The Best Friend Battle

by Lindsay Eyre

  “I love it!” Miranda said, and I could tell she did.

  “Do you think my dad will call before they come home?” I asked Mrs. Tan.

  “Probably,” Mrs. Tan said unhelpfully.

  Georgie’s present was the last one in the pile. Miranda picked it up and said, “Wow, this is heavy.”

  “Heavy doesn’t mean much,” I said. “A rock could be heavy.”

  “Ooh, I like rocks,” Miranda said as she ripped off the paper. She gasped. I leaned forward, looked at the box, and gasped in exactly the same way.

  Georgie smiled, looking smug. “It’s a microscope,” he explained to everyone. “ ’Cause Miranda likes science.” Then he looked at me. “Remember?”

  “No,” I said, because I had no idea what he was talking about.

  Until, suddenly, I did.

  This was my fault. I had told him that Miranda loved science. Me. Sylvie Scruggs. I’d opened my big fat mouth when Georgie was giving her the goldfish and I told him something he wouldn’t have figured out on his own.

  Miranda looked like she might faint. “I’ve always wanted a microscope!” She began tearing into the box. “Oh my gosh!” she said. “It’s huge! And it’s not just one of those toy things you can buy online.” She began to pull the microscope out.

  A microscope. I had known Miranda wanted a microscope. She’d wanted one for years. But she always told me that real microscopes were too expensive. “Are you sure it’s real?” I said.

  Even as I said it, I knew it was real. It was big and black, with lots of knobs and dials and things poking out everywhere.

  “It was my abuelo’s,” Georgie said with a shrug. “My abuela said we don’t use it anymore, so Miranda could have it.”

  “That’s very generous of your grandmother,” Mrs. Tan said, and Georgie looked smug all over again, as if it was really generous of him.

  I glanced up at Miranda’s garage, where my castle lay waiting. What was I thinking? A homemade present! Nail polish was better. Candles were better. Blobs of wax would have been better.

  “I guess it’s time to go home,” I said, pretending to be cheerful. “Sure was a great party!”

  “But what about your present?” Josh said, and before I could stop him, he was running up to the garage and pulling my wagon down the driveway.

  Mrs. Tan held out her arms to take the microscope from Miranda, but Miranda didn’t let go. The phone began to ring inside the house. “I’d better get that,” Mrs. Tan said, and she hurried away.

  “Maybe we should all go,” I said loudly. I could just imagine what Georgie would say when he saw my present. “A castle made of blocks?” Everyone would laugh at such a babyish gift.

  “Here,” Josh said, giving the handle of the wagon to Miranda. He pulled something black off his shoulder and tried to hand it to me. “This was in the wagon too.”

  I did not take the thing in his hand. I just stared at it, not moving. It was my mom’s hospital bag. I looked at the wagon. The blanket was crooked, and the silver bows I’d placed so carefully on top were gone.

  A gurgling noise came from somewhere below. I looked around my feet. I looked at the driveway. I looked at Georgie’s stomach. The gurgling noise came again, louder this time.

  I looked at the wagon.

  “Albert would love to play in a castle,” Tate had said.

  “We left the bag in the garage,” Cale had said.

  “It’s a surprise,” Tate had said.

  “Oh no,” I whispered. They hadn’t left the bag in our garage — they’d left it in Miranda’s garage!

  The microscope was on the ground. Miranda was standing up. She stretched her free hand toward the castle. “What was that noise?” she said as she yanked off the blanket.

  “Wait!” I shouted. “Stop!”

  But it was too late. There sat my sparkly, beautiful castle.

  And there was Albert, sitting right in the middle of it.

  “Dave!” Georgie shouted as Albert leaped out of the castle and scampered across the driveway. Georgie took off after him. Josh ran after Georgie. All three hurried across the lawn, heading for the backyard.

  I wanted to chase after them, to help capture Albert, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Miranda. Her body was bent toward the castle, probably examining it for a secret ferret entrance.

  “How did Dave get in here?” she said to the castle.

  “Yeah,” Savannah said, looking right at me. “I thought Dave was missing.”

  “Since yesterday,” Rita said. “Georgie told me.”

  Miranda looked perplexedous. “I don’t think he was in my garage — and I don’t think he could have climbed the castle walls on his own.” She turned to me. “Did you put him in there?”

  I shook my head.

  Anna was standing right next to Miranda. “I bet she stole him,” Anna whispered. “So she could put him in your castle.”

  “I could totally see Sylvie doing that,” Jasmine said, not even bothering to whisper. “That’s why I never invite her over to my house.”

  Miranda frowned and looked at the castle again. “No,” she said. “Sylvie doesn’t steal things. And she helped Georgie look for Dave yesterday.”

  Everyone turned toward me then, expecting an explanation. I opened my mouth. Then shut it. My face was hot. My mouth was dry. My tongue felt too fat to speak. I shook my head. Then I nodded.

  “She’s about to cry,” someone whispered.

  “Sylvie?” Miranda said.

  I turned to her and only her. “It was an accident,” I said. “I didn’t mean to take him. I tried to put him back.”

  “You took him?” Miranda said. “How?”

  “She means she stole him,” Anna whispered in Miranda’s ear.

  “He was safe the whole time,” I said, my voice getting louder. “He was in the twins’ closet, and it wasn’t that long. Just overnight. I took really good care of him.”

  “You can go to jail for stealing things,” Anna said. “Georgie could call the police.”

  Miranda was in the middle of those girls now, right in the center of their circle. “I don’t understand, Sylvie. Did you find him outside?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Did you sneak into his house?” Jasmine said.

  “Did you break in in the middle of the night?” Rita said.

  “Look,” Jasmine whispered. “She’s really crying now.”

  “Sylvie?” Miranda said, looking so sad and worried. Like I had broken her heart. “Did you steal Dave?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I did. I stole him, okay? He was in Georgie’s room, and I climbed inside and I took him! Because I’m a bad person. A horrible, bad person who can’t be your best friend!”

  “Sylvie!” Mrs. Tan said. She was standing next to me, her arms crossed tight.

  My parents’ car turned onto our street at that exact moment. It was heading our way, so I took off across the Tans’ lawn, across the street, running as fast and as hard as I could, my ankle hurting the whole way.

  I tried to escape up to my room without talking to anyone, but my mom took one look at my face as I raced past her in the garage and said, “Sylvie!”

  And my dad said, “Is she crying, Claire? I think she’s crying.”

  Then they followed me into the house and into the hall.

  “Honey, I’m fine,” my mom said. “It was a false alarm.”

  “The baby’s fine too,” my dad said.

  “There’s no reason to be sad,” they both said.

  This made me feel even worse because I hadn’t been worried about Mom or the baby. I’d just been worried about myself. My dumb, stupid self.

  Because I was the worst person in the world.

  I told my parents this, but they didn’t believe me, so I told them everything. About spying on Georgie and sneaking into his room and taking Albert and not giving him back and hiding him in the boys’ closet and trying to sneak him over to Georgie’s in the middle of the night.

 
; My parents were very quiet while I talked and for many seconds after. “I think we should call Mr. Diaz and Mrs. Tan and explain what happened,” my dad said. “It doesn’t sound to me like you intended to do anything wrong, honey.”

  “No, you didn’t,” my mom said, agreeing but not agreeing, because then she said, “But you let yourself get deeper and deeper in trouble when you should have told the truth to begin with. You’ll have to apologize. To Georgie and his family.”

  “Mom!” I cried. “I can’t do that! Not to Georgie — I can’t talk to Georgie!” First he would yell at me, then he would laugh at me, and then he and Miranda would hang out for the rest of the summer and talk about how much they hated me. The liar, the ferret-stealer, Sylvie Scruggs.

  Then my mom told me I had to, and I said I couldn’t, and she said I had to, and I said I couldn’t, and then she said this wasn’t going anywhere, so I said, “All right, fine! Make me do it!” And I sent myself to my room for the rest of my life.

  But my room didn’t make me feel any better. Everywhere I looked I saw signs of Miranda. Books we’d read together. Dragons we had drawn together. Barbies we had painted like tigers and cheetahs and leopards together.

  When the doorbell rang, I didn’t run to the window to see who it was. I just fell on my bed face-first and tried to melt, like a coconut-flavored Popsicle nobody would eat.

  There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned my head. Cale’s face was right beside mine. “Are you okay?” he said. “You look really sad.”

  “You look like a squirrel,” Tate said.

  I sat up to tell them to go away and leave me alone, but I stopped. I couldn’t even get mad at my brothers anymore.

  “Oh no!” Cale whispered. “Something’s really wrong. She can’t even talk — give her a hug, Tate.”

  “No,” Tate whispered. “She’ll get boogers on my shirt.”

  “Well, I’m going to hug her,” Cale said.

  “No, I am,” Tate said, and he hugged me so fast he almost missed.

  Cale hugged me longer. He patted me on the shoulder as I sniffed and sniffed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They finally caught Albert, and he’s fine. Except Georgie said his name was really Dave Thomas, founder of McDonald’s, and then he said, ‘Did Sylvie really take my ferret?’ And we said, ‘Yes,’ and Georgie said, ‘How?’ But we didn’t know. Then Dad came and got us.”

  My dad appeared at the door. “There you are, Cale! Your mom would like you and Tate and Sylvie to clean up the ferret mess in your closet — it’s not smelling too good. And Sylvie, she says you have one more hour to apologize before I have to take you over there myself. We’ve explained to Mrs. Tan and Mr. Diaz what happened. All you need to do is say you’re sorry.”

  I let out a sob.

  “And also, sweetheart, Miranda is here. She’s waiting downstairs.”

  “No!” I said so fast that Cale jumped away in surprise. “I can’t see her, Dad. Tell her I’m sick. Tell her I’m —”

  Miranda appeared behind my dad. He turned and smiled like he was glad she was coming over to tell me good-bye forever. “You can tell her whatever you want now, Sylvie.” He winked. “Come on, boys. Let’s leave them alone.”

  Dads should never wink.

  Miranda walked into the room. “They’re making you apologize to Georgie, huh?”

  I didn’t say anything. I just walked over to my window and looked out at our big maple tree standing a few feet away. Maybe I could jump to the nearest branch and make my escape before Miranda said “I never want to be your best friend ever again for the rest of my life.”

  “Thanks for my castle,” Miranda said. “It’ll be the perfect laboratory. I’ve already thrown away my old one.”

  “Oh,” I said, still looking out the window.

  She took a few steps closer. “Are you still sad?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m just not feeling good.” If she thought I was sick, maybe she’d go away, and I’d never have to hear her say those words, though I would know why she never called and why she wouldn’t walk to school with me and why I didn’t have any friends.

  “You look okay to me,” she said. “Except your eyes are kind of red. And your cheeks are all splotchy. But I don’t think you have malaria or spotted fever.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said when I didn’t say anything else.

  “Missed me?” I said.

  “You’re being really dumb,” she said.

  My chin dropped. Miranda didn’t say things like that. She never called me dumb; she was always nice.

  “You are,” she insisted. “Are you mad at me?”

  “Mad at you?” I said. “I’m not mad at you! You’re mad at me!”

  “No, I’m not,” Miranda said, without even blinking.

  “But —” I tried to think of all the reasons why she didn’t want to be my friend. “I stole Georgie’s ferret, and I didn’t tell anyone where he was. And I pretended to look for him.”

  Miranda tilted her head like she was waiting for more.

  “And Georgie gave you a microscope, and I just gave you a castle made from blocks. Plus I ruined your birthday party!”

  Miranda laughed then. Right at me. “You didn’t ruin my birthday party. You know I always expect the unexpected. And my mom told me what happened at Georgie’s. I know you didn’t mean to steal Dave.”

  I stopped snuffling.

  “What you did was pretty dumb,” Miranda said. “But I do dumb things too — remember when I started our kitchen on fire when we toasted those earthworms?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “That was kind of dumb.”

  “And you told me not to,” she said. “You thought it might blow the toaster up. And then there was that time we were practicing pitching and I threw the baseball right at your eye socket and it made you so sick you threw up on my bed. Remember that?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “That hurt. And was gross.”

  “And remember that rope swing? The one down in the gully, by the park?”

  “Of course,” I said, because that happened only a few months ago. “I told you that rope swing looked rotten, but you swung on it anyway because you wanted to measure wind patterns. Then you fell into the gully and got poison oak.”

  “See!” she said. “We’ve done lots of stupid things together.” She paused and tilted her head, her thinking pose. “We should make a list of every dumb thing we’ve ever done together. We could record the dates and write down the facts, like where we were and what we damaged. We could draw pictures of what happened since we don’t have photos.”

  I was pretty sure I didn’t want to write anything about stealing Albert and ruining Miranda’s birthday party. I was pretty sure I wanted to forget what had happened. Forever. But I nodded and smiled, because we had done stupid things together. Lots of them. We were kind of twins that way.

  Miranda headed for the door. “You’d better go apologize,” she said. “Before your mom gets too mad.”

  “But wait,” I said. She stopped and I looked her right in the face. “You still want to be my friend? Really, really, really?”

  “Really,” Miranda said. “You’re my best friend, and my mom said you can come over later tonight for dinner and we can play castle after.”

  Everything inside me went all light and fuzzy, because Miranda had said it. She’d said the words out loud. She was still my friend. My best friend.

  But I still had to apologize. “I want to come over tonight, but will you come with me to Georgie’s now? Please?” Georgie might be nicer to me if Miranda was there.

  “I can’t,” Miranda said. “I have to go to my aunt’s house for tea. Why?”

  “Because Georgie’s your friend,” I said. “I don’t want to go over there by myself.”

  But Miranda already had one foot out the door. “He’s your friend too,” she said, and then she was gone.

  Georgie’s humongous dad answered the door.

  “Hel
lo,” he said, like he’d been expecting me. “Sylvie, right? Please, come in.”

  I did not come in. I opened my mouth and waited for the words I’d practiced in my bedroom to come out: “I’m so sorry that I took Georgie’s ferret. I didn’t plan on doing it, but I know that doesn’t make it okay. I hope you can forgive me.”

  “Are you okay?” Georgie’s dad said when no words came out.

  I nodded. Then I shook my head.

  “Your mother called and said you would be coming over to apologize.” Georgie’s dad seemed to be smiling, but it was hard to tell on his huge, wrinkly face. He backed away from the door, giving me room to get by. “Georgie’s in his room. Go ahead and go in.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I dashed by, heading straight for Georgie’s room.

  “Hey, Scruggs,” Georgie said when he saw me at the door. To my ginormous surprise, Georgie’s room was clean today, and he was sitting on his bed reading a book. Albert and the white ferret, the one I’d named Elizabeth, were lying beside him, wrapped up together like a ferret doughnut. They were both asleep.

  “I’m sorry for taking Dave,” I said.

  Georgie put his book down. “This is Roosterfish,” he said, pointing to the white ferret. “But we call her Rooster. She’s the most glad he’s back.” He looked straight at my face. “So how did you do it?”

  I looked at the clean carpet and realized for the first time that it was blue. “I’m sorry” was all I said.

  Georgie stood up and came closer. “My dad said you came in through the window, but how, exactly? The windows are pretty high and my grandma always locks them. Did you use a credit card to break it open? I tried a credit card in a door once, but it snapped in half.”

  “Credit cards only work on little doors,” I explained, because I had once done a credit-card-opening experiment too.

  Then I told him exactly how I got in his room, and he told me all the ways he’d tried to break in to his house just for fun. Or in case there was a fire and he had to rescue his grandma. Or his ferrets.