My Forever Friends

by Julie Bowe

  Jenna shakes her head. “I don’t want your allowance. And if you run away from the person you’re fighting with, she wins. If you stay away, nobody wins. Get it?”

  I sigh and shake my head. “Not really. If I got to choose between fighting with someone and being friends with her again, I’d choose being friends. Even if the person I was fighting with was Brooke Morgan.”

  Jenna huffs. “You are fighting with her, remember? And you wouldn’t stop if she said bad things about your family.”

  “What bad things?”

  Jenna looks away. “Just . . . things. Bad things. She deserved to get shoved.”

  “You shoved her?”

  Jenna chews a raisin. “Barely. But she acted like I ran her over with a truck.”

  “Did you tell her you were sorry?”

  “Of course not,” Jenna replies. She crumples her raisin box. “If people say bad things about my family, they don’t deserve an apology. I plan to stay mad at her forever.”

  I nibble a raisin and think about how far away forever is. And how old I’ll be when I get there. Older than my grandma May. Even older than Mrs. Eddy. And how hard it would be to stay mad at someone for that many years. And how much better it would be if people stopped trying to fight forever and started trying to be friends forever instead.

  Jenna tosses her raisin box over my porch railing. “Just forget I said anything about not having enough money for treats, okay? Don’t go blabbing it around. All I need is for Brooke to hear. There’s nothing she likes better than bragging about how much more money she has than everyone else.”

  I give Jenna a frown. “I don’t blab,” I say, throwing down my raisin box. “And I don’t like raisins. I’ve never eaten dead flies, but I don’t think it would be much different.”

  I cross my arms and glare across the street at Mr. Juhl’s front yard. Green grass polka-dotted with yellow dandelions. Like one square in a giant quilt.

  A bee buzzes by. I glance at Jenna. Why do I put up with her? Like Stacey said, she can be hard to take. But if I didn’t take her, who would?

  Jenna shoos the bee away and glances back. “Okay, I’m sorry,” she says. “Don’t be mad at me. I know you’re not a blabber. Things have just been a little . . . messed up lately. At my house. Because of the baby.”

  Jenna picks up my raisin box and fiddles with the lid.

  “Me too,” I say, taking the box from her. “I’m sorry for getting mad.”

  I pop a raisin into my mouth. “Yum,” I say. “What else is on today’s schedule?”

  Jenna reaches inside her backpack and pulls out a clump of embroidery thread. Red. Green. Yellow. Blue.

  “Friendship bracelets,” she says. “I’ll make one for you, and you make one for me. Then we’ll both make one for Randi. All matching. That’ll show them.”

  “Fun,” I reply.

  “Just so you know,” I say to Mom as we pull into the school parking lot on Friday morning. “This is probably going to be a long, boring day.”

  Mom is driving me to school because she volunteered to go along on our class trip. Jenna’s mom was supposed to be one of the chaperones, but because she has to stay home and rest until the baby is born, my mom is substituting for her.

  “It’ll be whatever kind of day you make it be, Ida,” Mom replies.

  I sigh. “You’re not going to say stuff like that to the other kids, are you?”

  Mom does a shocked look. “What? No sage advice? No pep talks? No hilarious jokes?”

  “Nope, nope, and pleeease nope,” I say. “You are only allowed to talk to the other parents. And Mr. Crow. And me, a little. Quietly. Don’t do that big tuba laugh.”

  “Ha!” Mom laughs. She grins. “Like that?”

  “That’s the one,” I say, and slide out of the car.

  I hurry ahead of Mom to my classroom. Everyone is already there. I see Stacey, Brooke, and Meeka gathered around Jolene’s desk, comparing snacks they brought along for the bus ride. I start heading over to them, but then I remember we’re fighting, so I stop. Jenna steps in front of me. She’s my buddy for the day.

  “Here,” she says, holding up a big piece of bright red tagboard that’s bent and stapled into the shape of a wide cone. “I made us sun bonnets like Laura and Mary Ingalls used to wear.”

  Jenna pushes the tagboard bonnet into my hands and puts a matching one on her head. “I’ll be Laura,” she says, tying two strands of yellow yarn under her chin. “You can be Mary. Only not blind Mary. I don’t want to have to lead you around all day.”

  I blink at my bonnet. “Are the other girls wearing them?”

  “Doubt it,” Jenna says, glancing across the room. “If we get lost in the Big Woods the search-and-rescue team will spot us immediately. Too bad for them.”

  “I don’t think the Big Woods are so big anymore,” I say. “Mr. Crow says it’s more like the Big Cornfield now.”

  Jenna takes my bonnet and puts it on my head. “I once heard about a kid who got lost in a cornfield.” She tugs on the yarn and ties a double knot under my chin. “If it hadn’t been for his red baseball cap he would have been a goner.”

  I don’t really want to wear a bright red tagboard bonnet all day. But Jenna seems so excited about them and she hasn’t had a lot to be excited about lately, so I sigh and do a little step turn. “How do I look?” I ask.

  Jenna gives me the once-over. “Noticeable,” she says. “Sensible. Like a real pioneer.” Jenna picks up a third bonnet and looks around the room. “I made one for Randi too.”

  Randi is talking with Rusty and Joey in their friendless circle. Brooke prances up to them and pulls four tiaras out of a bag that’s on her desk. She puts the biggest one on her head and then gives the others to Stacey, Meeka, and Jolene.

  I scratch at the yarn that’s tied around my neck and stare at their four sparkly heads, all huddled together in a circle. Whispering. Glancing. Giggling.

  Jenna marches over to Randi with the extra tagboard bonnet. Randi takes it, folds it, and stuffs it into the back pocket of her jeans.

  Jenna gives Randi a frown. She says something I can’t hear and then turns sharply away.

  The four sparkly heads dart up as Jenna marches past them. They stare as she steps up to me and straightens my bonnet. Then they huddle even closer and giggle even harder.

  Jenna asks me something, but I don’t really hear because my ears are pounding from all that giggling. My heart is pounding too. So hard it hurts my chest.

  Mr. Crow walks in from the hallway wearing a white shirt, blue jeans, and red suspenders. His long hair is braided down his back and a cowboy hat is on his head. He pulls a wooden whistle out of his shirt pocket and blows into it. It sounds just like a train. “Alllll aboard!” he calls.

  Everyone charges toward him.

  Toward us.

  Quinn bumps into me. I bump into Jenna. Jenna bumps into Mr. Crow.

  I hear something crumple.

  “Hey!” Jenna snaps at Quinn. “You dented my bonnet!”

  “It wasn’t me,” Quinn says. He glances behind him. “It was Zaney.”

  “Nu-uh,” Zane says. “It was Dilly Bar.” He pokes his thumb at one of the Dylans.

  “It was all of you idiots!” Jenna shouts. “Thanks for ruining my day!”

  “Jenna,” Mr. Crow says. “Name calling is not on today’s schedule.”

  Jenna ducks her chin.

  “What do you say to the boys?” Mr. Crow asks her.

  “Sorry,” Jenna mumbles.

  Mr. Crow nods and walks down the line, counting heads.

  I swallow my tears, reach up and flatten Jenna’s brim. “It’s rough being a pioneer,” I say to her.

  “Hmph,” Jenna grunts. She crosses her arms and faces forward again. “It’s rougher being me.”

  I glance back toward Stacey, but I notice Quinn watching me.

  Studying me.

  I squint at him from under my bright red brim. “What?” I say.

  “Nothi
ng,” he says back. “It’s just . . . you look like . . . a tulip.”

  I squint harder. “Thanks a lot.” I’m not in the mood for boys today.

  Quinn’s face goes all innocent. “Not in a bad way,” he says.

  “How can it not be bad to look like a tulip?”

  Quinn shrugs. “They’re . . . pretty. And they don’t stink.”

  A little lever drops behind my belly button. Like on a toaster. A moment later my face heats up.

  No boy has ever told me I don’t stink before.

  Especially not one I secretly like.

  I turn away quickly before Quinn can see that my cheeks and my sun bonnet match.

  Mr. Crow blows his train whistle again and waves us down the hallway.

  Four tiaras bounce and sparkle.

  Jenna yanks my arm.

  We’re on our way.

  Chapter 8

  There’s one good thing about being Jenna’s buddy on a class trip. She’s an expert at pushing and shoving her way to the best seat on the bus.

  We tumble into the very back one. Stacey and Brooke are right in front of us. Quinn and Tom are in front of them. Meeka, Jolene, and Randi are across the aisle. Randi is sitting with Rusty, but for now she’s turned around on her knees, facing the rest of us girls. I guess Randi has forgotten that she’s supposed to be fighting with half of them. Or maybe she just doesn’t care. Randi doesn’t like to choose sides, unless it’s for basketball.

  The chaperones get settled in the front seats while Mr. Crow counts heads again. Then he gives the bus driver a thumbs-up.

  The driver closes the door and the bus pulls away from the school.

  Jenna unzips her lunch box and slips out an egg salad sandwich. She peels back the waxed paper it’s wrapped in and takes a bite.

  “You didn’t have to bring a lunch, you know,” I say. “The chaperones are doing a picnic. Hot dogs. Chips. Punch. My mom made a hundred brownies. She said Mr. Crow is even grilling burgers that are made from real buffalos. No lie.”

  Jenna tucks one of her braids behind her bonnet and takes another bite of her sandwich. “This isn’t my lunch,” she says. “It’s my bus snack. And I don’t do buffalo. Or junk food.”

  “Really?” I say, sliding her a look. “That’s interesting, because the last time we went to the mall you ate half of my cheesy pretzel and fifteen of my French fries.”

  Jenna squints, sucking egg salad from her teeth. “You counted the French fries?”

  I nod. “Fifteen. Plus three slurps of my very berry icy.”

  Jenna takes another bite of her sandwich. “Well, it’s not like I bought that junk.”

  “Want some?” I hear someone say.

  I push back my bonnet and see a smile.

  A Stacey smile. Bright and sparkly, just like the tiara on her head.

  She leans over the back of her seat and dances a bag of cheese puffs in front of me.

  “Thanks,” I say, reaching toward the bag.

  Stacey pulls it away. “On one condition,” she says. “You and Jenna have to switch seats with Brooke and me. Okay?” She does the smile bigger.

  My hand freezes. I look at Jenna.

  “No way,” Jenna says, taking another bite of her sandwich.

  I look at Stacey again. “I guess not.”

  The sparkle slips from her smile. She narrows her eyes. “Then I guess not too,” she says, popping a cheese puff into her mouth and plopping down next to Brooke again.

  “I told you it wouldn’t work,” I hear Brooke say. “She’s Jenna’s little puppet now.”

  My face gets red hot again, but for a totally different reason. How could she do her sparkly smile on me?

  “Me, me, me!” Randi shouts, bouncing on her knees and eyeing Stacey’s bag of cheese puffs. She tilts her head back and opens her mouth.

  Stacey shoots.

  She scores.

  Randi claps her hands and barks like a seal.

  Stacey lets another puff fly.

  More barks.

  More puffs.

  They keep it up until the bus driver hollers.

  Randi sits down.

  Jenna rolls her eyes. She winds a piece of dental floss around her fingers and jabs it between her teeth. “Cheese puffs aren’t made with real cheese, you know,” she says loudly. “Look at the package. Real cheese flavor. That’s not the same thing.”

  Brooke snorts and shakes her head. Her tiara tilts.

  Randi barks again and Stacey takes aim with another puff. It’s trickier now that Randi is sitting.

  The puff bounces off her nose and lands in the aisle.

  Rusty leans across Randi, eyeing the puff. “One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand . . .” he counts.

  Quinn snatches up the puff and pops it into his mouth.

  “Ew,” Brooke says, sucking puff dust off her fingers. “Disgusting.”

  Jenna leans forward. “You just ate a gazillion germs!” she shouts past Brooke to Quinn.

  Quinn looks at Jenna and smacks his lips. “Tasty!”

  “Thank you, Florence Nightingale,” Brooke snips, batting at Jenna’s bonnet. “You can go back to your prairie now.”

  Jenna squints to Brooke. “Florence Nightingale wasn’t a pioneer. She was a nurse during the Civil War.”

  “Crimean War, actually,” Tom says, glancing back at Jenna.

  Jenna shoots a look at Tom. “Thank you, Albert Einstein.”

  “Whatever,” Brooke says. “I just don’t think we should be taking medical advice from someone with tagboard tied to her head.”

  Stacey snorts.

  “Besides, Jenna,” Tom adds, twisting all the way around. “Ten-second rule.”

  “Yep,” Randi chimes in. “Quinn got to the puff in three. So no germs.”

  Meeka and Jolene nod.

  Jenna sits back hard and tosses her floss onto the floor. “Idiots,” she grumbles.

  I sit back too and wish I had thought to bring along my own bag of cheese puffs. They would fill up the empty spot in my stomach that got left behind when Stacey took her bag away.

  Jenna pulls out a pencil and a puzzle book and starts rearranging jumbled letters to make words.

  Randi and Rusty huddle over a handheld.

  Meeka and Jolene sing pioneer songs.

  Brooke and Stacey stick yellow Starbursts between their teeth and talk like pirates to Tom and Quinn.

  I watch Stacey’s tiara bounce as she laughs and butt hops with Brooke.

  Did she think I’d actually fall for that smile? She knows me better than that. I’m not stupid. I’m not a puppet. I’m her BFF.

  I look out my window and watch cars and cows and trees zip by. “At least I used to be,” I say.

  “Let’s go over a few rules,” Mr. Crow says when we arrive at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum.

  Jenna sits up. She’s a big fan of rules.

  “No pushing, no shoving, no shouting.” Mr. Crow counts off on his fingers.

  “Same old, same old,” Brooke mumbles.

  “Buddies stick together,” he continues, “in the museum and on our walk to Lake Pepin afterward.”

  Jenna grabs my hand.

  “I don’t think he means glued together,” I whisper, squirming my hand like a little fish caught in a net.

  Jenna squeezes tighter. “Better safe than sorry.”

  The museum is small, so it doesn’t take us very long to look at everything: old farm tools. Furniture. Pioneer clothes. Real sun bonnets made out of cloth, not tagboard. We gather around a glass display case. The museum lady shows us old photographs of Laura and her family. Then she takes out a copy of a letter that Laura wrote to some schoolchildren after she grew up and became a famous author.

  “Major antique,” Tom whispers. “Totally unique.”

  “You said it,” Jenna whispers back.

  I see a smile pass between them.

  “Dear Children,” the museum lady reads from the letter, “I was born in the ‘Little Hous
e in the Big Woods’ of Wisconsin on February 7 in the year 1867. I lived everything that happened in my books. It was a long story, filled with sunshine and shadows . . .”

  Brooke flips open the top on a ring she’s wearing and dabs at the lip gloss inside. She runs her finger over her lips. Then she nudges Stacey and glances at the museum lady. “Borrring,” she whispers, and holds the ring out to Stacey.

  Stacey dabs the gloss.

  I can smell the strawberries from over here.

  “. . . Today our way of living and our schools are much different; so many things have made living and learning easier. But the real things haven’t changed . . .”

  The museum lady pauses and looks at us over the top of her glasses like Mr. Crow does when he wants to make sure we’re all paying attention. Her eyes land on Brooke and stay there until everyone else is looking at Brooke too.

  Stacey gives Brooke a nudge.

  Brooke glances up from whispering to Meeka.

  “Oops,” Brooke says, snapping her ring shut and giving the museum lady a sweet strawberry smile.

  The museum lady clears her throat and starts reading again. “But the real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures and to be cheerful and have courage when things go wrong.”

  She looks right at me when she reads that last part. Have courage when things go wrong. I glance around at the other girls and think about how wrong things have been between us lately. All because Brooke and Jenna are too stubborn to apologize and be friends again.

  Then I look at Stacey. I know I should talk to her. But sometimes it’s hard to do the things you know you should do.

  “That’s all she wrote,” the museum lady says, placing the letter back in the display case.

  “Hurray,” Brooke says, straightening her tiara. She grabs Stacey’s arm and pulls her away.

  “That was hardly boring at all!” Stacey says as we leave the museum and get ready to cross a busy road on our way to Lake Pepin. Mr. Crow put my mom and Jolene’s mom in charge of us girls, which means we have to stay in a group so no one gets run over.

  At first, we try to keep an invisible dividing line between us—me, Jenna, and Randi on one side; Stacey, Brooke, Meeka, and Jolene on the other—but the line gets tangled up in our sandals and sneakers as we tear across the road. Then it seems to disappear completely as we trip and scream-laugh down a steep hill that leads to the lake. By the time we reach the bottom, we’re so jumbled together you can hardly tell we’re fighting at all.