said, and the two of us started to giggle. Laura and Ava shot us nasty looks, so we quickly stopped.
“Talk about spontaneous,” Jada said as the others pushed a chair across the floor and it made a loud screeching noise. She nudged Reagan. “See? This is why I rarely post.”
Reagan threw up her hands. “Here we go again!”
“I’m serious,” Jada said. “You can’t actually live the moment if you’re not in it. Life is more than just a picture.”
“You sound like my mom,” I said.
Jada paled. “Is that bad?”
“No,” I said, because the truth was they both had a point. Life was more than pictures, but I still liked posting. “No one should spend twenty minutes finding the right angle for a picture.” Behind us, some of the girls were moving the couch. Dianne was going to flip.
Jada smiled shyly. “I agree. Hey. Did your mom sign you up for volleyball sleepaway camp this summer? My mom signed me up for week four.”
“I wanted to go, but we’re going on a three-week summer road trip,” I explained.
“Bummer,” Jada said.
“I know,” I agreed. “Camp sounded fun. All of us sleeping in the same cabin, playing volleyball, telling ghost stories, and learning how to paddleboard? What’s not to like?”
“I love paddleboarding!” Reagan’s eyes lit up. “Hey. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could design a lake in our next Future City design so people could paddleboard to work?”
Jada made a face. “Yeah, I don’t see people in suits on paddleboards. But ooh! Maybe kayaks?”
“Or a clean-energy ferry service to cut down on cars?” I suggested, getting into the idea myself.
Jada squeezed my arm. “Yes! I love that! What about a city with no cars? All bikes?”
“Ooh…Ms. Pepper would like that!” Reagan agreed.
I felt my stomach relax. Talking with them didn’t feel like work, like chatting with the other girls did. I didn’t care about the perfect selfie angle or pranking boys. But I couldn’t just stand here and talk to Jada and Reagan. I had to concentrate on Laura. Focus, Zoe. Stop getting sidetracked and help Laura move the furniture.
By the time I turned around, the girls had already moved the couch and two chairs out of the way and were arranging pillows while Ava watched. Sarah sat in the middle of all the pillows like a test model.
Stephanie Samuels, a girl I knew from English class, held up a rainbow-colored sleeping bag. “Whose is this?”
“Mine,” Reagan said, her cheeks turning slightly red.
Steph glanced at Ava, who nodded. “Can we leave it out of the picture? It doesn’t really…go with the others.” Laura looked away.
“Sure,” Reagan said, but I could tell she was embarrassed. Did a rainbow-colored sleeping bag scream sixth grade? I liked rainbows.
“Pile the pillows up high,” said a girl with red hair. I remembered her name was Marisol Tolman. “It will be the perfect backdrop.” Everyone spent another few minutes arranging the picture.
“I like it!” Ava said when everyone was finished. “Let’s get in the shot.”
The girls climbed over one another to get into view while Ava looked at the setup on Laura’s phone. Reagan, Jada, and I squeezed in beside the others.
“No. this isn’t working. There’s too many of us now. We’ll look too tiny in the picture.” Ava looked at Hyacinth, who nodded. “Um…let’s take two pictures. One with half of us and then one with the other half.”
“Laura!” I heard her mom yelling from the top of the stairs. “You better not be moving my couch down there!”
Laura’s eyes widened, and she jumped up. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move anything!”
“Take a trial pic while she’s gone,” Hyacinth suggested. She held Laura’s phone out to Reagan and Jada. “Can one of you take it?”
“Sure,” Reagan said.
“I’ll go in the second shot too.” Jada stepped out of the setup, leaving me with the others. I hesitated, unsure if I should leave or stay.
“Okay, uh, say ‘selfie’!” Reagan said.
“Selfie!” we shouted.
Laura hurried back down the stairs. “Guys, we’ve got to put the furniture back before my mom comes down here. She’ll freak!”
I did not want Dianne getting mad. She could send everyone home before the party even really got started. A new selfie with Laura, it seemed, would have to wait.
“What should we do now?” asked Steph.
Once the furniture was back in place, we’d all sat down on our sleeping bags and looked at our phones for a while and lost track of time.
“Something quiet.” Laura still looked pale. I had a feeling Dianne had gotten mad at her, and Laura just wasn’t saying.
“I’ve got an idea!” Ava sat up on her pink plaid sleeping bag. “Let’s play Truth or Text!”
“Oh, I love Truth or Text,” said Marisol, slipping into place beside Ava before Sarah could get there. The other girls crowded around a table while Laura, Jada, Reagan, and I looked confused.
How were we back to this game again? Other moments from tonight had already changed. Why had this one stayed the same? It was almost as if history was fighting back.
“What’s Truth or Text?” Jada asked, and I noticed two of the drama queens shooting each other a look.
Ava leaned forward, her green eyes bright. “I
t’s Truth or Dare, but the dare is done by text. I ask a question, and you can either answer truthfully or text someone something on a dare.”
“What kind of something?” Reagan asked.
Ava pursed her lips instead of saying more, and I felt my heart flutter, knowing what was coming. “Whatever we decide.”
“It’s so much fun,” gushed Marisol.
“The most fun,” agreed Steph.
It was not fun. The first time we were here, Laura wouldn’t fess up a truth, so she had to text Jake Graser and tell him she liked him. He never replied, and Laura somehow blamed me for what happened. I needed to warn her, but if I pushed hard not to play the game, Laura might think I was scared. There had to be another option.
As Ava wrote out numbers to decide what order we would go in, I pulled Laura aside. “This sounds fun, but if your mom comes down and hears us playing this game, she is going to flip.”
“I know.” Laura sounded worried too. “But what am I supposed to tell Ava? I don’t want her to get annoyed and not want to hang out with me anymore.” She pursed her lips. “We’re just going to have to watch the basement door for signs of my mom.”
“That sounds risky,” I said.
“Laura, are you playing?” Ava called to us. She held out the bowl with the numbers that would decide our order. “You don’t have to pick because it’s your house. You automatically go last. Zoe, your turn.” I stared at the bowl worriedly and Ava looked from me to Laura. “Is there a problem?”
Laura looked flustered and turned to me. “Yeah, is there a problem?”
“Are you kidding?” I asked loudly. “Taryn and I play this all the time. I’m in.” I pulled a number—I got second to last—and sat down right next to Ava. My heart started to pound. I had to think of a way to stop Laura from texting Jake.
“Great! Okay, Reagan, pick a number,” Ava said.
Reagan lifted her chin defiantly. “We’re not playing.” Jada nodded, and the two of them dragged their sleeping bags over to a far corner. I watched them, impressed. I didn’t remember Reagan bowing out the first time.