Secret Keeper Girl Fiction Series

by Dannah K. Gresh

  “I’m here,” I said impatiently. “I just have to think about that offer.” I needed to get some advice from my Secret Keeper Girl buds, but I was pretty sure the answer was going to be a loud “No!”

  “Well, OK,” Laney said, sounding shocked that anyone wouldn’t just say yes to her every desire. “Like, well, I’m wearing a pink ballroom dress in the contest. What color is yours?”

  “Look, Laney, I’ve really got to get to bed,” I said. “Could we talk about this another time?” Like never?

  “OK, see ya at lunch!” she said and her phone clicked off.

  I snapped mine shut.

  Is it possible that Laney Douglas just invited me back to the popular table just to win tickets to the Alayna Rayne concert?

  CHAPTER 8

  A Hefty Surprise

  By Tuesday at lunch, it had gotten around that Toni Diaz had tried out to be the school’s Shark mascot and failed miserably. She was obviously embarrassed.

  “Don’t feel bad,” Yuzi said as we sat under the maple tree again, feasting on our PB&J and other all-American lunch food. “You should have seen what happened to me in a costume!” She told us how her mom had volunteered her to dress up as a cob of corn during the Popcorn Festival and how she’d wiped out in the thing big time.

  “Oh, wow!” I said. “That was my costume! My dad’s ad agency made it for me to wear in last year’s Teeny Pop contest. It was for my commercial presentation. I represented Orville Redenbacher popcorn.”

  “OK,” quipped Yuzi. “I totally dislike you right now!” I knew she was kidding.

  “There needs to be a club rule about costumes,” suggested Kate.

  “Yeah, like no costumes,” said Toni.

  “Especially produce,” added Yuzi.

  I pulled out my sweet pen and started writing.

  That afternoon I couldn’t wait to get to Mrs. V’s classroom for our first club meeting. When Toni finally showed up a little late, I called the first Secret Keeper Club meeting to order.

  “Ahem.” I cleared my throat to sound official. “May I present to you Danika, Kate, Toni, and Yuzi’s Secret Keeper Girl Club Rules.” My mom had helped me design them in a really cool computer program and I had updated it during my last period study hall, so all of our rules so far were on it. I presented each girl and Mrs. V with a copy of the rules.

  Danika, Kate, Toni, and Yuzi’s Secret Keeper Girl Club Rules

  RULE #1: Always keep each other’s secrets!

  RULE #2: No boys allowed!

  RULE #3: Only wear banana berry flavored lip gloss.

  RULE #4: Eat a lot of egg drop soup.

  RULE #5: Wise friends stand beside each other through tough times. Foolish ones just come to the parties. Be there!

  RULE #6: No costumes ever … especially produce.

  I was so proud of our club rules.

  “I have a gift for everyone,” said Kate. She pulled five tubes of lip gloss out of her backpack. “It’s banana berry!” We all tried ours on right away, including Mrs. V.

  “I also have something, but just for Toni and Yuzi,” said Mrs. V. She opened her hand and I couldn’t believe it. She had two friendship bracelets just like the ones Kate and I got at the Secret Keeper Girl event two years ago.

  “Wow!” I said. “Where did you get those?”

  “Oh, I have my connections!” she said.

  We all looked at her, silently begging for more.

  “It’s called the Internet!” she explained. “Secret Keeper Girl has a cool Web site and I got on, emailed them, and asked for two more bracelets!”

  “Cool!” said Toni.

  “You might check it out,” she said. “It actually has ideas for how to start a Secret Keeper Girl Club.”

  “We’re not the only ones?” Yuzi asked.

  “Apparently not!” said Mrs. V.

  “Uber-cool!” said Kate.

  “Danika, come on over here,” called Mrs. V after we helped Toni and Yuzi tie their bracelets onto their wrists. “I’ve got something else for you.”

  “What?”

  “I think I have another walk for you. It’ll be your last one. Any club rules you come up with after this one are all from you. But I think there’s someone wise you should talk to.” She was being awfully mysterious.

  “Who?”

  “The first ever Miss Teeny Pop!” she said.

  “She’s alive?”

  “Oh my! Yes!” Mrs. V laughed. “She’s only forty years old. She’s got a lot of life in her. In fact, she’s got a lot of fight in her, and she’s been using it these past two weeks to get you back into the Teeny Pop contest!”

  I couldn’t believe it. I was going to find out who helped me!

  Mrs. V pulled out a newspaper, yellowed with age. It was an old Marion Star—twenty-four years old. The front cover had a big black-and-white photograph of the first ever Miss Teeny Pop. She was petite and had long blonde hair. She was wearing a beautiful dress. That’s the third-most beautiful dress in the world, I thought to myself.

  I took the paper in my hand and just stared into her eyes. They looked oddly familiar.

  “Angela Moody,” I said, reading her name.

  “You’ll find her at this address,” said Mrs. V, handing me a Post-it. “It’s right around the corner from the school. And I happen to know she’s there right now.”

  “Really,” I said, looking up at the clock on the wall. I had forty-five minutes until my mom picked me up. “Gotta go, Secret Keeper sistas! Bye!”

  “117 Hayes Avenue.”

  A fall breeze almost blew the Post-it from my hand as I peeked at it. Comparing Mrs. V’s handwritten address to the number on the little yellow house, I scanned the white picket fence for a way inside the yard. There was a gate under a big white arch. I pushed it open and walked through the aisle of mums in full bloom. The porch was as old-fashioned as they come. Kind of cozy compared to my mammoth house. I liked it. I pushed the little round button next to the door and heard the doorbell buzz.

  At first, no one came.

  I started to get nervous and thought to myself that I should just turn and run.

  Before I could, I saw the form of someone just inside the frosted window of the door. It was someone rather big. Maybe it was the first Miss Teeny Pop’s husband.

  It sure couldn’t be the petite little lady I’d seen in the paper clipping.

  I saw the door handle turn, and the door opened quickly. “Mrs. Hefty?” I asked. I stood there in shock before I had the guts to ask, “How are you?”

  “Oh fine, dear,” she said. “Come on in.” Pushing the screen door open, she wiped her hands on her bright floral apron. She had on a yellow T-shirt and jeans. And her hair wasn’t pressed against her head by a net. It flowed loosely around her shoulders. She looked so much younger when she wasn’t in her uniform.

  “Umm,” I stammered, “I think I must be at the wrong place. Does Angela Moody live here?”

  “You’re lookin’ at her,” said Mrs. Hefty, and then she started rambling just like she did in the cafeteria, but I liked it. A lot. “It’s Angela Hefty now, I’m afraid. Put up with being Moody my whole life only to get it exchanged for Hefty. Oh, dear! Well, Mrs. V said you might stop by and I took the liberty of making some of my Monster Cookies. Huge things, they are. Everything in the world in them. It takes two spatulas to get those puppies off the pan. But it doesn’t take two Mr. Heftys to eat them.”

  I followed her into the kitchen. There was a glass bottle of milk from Young’s Dairy on the old-fashioned dining room table, and two plates filled with the biggest cookies I’d ever seen in my life. We sat down and started eating as Mrs. Hefty told me all kinds of tales about winning the Miss Teeny Pop crown. Then she told me how she’d almost single-handedly gotten me back into the contest.

  “I knew ya didn’t mean it, Miss McAllister!” she said. “I knew that day when it happened that you were just caught up in the same peer pressure I felt when I was in sixth grade. It’s no
t fun. Everyone feels pressure to sit next to certain people in the lunchroom!”

  “You know about that?” I asked in wonder, thinking she must be the only adult who knows about the number one rule to surviving middle school.

  “I work in the cafeteria, my dear,” she said and giggled. “And, Danika, you were sitting with the wrong girls the day I had my first taste of Purple Flurp.”

  “Sorry,” I said shyly.

  “Apology accepted,” she said.

  “Did you really have to take the week off because your face turned blue from it?” I inquired. I just had to know.

  Mrs. Hefty giggled. “My dear, of course not. That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Oh my, my, my. No. Truth is … it took a lot of time to get those judges turned around. Principal Butter and I both felt so bad about how things got blown up that we agreed I should take the week to fix our … ah … little Purple Flurp fiasco! Fact is, I thought it a tasty treat, though I’d rather have it in my mouth than on my chin!” She laughed at her own joke and I promised to get mom to make her a batch so she could eat it. She asked me to bring it to the Teeny Pop Pageant tomorrow night.

  “You’ll be there?” I asked.

  “Haven’t missed it in twenty-four years,” she said. “Let me show you two things before you leave, Danika. This way. Follow me. There we go!”

  She took me into a tiny little den and stood me in front of a big-framed quote. It read: “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

  “That’s my favorite quote,” said Mrs. Hefty. “Mrs. V says you’ve been thinking a lot about friendship. That about sums it up for me.”

  No lecture. Just a quote. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand it, either. I instantly realized then that I spent way too much middle-school energy worrying about who liked me and not enough looking for who needed me. I understood then that Mrs. Hefty was one of my best friends. She was there when I needed her. I decided then and there that we needed to add another rule to our Secret Keeper Girl Club and it would be that quote! I imagined myself writing it onto the list:

  RULE #7: Be a friend. It’s the only way to have one!

  “One more thing,” she said, opening a trunk next to a well-worn olive-green La-Z-Boy. She lifted a crown from the top of the pile inside. I was surprised that it was pretty much just plastic and it was bent up a lot. She placed it on my head. When I turned to look at her, the crown fell off, and she put it back in the trunk.

  “Crowns get stuck in trunks, Danika,” she said. “Friends last a whole lot longer. Be one.”

  I wasn’t sure what she meant, but in the next twenty-four hours it would become very clear to me.

  CHAPTER 9

  Breaking the Rules…. Again!

  “Laney, I can’t do it!” I said.

  Finally standing backstage at the Teeny Pop Pageant, I found myself once again face-to-face with Laney Douglas’s impertinent whining. The curtain was about to come up for the choreographed group opening, and she was still pressuring me to agree to sharing the Alayna Rayne tickets if I won.

  “If I win, I’m going to take my best friends: Kate, Toni, and Yuzi.” Through a slit in the curtain I could see them seated in the front row with my mom, dad, Nai Nai, Mrs. Hefty, and Mrs. V. I had my very own fan club!

  The music started and Laney huffed over to her position, stomping all the way in her chartreuse dress suit and black patent leather ballerina slippers. She looked like a four-year-old who didn’t get the Barbie she wanted. I realized that she looked like that a lot, but this was the moment I’d been waiting for, and nothing was going to ruffle my feathers.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, your contestants for this year’s Miss Teeny Pop!” That was our cue. I took the deepest breath ever, straightened my white-sequined headband, and checked to make sure the button of my equally white dress suit was still buttoned. Then, one foot in front of the other, I stepped onto the stage of the pageant I’d been waiting my whole life to win.

  Before I knew it, the opening model sequence, talent competition, and commercial presentation were over. This year, I did a commercial for my dad’s Sky Pop show with little tiny onstage indoor fireworks. It was really cool. And no costume was needed, so I didn’t violate Secret Keeper Girl Club rule number six.

  It was time for the ballroom gown competition. Since I was the second to last one to compete in commercial presentation, I wasn’t dressed. Most of the other girls were. Laney was ready to go in her pink dress and couldn’t take her eyes off herself in her big round backstage mirror. Most of the other girls were dressed, too, and looked really pretty. I was glad I wasn’t a judge.

  Everyone here deserves to win, I thought to myself. I glanced toward my gorgeous dress, which still hung on the hook next to my lighted dressing table.

  Mrs. Anderson, Abbey’s mom, started sweeping my hair into the updo we’d agreed on in dress rehearsal. As she put the finishing touches on it, Riley walked out of the bathroom in her ballroom gown.

  Everyone inhaled all at once when they saw her, and it wasn’t because she looked beautiful, even though she did.

  “What?” pleaded Riley, wondering what was wrong.

  I knew right away she was in big trouble. And there was no time to fix it. Her slim, fitted dress was black with big white polka dots and a pretty red belt. It was sleeveless, too. The pageant rules ran through my head.

  “Riley, you idiot!” shrieked Laney. “Didn’t you read the pageant rules? Your dress has to be all one color! And it has to have a puffy skirt. And it has to have sleeves!”

  The color drained from Riley’s face and she looked like she might burst into tears. Mrs. Butter’s words ran through my head, “Be sure to go over your rules carefully.” I knew that the second she stepped out onto that stage, she was going to be disqualified.

  “How could you do this?” Laney whined. She stomped around again. This time it looked like maybe someone had stolen her entire collection of Barbies.

  No one seemed to know what to do. Not even Mrs. Anderson, who was the only adult backstage. I could hear the music starting for the ballroom gown contest, and they called “Abbey Anderson.” Abbey rushed to get composed and headed out to the stage. Her mom was distracted by peering through the curtain to watch.

  Riley only had about ten minutes and then she was finished!

  “What do I do?” Riley asked, looking at me. Suddenly Mrs. Hefty’s wonderful face came to my mind and I knew exactly what to do.

  “Come here,” I ordered. And I started working the plan in my head.

  I checked my look in the mirror.

  No time for banana berry lip gloss, I thought. I decided my lips could go au naturel!

  “Danika McAllister!” I heard my name called from in front of the curtain.

  When I stepped out onstage, the lights hit me in the eyes, which made it easy to avoid the gaze of the judges. Instead, I looked at my fan club. At first Mom looked completely shocked and confused, then she looked super sad. Mrs. Hefty and Mrs. V, knowing the rules well, looked at each other with concern. Everyone else was clueless and had insanely huge smiles smeared across their faces.

  “Go, Danika!” the Secret Keeper Girls yelled in unison. Little did they know.

  When I arrived at my appointed place on the stage, I posed and waited for Riley to make her grand entrance.

  “Riley Peterson!” said the MC.

  The dramatic orchestra music crescendoed as if on cue, and the spotlight found the center of the curtain. Invisible drawstrings pulled the curtain back until the audience could see just the bottom of a full skirt in the shadows.

  One dainty, white satin ballerina slipper raised the front of the skirt and made its way into the spotlight.

  Then the dress seemed to glide into view.

  Riley Peterson emerged in my one-of-a-kind dress. Mrs. Anderson had whipped her hair up into a bun and even managed to add a few tiny pin curls here and there. Riley’s chestnut brown hair with natural summer high
-lights went great with my dress. The sequins caught the lights, and the dress shimmered as she walked. The crowd seemed to stop breathing for a moment, and I looked over at Mom. She was beaming with pride and wiping tears from her eyes.

  I guess she liked my black-and-white polka-dotted dress with the red belt.

  I couldn’t help myself.

  I started to cry, too.

  I knew I’d just won something, but it wasn’t the Miss Teeny Pop crown, that’s for sure.

  Fifteen minutes after the new Miss Teeny Pop, Abbey Anderson, was crowned, I came out from backstage wearing grey sweats and a pink T-shirt with my ballerina flats. Mom and Dad were there waiting with all my most favorite people in the whole world. I could tell by the looks on their faces that Mom had filled them in on the whole dress thing.

  Before I knew it, I had practically an entire flower shop of flowers in my arms and everyone was hugging me.

  Nai Nai pulled me aside between hugs and photos and said, “We go home. Make egg drop soup.”

  “Actually, Nai Nai, I don’t really think I need any!” I said.

  She beamed with pride.

  “Before you leave, can you come out to my car with Kate, Toni, and Yuzi?” asked Mrs. V. “There’s something Mrs. Hefty wants to give you.”

  What could it be?

  CHAPTER 10

  Show Stopper

  OK, new best-day-ever. This was it.

  I walked through the red doors of the Rutherford B. Hayes cafeteria. I wasn’t al one. Kate, Toni, and Yuzi were with me. We’d stayed up late last night IMing a plan for reentry into the crazy world of the Rutherford B. Hayes middle school cafeteria.

  I winked at Mrs. Hefty when she saw us coming. She smiled real big, then waddled off to do her job.

  Everyone was there.

  The brainiacs had their lunches pushed to the side so they could play chess.

  The jocks were laughing at Trevor Kenworth, who was making burping sounds with his armpit.

  The planet savers were all sitting together with their backs to their table. They had duct tape on their mouths and signs about global warming taped to their chests.