11 Birthdays

by Wendy Mass

  This is very weird. Why would she have lied about such a small thing? And it’s not like I can ask her since she obviously doesn’t remember lying about it. “But if you didn’t do it, who did?”

  “I did,” a voice from behind says.

  We both whirl around and find ourselves face-to-face with Leo. He’s smiling.

  “YOU did this?” Stephanie and I say at the same time.

  His smile broadens. “Yup. I came in early this morning.”

  I stare at him, truly shocked.

  “Um, I’m going to leave you two alone,” Stephanie says, backing away. “Looks like you have a lot to talk about.” She hurries down the hall, glancing backward at us every few feet.

  I pull Leo into an empty classroom. “You’ve been decorating my locker every day?”

  He nods. “It was easy. I had already cut out all the letters the night before our birthday, so each morning when I woke up, they were in my backpack ready to be taped on your locker.”

  “But why would Stephanie take credit for it every other day, but not today?”

  “Because she felt bad that you had to sit alone on the bus,” he explains. “Then you were so happy when you thought she decorated it, she just couldn’t correct you. But I bet you sat together today, so she had no reason to take credit for the locker.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “How do you know all that?”

  “Well, um, I was sort of lurking nearby to see your reaction that first day. I thought you’d be so happy about the locker that you’d listen to my apology about, you know, last year. Then Stephanie jumped in and took the credit. I overheard her tell the story to Emma in math.”

  “So if you knew all that, why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

  He shrugs. “Stephanie’s been your friend all year, while I … well, you know. So I figure she deserved to have her secret kept.”

  That was really decent of him. I look at Leo closely for the first time in a year. He’s taller, by a few inches. He’s wearing his dark hair a little shorter. I wonder how else he’s changed. If I hadn’t gotten grounded last night, I would have found out. Kids start streaming into the class and we slip back out to the hall.

  “Why were you grounded last night?” he asks. “I left my party before it was over because I couldn’t wait to come over.”

  “After having your party four times, something tells me you weren’t too broken up about leaving early.”

  He smiles. “True.”

  “Basically I got grounded because I snuck into Kylie’s room and read her diary. It actually told me some interesting things, but then she found out and set me up. My mom was furious. But hey, my parents don’t remember I got grounded, Kylie doesn’t remember about the diary, and I still remember everything I read in it. So it all worked out.”

  Leo is nodding thoughtfully. “Remind me to tell you my thoughts on consequences.”

  “We have a lot to talk about first,” I say, noticing for the first time that kids who pass by are staring at us. Our friendship breakup was kind of legendary. Leo must have noticed, too, because he drops his voice.

  “Meet me in the courtyard after first period.”

  I shake my head and whisper, “I have math.”

  “Skip it,” he urges. “It’s not like it’ll matter tomorrow.”

  He has a point. “But what if today is the last time this happens and tomorrow really IS tomorrow?”

  “Then we’ll have all weekend to come up with a reason why we skipped second period.”

  “Okay.” We run into our history class just as the late bell rings. Needless to say, we both ace the pop quiz.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I’m about to leave the courtyard and go to math class when Leo finally arrives. “What took you so long?”

  “The guidance counselor seriously has it in for me,” he says, plopping down on the grass next to me. “I went into her office to cancel our meeting for this afternoon and she made me sit and talk to her. I told her I was gonna be late for English, and she gave me this.” He holds up a blue pass. “Looks like you’re the only one actually cutting class!”

  I snatch the paper from his hand and pretend to rip it up. He grabs for it, then says, “Go ahead. We’re in this together.”

  I smooth it out and hand it back. “That’s okay. Keep it.” I want to ask him why he was seeing the guidance counselor in the first place, but there’s something else I want to know even more. Twining a strand of grass around my finger, I ask, “Why did you say those things?” and brace myself for his answer.

  He doesn’t insult me by asking what things, which is really good because then I might have left. “I tried to explain last year.” He yanks up his own pieces of grass, shredding them as he goes. “But you wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “I didn’t want to be in the same room as you.”

  “Look, I don’t blame you. What I said was horrible, but you’ve got to know I didn’t mean it. What can I do to make it up to you?”

  I think about that for a minute. “If I come up with something big enough, I’ll let you know.”

  “Listen, Amanda, you’re my, I mean you were my best friend for my whole life. I don’t even remember a time that you weren’t right there next to me, since I was born. You were, you know, like my sister. And sometimes brothers say really mean things about their sisters, you know, to sound cool in front of their friends.”

  “But I’m NOT your sister!” The grass is wrapped so tight around my finger that the tip is turning purple.

  “Duh, I know that. I knew right as it came out of my mouth that night that I shouldn’t have said those things. I know you have lots of friends other than me. I’m sure your party this year was great.”

  I open my mouth and then quickly think better of it. He doesn’t need to know that only eight people showed up and that even Stephanie left in the middle. “And the part about not wanting to share our birthdays anymore? Did you really mean that?”

  He shakes his head and looks miserable. “Of course not. I had a terrible time at my party — I mean parties — this year. It just wasn’t the same.”

  I have to admit I feel a little shiver of pleasure hearing that he didn’t have fun at his party. But mostly I feel relieved that he hadn’t meant the things he said. “I still don’t understand why you said that stuff in the first place. Why would you pick those guys over me? Everyone knows how obnoxious they are.”

  He squirms a little. “I can’t really explain it. They were hanging out in my room and those guys never wanted to hang out with me before. I didn’t want them to think my best friend was a girl.”

  “But why would they care? What’s the difference if I’m a boy or a girl?”

  He shrugs. “They think girls just sit around and have tea parties and play with stuffed animals.”

  “What am I, five?”

  He holds up his hands. “Hey, I don’t think that. I’m just telling you what they said.”

  “Well, why didn’t you come after me when I left the party?”

  “I couldn’t. I was too embarrassed. And then when my mom found out what happened, she was so mad at me she gave me the cold shoulder for a week. She said you were like the daughter she always wanted and wasn’t able to have. She asks me about you all the time, but I can’t even tell her anything. She misses you.”

  My eyes sting with tears. “I miss her, too. And I miss …” I can’t bring myself to say “I miss YOU” but I think he knows because he holds out his hand and says, “Friends again?”

  I take it and we shake. “Friends.” Then we feel silly and quickly snatch our hands away. I glance at the door to the courtyard, just to make sure no one saw us. Still shut tight. Okay, first order of business down. Time for the next. “So, what was your reaction when you woke up that first time and realized it was our birthday again?”

  “I thought it was a joke!”

  I laugh. “Me too!”

  “The first thing I heard when I woke up was my mom playing th
e guitar while my Dad sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me. I was like, Very funny guys, my birthday was yesterday. But they just kept strumming and singing, and the phone rang and it was the football guy — who calls himself Paul the Ball — confirming the party and before I knew it, we had that pop quiz again. I felt like a zombie, just going through the motions, scared to do anything differently from the day before.”

  “Me too!”

  He continues. “I really, really wanted to tell you what was going on but I couldn’t. I figured you’d never believe me. Plus, you know, you hadn’t spoken to me in a year.”

  “Yeah, there’s that.”

  “So I told myself it was all a bad dream, but when it happened again on the third day, I started to get really scared. I seriously thought I was going crazy. Then you weren’t in school and it was like fireworks went off in my head. I knew that this had to be happening to you, too, or else you’d be sitting in that class with me. And I finally knew I wasn’t dreaming, I wasn’t crazy What was it like for you?”

  I take a deep breath and tell him everything that happened. He laughs when I get to the part about swinging my arms pathetically at gymnastics tryouts. He mumbles “Sorry” when I tell him that Stephanie left to go to his party. I show him my healing blisters and explain that they’re the reason I knew this was real. I tell him about Kylie and what I read in her diary, and about Mom getting fired.

  When I’m done he leans forward intently and says, “We’re like, we’re … special or something. Like time is stopping for us.”

  “But why? Why us? Is it something we did? Something we didn’t do? Maybe everyone’s stuck, but only the two of us realize it. Or maybe there are others, but we don’t know about them and they don’t know about us.”

  “I hadn’t thought about others,” he says, sitting back on his heels. “I guess it’s possible. We should find out.”

  “Don’t you think our first job should be to make it stop?”

  “Who says we should make it stop?” He smiles crookedly, the old sparkle back in his eye. I missed that sparkle. Leo was definitely the leader when it came to anything sneaky.

  “What do you mean?”

  He jumps up. “Think about it. You know how our parents — well, mostly your parents — are always saying that there are ‘consequences for our actions’?” He does a pretty good imitation of my dad.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Well, that rule doesn’t apply to us anymore. We can do anything we want and the slate is wiped clean the next day.”

  “What slate?”

  “It’s an expression,” he says, still excited. “It’s like we get a ‘do-over’ every day!”

  I think back to this morning, and how happy I was that no one in my family remembered they were mad at me. I begin to see where he’s going with this. “Do you have a plan?”

  He can barely contain himself and actually does a little hop and a skip. Good thing those guys he was trying so hard to impress can’t see him now. “I have a few ideas,” he says. “I want to check some things out first.”

  I shiver involuntarily. “Is it going to get us in trouble?”

  “There’s a good chance,” he admits.

  The bell rings. “Should we go back to class? Those consequences you talked about might be gone tomorrow, but if we cut school we’ll still get in a lot of trouble today. I can’t stand my parents being mad at me again, even if it just lasts a day. And if we get grounded, we can’t do anything anyway.”

  “You’re right.” He picks up his backpack and hands me mine. “We should start tomorrow. That’ll give me more time to plan anyway. If you pretend you’re sick again, can you get out of the house without being seen?”

  “I think so. My dad pretty much slept all day. He’ll just think I’m sleeping, too.” I push open the door to the hallway and we quickly blend in with the streams of kids coming out of classrooms.

  “I’ll go to school like usual,” Leo says, raising his voice over the commotion. “But I’ll hand in a note saying I have a doctor’s appointment and won’t be back.”

  “Isn’t that risky?”

  “I don’t have a choice. If I just cut, the school will call to find out where I am. My parents will be home all day, getting ready for my party, so they’d definitely answer the phone.”

  “I guess having a hypnotist, a famous football player, a live band, and a giant lizard would take a lot of preparation.”

  He winces. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, the rock band sent a replacement. Every night I’ve had to listen to Hop-along Willie and the Knee-slapping Five.”

  I stifle a laugh. “What kind of band is that?”

  He shudders. “You don’t want to know. And the giant lizard? Just a regular lizard with a weight problem. Believe me, I didn’t ask for my party to be this big deal. My parents did it because they knew how hard this was on me. You know, having my party alone. So really, it’s all your fault.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better,” I tell him as we reach the end of the hall, “you don’t have to decorate my locker tomorrow.”

  He pretends to pout. “But then no one will see how creative I am.”

  The warning bell rings for the next period. I only have a minute now to get all the way across the school. “I’ve gotta run, so I’ll see you tomorrow morning. And this time, use the branch, will ya?” I turn to go and discover a little crowd has formed a few feet away from us. A few of the kids are whispering and glancing our way.

  “I guess our secret’s out,” Leo says. “People know we made up.”

  “But they don’t know our real secret,” I whisper.

  “That’s true. And by tomorrow, they’ll forget they saw us!”

  We give each other a high five and a wave to the crowd before going our separate ways. Leo was right. This could actually be fun!

  Chapter Fourteen

  I switch off my alarm and stare up at the dark ceiling. I can barely make out the flowers painted on it. I can’t wait to tell Leo what happened last night — Mom still got fired! Even though I had given her the right poster! I couldn’t believe it when she told me. When I asked why they were firing her, she just shrugged and said her boss didn’t think she was “a good fit” for the company anymore.

  Mom comes in to see why I’m not up, and I give my story about being sick. Everything is going according to plan until she sighs and says, “Mrs. Grayson down the street will have to take you to the doctor.”

  Ugh! How could I have forgotten about this part? My mind races for some way to get out of it, but nothing comes. I nod weakly. Once she leaves, I wait a little while until I hear her car start in the driveway, followed quickly by Kylie slamming the back door. The less I have to talk to anyone, the less chance I have for messing up. It feels weird letting them go without telling them about the poster switcheroo, but since it didn’t do any good — Mom’s still gonna get fired, and Kylie’s still not gonna get the guy — I might as well not bother.

  So what to do about the doctor? Maybe Leo can call my dad, pretending to be from the doctor’s office. He can say the doctor had an emergency and can I come in tomorrow? Or maybe I’ll call Mrs. Grayson and pretend to be Mom and tell her I don’t have to go after all. I really hate lying. Consequences or no, it doesn’t make me feel good.

  When I don’t go downstairs for breakfast, Dad knocks on my door. “Come in,” I call out weakly.

  The door opens and he walks in with a tall glass of orange juice and a muffin. He places them on my night table. “Happy birthday, sweetie! You must really not be feeling well if you’re still in bed.”

  I nod and glance out the window. “I’m going to be in bed a lot today.”

  When I look back, I see him sizing me up with his eyes. Then he says, “I know this is a hard day for you. But you didn’t cancel your party tonight so you don’t have to compete with Leo’s, right?”

  Normally I would argue that this isn’t about Leo, but what do you know? It actually IS! But I shake
my head and cough a few times. “I just don’t feel well, Dad.”

  “Okay,” he says, backing away and sneezing. “I’ll be on the couch downstairs if you need anything. I’ll come get you when Mrs. Grayson gets here.”

  As he closes the door it occurs to me that I might not have to go to such elaborate lengths to get out of going to the doctor. Maybe all I have to do is appeal to Dad’s soft-hearted nature. “Wait, Dad?” I call out.

  He comes back in. “That was fast.”

  Now that he’s here I’m not sure what to say. “Um, can I just ask one small favor?”

  “Sure, honey. It is your birthday after all.”

  That’s it! I can work with that! “Yes, right, it’s my birthday, and well, it’d be really awful if I had to go to the doctor on my birthday. I mean, it’s bad enough that I have to cancel my party and everything…. Is there any way I can go to the doctor tomorrow, instead? I’m sure I have what you have, you know, just a cold.”

  “Hmm, it is Friday, so you’d have the whole weekend to recover.”

  I hold my breath while he considers. This definitely isn’t the right time to tell him weekends don’t seem to exist for me lately. Finally he says, “Okay, I guess it’s a reasonable request. I’ll tell the doctor we’ll call tomorrow if you don’t feel any better.”

  I want to jump up and give him a hug, but I still need to be sick enough to spend the day in bed. “Thanks, Dad!”

  “Okay, okay.” He smiles and heads for the door. “I won’t bother you, just come get me if you need anything. Try to get some sleep. That’s what I plan to do.”

  “I will,” I say, crossing my fingers under the covers.

  I stay in bed until I hear his footfalls on the stairs, then push aside the breakfast he brought me and throw on my clothes. I wrench open the bottom of my tooth-shaped piggy bank and pull out the crumpled bills I’ve stashed in there over the years, compliments of the tooth fairy. Smoothing everything out on the bed, I count exactly forty-two dollars. That’s a lot of teeth! I don’t know what Leo has planned, but it never hurts to be prepared.