Friend Power

by Disney Book Group

  “So, what’s the next thing you guys are supposed to do?” Farkle asked. The crowd of guys behind them leaned in a little closer.

  “Supposed to do?” Lucas shook his head. “What are there, rules?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t see how you can just kiss someone and not be with them after. I only kissed Maya’s hand,” Farkle noted, pulling out a small velvet box, “and then I got her this engagement ring right after we got off the subway.”

  The enormous rock Farkle had produced immediately made every single guy’s jaw drop. Lucas took the box and stared at the ring, mesmerized.

  “Ohmygosh, Farkle,” he gasped. “How much was that?”

  “Seventy-eight thousand dollars. But I got it for free.”

  “How?” Lucas demanded.

  “Because that’s the ring my mom keeps throwing at my father!” Farkle smiled and took the box from Lucas. “She usually wants it back by Thursday, so I gotta work fast.”

  At the lockers, Riley continued to field questions from the girls. It was like she was holding a press conference or something.

  “So, are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend now, or what are you?” Sarah’s eyes lit up behind her glasses.

  “What are you?” Darby chimed in, shaking her long platinum-blond hair.

  Riley felt a bit queasy at the thought of being boyfriend and girlfriend. These were the exact questions she’d been trying to avoid! “I don’t know, do we have to be something?”

  “Well, you did kiss him,” Sarah pointed out.

  “What are you?” Darby asked again.

  “Look”—Maya walked over to the crowd of girls to set them straight—“it just happened. She’s not really sure what it all means yet.”

  But apparently, Darby had her own romantic plans for Riley and Lucas. “You guys are meant to be together. Like me and Yogi!” Spying her tiny dark-haired boyfriend walking past the bank of lockers, the tall blonde squealed, “Yogles!” He rushed over and leapt into her arms, and she raced off with him.

  Riley stared after the odd couple. “Will Lucas and I ever have what they have?” she wondered.

  “Boy, I hope not.” Maya grimaced as she turned to look at her best friend. “You know, Riles, they do have a point. I mean, you like him, he likes you, there was a kiss.…”

  “I will not act under peer pressure,” Riley insisted. But then, thinking a bit more about it, she added, “Unless you think I should.”

  When she said that, the girls all rushed over, intent on making sure that Riley and Lucas became a couple. They all seemed to have so much invested in the situation—and suddenly, Riley felt like she couldn’t possibly let them down.

  On the other side of the quad, the boys were pushing Lucas to make things official with Riley, too—but he was resisting just as much.

  “I will not give in to peer pressure!” Lucas told them.

  “What if we carry you?” Farkle asked.

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  “Darby!” Farkle called out, causing their surprisingly strong classmate to turn away from her conversation with Yogi. She raced over to help Farkle pick up Lucas, and they carried him to where Riley was standing.

  “What are you?” Darby asked again as she set Lucas down.

  “What are we?” Riley said softly, turning to look at Lucas.

  “Are we boyfriend and girlfriend?” Lucas didn’t sound very sure.

  “Are we?” Riley felt even less sure than she sounded.

  Lucas blinked a few times. “I dunno, you wanna?”

  “I don’t know. You think, maybe?” Riley blinked back.

  Lucas swallowed a big lump in his throat and finally said again, “Wanna?”

  “Are they weird or adorable?” Sarah wondered out loud.

  “No,” Darby replied, throwing an arm around her little boyfriend and smiling blissfully. “Me and Yogi are weird. They’re adorable.”

  Riley’s vision became a bit blurry as she looked at Lucas. “What just happened?” she asked, turning to look at Maya and Farkle, who were standing between her and Lucas. “Do I have my first boyfriend?”

  “I don’t know,” Farkle replied with a satisfied, eager smile. “What just happened?”

  “I don’t know.” Maya’s smile was even bigger than Farkle’s. “Can’t wait to see what happens next.”

  But before Riley even had a chance to think about where to go from there, Farkle dropped down on one knee and presented Maya with a giant sparkling engagement ring. Everyone in the quad stared at the diamond, but nobody was more mesmerized by it than Maya, who swayed back and forth as Farkle waved it up at her.

  Wait a minute! Just as Riley was finally preparing for this strange new journey with Lucas—finally ready to get answers to all the questions that had come up since that night on the subway—Farkle was popping a humongous question of his own?

  But once the initial shock of Farkle’s proposal wore off, the focus was back on Riley and Lucas. There they sat, still surrounded by their classmates, heads spinning with way more questions than answers.

  “Okay, here we are,” Riley said, trying to talk her way through nervous energy. “What do we do now?”

  “You go on a date after school,” Sarah replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “You sit there and look at each other all stupid—like this,” Darby added, turning to gaze into Yogi’s eyes as they exchanged the goofiest grins ever.

  “Stop,” Lucas said as much to Darby as to the rest of their classmates. “Nobody’s telling us what to do. We’re not you. You’re you. We’re us. We do what we do.”

  “Yeah! We do what we do!” Riley was relieved that Lucas had it all figured out. Now she just needed him to help her figure it out. She leaned into him and whispered, “What do we do?”

  But Lucas stared blankly at Riley, and she stared blankly back at him. Eventually, they decided that maybe following Sarah’s and Darby’s advice wasn’t such a bad thing. So, fine. They would go on a date after school. They would sit there and stare at each other all stupid—at least, until they came up with some better answers of their own. It had to happen eventually. Riley was almost sure of it.

  Sitting at the kitchen table with her husband and Auggie, Mrs. Matthews was trying hard to get some answers to her questions about why they were so quick to accept Dewey as Doy. But Mr. Matthews had some questions of his own.

  “What is it in you that makes you do this?” he demanded of his wife.

  “His name is Dewey!” Mrs. Matthews fired back.

  “What’s the difference what his name is?” Mr. Matthews fumed, shaking his hands in frustration. “He says his name is Doy and he wants to be called Doy. So we call him Doy, because he says his name is Doy. And Doy is a guest in our house. So will you please let go of your need to be right all the time, and we just call the kid Doy?”

  As Mrs. Matthews turned away from her husband, unable to let it go, a tiny voice at the kitchen doorway asked meekly, “Doy?”

  They all turned around to look at little Dewey, whose face was still stained with tears, lips still trembling.

  Pasting her sweet Mommy smile back on, Mrs. Matthews asked the little boy, “Can I please talk to you for a minute?”

  But he stayed right where he was, eyes wide with terror, and looked at Mr. Matthews and Auggie for guidance.

  “I wouldn’t,” Auggie warned his friend.

  “I wouldn’t, either,” Mr. Matthews muttered, staring down at the table.

  But Mrs. Matthews could be pretty convincing. “Come here,” she coaxed him, holding out her arms.

  Dewey took a few tentative steps toward her. Then a few more. He still looked terrified, but at long last he got close enough that Mrs. Matthews was able to pick him up and set him on her lap.

  “Okay,” she told him, “here’s what’s going to happen next.”

  She wasn’t ready to give up completely, but Mrs. Matthews realized that a softer approach would probably be more ef
fective. If there was one thing she’d learned in all her years of being a lawyer, it was that to get the answers you wanted, you had to ask the right questions—in the right way.

  Riley’s heart was pounding and her palms were sweating as she and Lucas sat in two matching orange chairs at Topanga’s, the café her mom had inherited from Mrs. Svorski. Finally, breaking the awkward silence, the waitress brought over the smoothie Lucas had ordered for them.

  “One smoothie, two straws,” she announced, setting the drink down on a gold napkin on the coffee table in front of them.

  Lucas looked up at the server with a blank, quiet stare.

  “You two new at this?” she asked, and he nodded dizzily up at her. “Don’t worry. It gets harder.”

  As the waitress walked away, Riley couldn’t imagine anything being harder. Lucas was sitting mere inches away from her, but it felt like he was on another planet. Not only did he seem like a stranger; he seemed like a complete alien.

  “We’re just sitting here,” she finally said out loud.

  “Yeah.” Lucas sighed. “We haven’t talked to each other much at all.”

  Riley stole a quick sideways glance. “It’s too bad, because you’re one of my favorite people to talk to.”

  But Lucas wouldn’t even look at her. Instead, his eyes darted to the old bookcases, to the college kids drinking coffee and eating muffins at the counter. “I think your mom did a really good job on this place.”

  “Yeah.” Riley smiled as she noticed all the couples sitting at tables, engrossed in conversation. “Gonna be a great hangout, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Lucas nodded and finally peeked at Riley for a moment before turning away again. “Look at all these NYU students. Smiling…”

  “Talking,” Riley added.

  “Looking real…” Lucas paused.

  “Comfortable with each other. Yeah,” Riley concluded, chewing on her lower lip.

  “Yeah.” Finally, Lucas turned and looked directly at Riley. “I don’t know why it’s so hard for us to talk all of a sudden. It’s not like we’ve changed.”

  “We’re boyfriend and girlfriend now,” Riley pointed out.

  “Yeah, but those are just words, Riley. Words don’t change people.”

  Hmmm. Riley had to think about that one. But before she had a chance to let it sink in, Maya and Farkle arrived.

  “Mrs. Farkle Minkus,” Maya announced, extending her arm toward Riley so she could observe the blinding rock on Maya’s finger.

  “You said yes?” Riley couldn’t hide her shock.

  Maya practically danced over to where Farkle was sitting, never taking her gaze away from the ring as she fell onto the antique chaise next to him and declared, “Good-bye, Maya Penelope Hart—hello, Mrs. Farkle Minkus.”

  Farkle gazed lovingly at his “fiancée.” “All this time I’ve been trying to love and appreciate her and all it took was this big honkin’ rock.”

  Riley and Lucas exchanged confused glances. There was no way this was really happening.

  “Make a note, Riley,” Maya instructed, still 100 percent focused on the ring. “They put one of these in front of our face and we get hypnotized by the sparkles.”

  “Wait.” Farkle tried to get Maya’s attention. “You only said yes because of the ring? It had nothing to do with me?”

  Finally, Maya tore her gaze away from the ring to look at Farkle. “That would be pretty shallow of me, wouldn’t it?”

  “I don’t care.” Farkle grinned.

  But Maya found that troubling. “All right, Farkle, you’re a scientist. Let’s do an experiment.” She removed the ring from her finger and handed it back to him. “Ask me without the ring.”

  “Would you marry me?” Farkle quickly asked her.

  “Die,” came Maya’s immediate response. “Now ask me with the ring.”

  Farkle held out the ring to Maya and asked again, “Would you marry me?”

  “I love you so much!” Maya practically sobbed—to the ring.

  “I believe you!” Farkle beamed.

  Maya put the ring back on her finger, unable to stop staring at it. “Hypnotized, Riley. You need to protect me.”

  “Protect you from what, Maya?” Riley was a bit worried about her friend. “Relationships are supposed to be about two people who make the choice to come together by themselves.”

  “Of their own free will,” Lucas added. “At the right point in time.”

  “It has nothing to do with—” Before Riley could finish her thought, Maya was waving her hand so Riley could get a good, long look at the ring. Wow. It really was kind of hypnotic. “How do they get these things so sparkly, Farkly?” Riley murmured.

  “Pressure,” Farkle replied. “This diamond used to just be a piece of coal that was put under a lot of pressure.”

  “Yeah.” Maya nodded and gazed lovingly down at the ring again. “I’m keeping it.”

  “Good. I come with it,” Farkle informed her.

  “Huh.” Maya scrunched up her face, still gazing down at the ring. “Well, I really love you and everything.”

  “Why, thank you!” Farkle smiled.

  “I was talking to the ring,” Maya said.

  “Oh.”

  “The way I see it, the only way we could be happy is if I sell you, get a nice house where the two of us would just be happy with each other.” Maya ticked off each point in logical order.

  “Just me and you?” Farkle nodded eagerly.

  “Just me and the ring,” Maya said, correcting him.

  “Wait. You’re selling me?”

  “I thought that was clear.”

  “Fine.” Farkle shook his head. “Come on, Lucas, let’s get outta here.”

  “Oh.” Lucas looked at Riley. “Well, I was gonna walk Riley home.”

  “You don’t have to,” Riley told him.

  “No, I think I should,” he insisted.

  Riley forced a smile. She didn’t want him to walk her home out of some sense of duty. “Try again.”

  “I want to very much.” That sounded a little more convincing.

  “Wait,” Maya interjected. “That means I’m walking home with Farkle?”

  “You’re wearing my ring!” Farkle reminded her.

  “Boy, the stuff you gotta do,” Maya muttered, shaking her head as she and Farkle made their way out the door.

  Riley couldn’t help laughing. “I’m not sure it’s going to work out with them.”

  “You think?” Lucas laughed, too.

  “So, you’re walking me home?” Riley asked, glancing at the door as a college couple entered, holding hands.

  “Yeah,” Lucas said, also noticing the couple. “Hold hands?”

  Yikes. That sounded so serious! “I guess we should,” Riley finally said with a gulp.

  “Try again.” Lucas smirked.

  Okay. She could do this. “I want to very much.”

  Lucas smiled and held out his hand. Riley took a deep breath and grabbed hold of it. They stood up and made their way outside—and were met with a chorus of oooooohhhhhs, because as it turned out, all their classmates had followed them.

  “Yeah, this isn’t going to be weird at all,” Riley noted, glancing at Lucas.

  Even though he gave her a reassuring smile and guided her up the steps, Riley couldn’t shake the feeling that they were heading in the wrong direction. This uncharted territory was even more confusing than she had anticipated, and she still had many unanswered questions. More than ever before.

  With Dewey sitting on her lap, Mrs. Matthews looked into his scared brown eyes and began her line of kinder, gentler questioning.

  “Do you know what my name is?” she asked.

  “Auggie’s mommy,” Dewey replied carefully.

  “Topanga!” Mrs. Matthews told him, widening her eyes dramatically.

  But Dewey wasn’t going to be swayed that easily. “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

  “You think you have a funny name?” Mrs. Matt
hews tried again. “I have a funny name, too. When I was a little girl, I could never understand why my parents would do that to me.”

  Finally, Dewey smiled at her for the first time all afternoon. “I know, right?” he said, and Mr. Matthews and Auggie both began to relax a bit, too.

  “But then I found out that they loved me very much,” Mrs. Matthews continued. “And they gave me a name that was important to them. Do you know what your name means?”

  Dewey shook his head and looked up expectantly, ready for the story.

  “Every morning, before the sun comes up, the ground is wet,” Mrs. Matthews told him. “And that water is a gift for the flowers and the grass so that they can grow and make the world more beautiful. You were given your name because you make your parents’ world more beautiful. Do you understand me?”

  Dewey nodded, captivated. At long last, it was time for Mrs. Matthews to go in for the big win—and to finally rest her case.

  “And do you know what that water is called that’s there for the grass every morning before you wake up?” she asked the little boy.

  “Yes.” He nodded, the whole thing finally making sense.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Matthews couldn’t wait for his answer.

  “Morning doy.”

  Auggie and Mr. Matthews cringed, and Mrs. Matthews sighed. So there it was. All those questions, all that effort—for nothing.

  “Okay, get outta here, Doy.” Mrs. Matthews finally relented and gave the boy a gentle pat.

  “Yayyy!” Dewey and Auggie squealed, leaping up from the table and racing to Auggie’s room to play.

  Mr. Matthews looked at his wife sympathetically. “He broke you.”

  “Yeah, he did.” Mrs. Matthews frowned, defeated, elbows on the table and fingers drumming her cheek.

  “You know, Topanga,” Mr. Matthews said, puffing out his chest, “one of the things that I’ve learned from being a teacher is that sometimes you just have to let kids live.”

  As they both sat and reflected on that for a moment, the front door opened and Riley and Lucas walked into the apartment.

  “Thank you very much, Lucas,” Riley said in a strained voice. “I had a wonderful time.”