Morgan abruptly stops jumping and pulls out her phone.
“Our fans are gonna love this!”
She may be happy for me. But she’s beyond thrilled for Morgan & Ella.
Morgan has already changed in and out of three different looks since we got to Morgan & Ella HQ. The first was a no-makeup makeup tribute to the end of summer: #BeachyGirlboss. The second—#GlammyGirlboss—was a more dramatic look that required a different shadow for each of the eight separate parts of the eyelid. Morgan could write a series of books even more epic than the Dragonologist Chronicles about the eight separate parts of the eyelid.
#GirlyGirlboss is the third and final look that lands somewhere in between.
“Minimalist, with a bright lip,” Morgan explains. “It’s, like, a better thematic fit for the song.”
She puckers for the mirror. Now that she’s done primping and perfecting her aesthetic, she’s starting to lose her patience with me.
“Are you ready yet?”
Morgan wants us to record Riley Quick’s new single tonight. It dropped yesterday, and I hadn’t even heard of it until Morgan told me it was the one we were doing. “Pretty Petty Please” is so new that there aren’t reliable ukulele tabs to copy. It was much easier to cover Riley Quick’s songs when she was in her ukulele phase, but now she’s experimenting with weirder electronic stuff. Some critics say she trying too hard to outdo her nemesis Kaytee K., and as I struggle to translate these bizarre bleep-blorps into chords, I kind of have to agree.
“Almost,” I say.
I’m close to having it worked out, but I’ll need to listen again to make sure. I put on headphones, press play on the laptop, and turn up the volume to drown out the sound of Morgan’s exasperated sighs. “Pretty Petty Please” has gotten thirty million views in less than twenty-four hours, and I’m pretty sure I’m responsible for at least half of them at this point. I remind myself that there was once a time in Riley Quick’s career when ten thousand followers was a big deal for her too.
The door to Morgan & Ella HQ bursts open. It’s Maddy in zero-chill mode.
“Omigoddess!” she gushes. “Lemme see! Lemme see! Lemme see!”
I hold up my nails, and Maddy almost faints.
“Hashtag Riley Quick Hashtag Ukulele Life Hashtag Asymmetrical Hashtag Namaste Hashtag Mani!”
Amy left my calluses alone. The nails on my right hand are still longer than my left, but Amy squared them off and applied a shimmery silver lacquer that resists cracking under pressure. I wish the polish worked on, like, a psychological level. Because I’m not sure I can live up to Morgan & Ella’s expectations right now.
“The socials are going bonkers!” Maddy raves. “You got, like, two hundred twenty-three new followers just from posting pics. You’ll get so many more after you post the video!”
“If we ever get around to posting the video,” Morgan says. “Ella is taking forehhhhhhhhhhhhhver.”
I’ve been at it for about an hour. I think I’ve got the chords and strumming patterns pretty much figured out, but that doesn’t mean I’ve mastered performing it. And I obviously can’t say it out loud, but my #RileyQuick #UkuleleLife #Asymmetrical #Namaste #Mani isn’t making it any easier to play. Amy may have perfected this nail design to keep up with Riley Quick’s brutal tour schedule, but I’m not sure it’s right for me. Not bad, necessarily. Just different. My nails feel … thicker, maybe? Whatever it is, I’m just way too conscious of what’s happening with my fingertips. And that hyperawareness is making it kind of impossible to stop playing notes and start playing music. But I won’t know for sure until I try.
“Okay,” I say, “let’s try to run through it.”
So we do. And I must say that it’s going well until we reach the chorus.
Pretty petty
Please
(Yeah!)
Get down on your
knees
Pretty petty
Please
(Nah!)
Won’t accept your
apologies
Morgan can’t hit the whistle note on “apologies.” After three attempts, her voice is still cracking.
“Ugggggggh!” Morgan growls. “It’s impossible!”
Maddy massages her shoulders, and Morgan shakes her off.
“Riley Quick only hits that note with help from auto-tune.”
I know—and dread—what’s coming next.
“Let’s lower it, Ella.”
Morgan doesn’t play any instruments. So I can’t expect her to understand why this isn’t so simple. It’s way easier to sing in a different, lower key than it is to transpose a whole song for the ukulele right on the spot just because Morgan can’t hit the highest notes on the chorus. Whenever I try to point something like this out to her, she gets mad and reminds me that she has perfect pitch and accuses me of disrespecting vocal music as an art form. But it’s not like I don’t understand the challenges of singing, because I sing too! While I’m playing! And always the lower harmonies even though I’m not an alto! I’ve always been assigned to the soprano section in every choir I’ve ever sung in and could probably hit the “apologies” if only Morgan let me try …
But.
We are our most harmonious when I just do what Morgan says.
“Okay,” I say. “Give me a few minutes …”
“A few minutes!” Morgan huffs. “I’ve already given you forehhhhhhhhver!”
Maddy steps between us and does what she does second best after hashtagging.
“Morgan! Let’s record bonus content while Ella works on the song …”
Morgan smooshes her lips together in an exaggerated pout.
“I’ve been telling Ella all summer that we need to post more often.” Morgan’s mood is already brightening. “I’ll need a totally different look.”
“Totally!”
As Morgan sashays to her walk-in closet, Maddy gives me the quickest little wink, like the two of us are in this together. But she only dares to make such a gesture behind Morgan’s back.
What face does Maddy make when I can’t see her?
It’s the last day of summer before my first day at Mercer Middle School.
Mom is reviewing the back-to-school supplies checklist.
“Backpack? Check. Binders and binder dividers? Check and check.”
I’m only half listening. I’m too busy thinking about following through on tomorrow’s Must-Dos. Until I find my phone, Morgan has reluctantly agreed to deliver these daily instructions the old-skool way: on paper.
“Highlighters? Number two pencils? Pens? Check. Check. Check.”
One advantage to this new system is that I’ll have more time to make sure I’m following her directions just right. Morgan will give me tomorrow’s Must-Dos today, and the day after’s Must-Dos tomorrow, and so on and so on until I find my phone and we can go back to sending and getting them by text.
“Ella!”
Judging by Mom’s volume, I must not have heard her first two attempts at getting my attention.
“Where is your daily planner?” she asks.
Daily planner? Is this Mom’s awkward attempt at a snarky nickname?
“Morgan’s at soccer practice or dance class or the equestrian center,” I answer.
Mom places both hands on her hips.
“I’m referring to the notebook for writing down homework assignments?”
Ohhhh. That daily planner.
“I know I bought you one, because the purple polka-dot planner you had to have cost ten dollars more than the plain black one …”
The purple polka-dot planner is the same brand Riley Quick uses to write her song lyrics, so totally worth the extra ten dollars, but now is definitely not the time to share this information with Mom because the bottom line is this:
I have no idea where it is.
“I swear I haven’t seen it since we left the store …” I say.
Mom throws back her head and laughs, but not in a happy way. It’s a fed-up I-can
’t-believe-this laugh.
“Ella Jane Plaza! How is it possible that you lost your organizer before school even starts?”
I shrug because I honestly don’t know the answer.
“I suppose it’s in the same black hole as your phone, all those library books we had to pay fines on, your gym uniform …”
“Maybe?”
What else can I say?
“Your disorganization is getting expensive, Ella,” Mom says tersely.
My lip quivers, and it gets all fuzzy behind my eyes.
Mom’s face changes too. Softens. She sighs in resignation.
“Here’s ten dollars,” she says, handing me a bill. “You will get on your bike, go to the drugstore, buy the plain black one, and bring back the change …”
“Mom! I don’t have time for this! Morgan and I are …”
“You don’t have time for this?” Mom points at the clock on the microwave. “I’m going to be late to work!”
“So I can hang out with Morgan afterward.”
It’s definitely more of a statement of fact than a question. I’ve watched Morgan do this to get her way, but it doesn’t work for me. Not on Mom anyway.
“Not today, Ella,” Mom says. “You need to spend this day getting focused. Getting your priorities in order.”
“But, Moooooom!” I protest. “Getting my priorities in order is the whole point of hanging out with Morgan today!”
Mom pinches the air in front of her lips. The zip-it gesture means just that.
“We’re done here,” she says.
She reminds me about the cold cuts I can have for lunch and the frozen burrito and salad I can have for dinner. She reminds me to lock the door behind me and not to open it up for anyone. She reminds me of the neighbors I can go to in case of an emergency. She reminds me that she will be home by seven p.m. She reminds me that when she gets her degree, she should have better job security and more flexibility. She reminds me that she loves me.
Then I watch her go.
Morgan won’t like this turn of events. As much as I dread telling her, I know she’ll be madder at me if I wait too long to deliver the bad news. I pick up the landline and suddenly realize I don’t know what digits to dial. I have no idea what Morgan’s phone number is and even less of a clue of how I’d go about getting it.
Now, this is a disaster.
Aside from my mom’s and Lauren’s, there’s only one phone number I know by heart. I must have dialed it a millionbilliontrillion times between kindergarten and sixth grade, and I bet it still works now. She’s probably the last girl in our grade without her own cell phone. Her parents are even more overprotective than Mom and there are two of them.
I bet your mom would let me come over today, says The Best Friend in My Head. Just like we used to spend every last day of summer together.
I ignore her, trying not to panic. There has to be a solution to this problem … I just have to figure out what it is …
Izzy!
I yank open the kitchen drawer closest to the phone, and because there’s a place for everything and everything in its place … I find it! Mom’s notepad full of phone numbers and addresses. I often make fun of Mom for not trusting technology, but I’m so grateful for her old fogy ways right now. I find Izzy’s info under I because I didn’t know her last name when Mom asked for it. As I dial the digits, I hope Izzy actually picks up the unrecognized number, because I’m pretty sure Mom has only called her from her own cell phone.
“Hello?”
I’m flooded with relief. “Izzy! It’s me! Ella!”
“Ella! Morgan has been asking about you all morning …”
I wince at the thought of how losing my phone and my notebook has made Izzy’s morning more complicated than necessary.
“That’s why I’m calling. Could you put Morgan on the phone?”
After a few seconds of muffled voices, Morgan is on the line.
“Ummm, who is this?”
I’m 99.9 percent sure Izzy wouldn’t have passed the phone to Morgan without telling her who was calling. And I’m 101 percent sure Morgan wouldn’t have picked up otherwise. But this is the kind of harmless drama making that’s easier to just go along with than resist.
“It’s me,” I say. “Ella.”
“Ella! Omigoddess! What number is this? Did you get a new phone? Wait! If you’ve got a new phone why didn’t you just text me?”
“I didn’t get a new phone,” I say. “This is my landline.”
“Your landline!” Morgan cracks up. “People still have those?”
“We do,” I say. “For emergencies.”
“This is an emergency?”
She sounds more excited than scared.
“Well”—I hesitate—“sort of …”
And that’s enough to get Morgan’s drama-making imagination going.
“Omigoddess! Did you get a zit? Did you get bangs even though I told you not to? Did you overpluck your eyebrows?” She pauses only to catch her breath. “Did you chip your manicure?”
“No, no, no!” I check my hands just to make sure. “And the manicure is still flawless!”
Morgan heaves a heavy sigh of relief. “Then what’s the emergency?”
“I can’t hang out today.”
“Whhhhhhhhhhhattt?” Morgan wails. “But! The! Must! Dos!”
“I know! My mom says I have to stay home and get my priorities in order.”
“Duhhhhhh! The Must-Dos are all about getting your priorities in order!”
“That’s what I said! But my mom doesn’t see it the same way.”
“Your mom is so unfair!” Morgan says. “She’s not even thinking about how this is affecting me!”
Morgan only settles down when I agree to review her Must-Dos one by one, a process that would be so much easier if I hadn’t lost my phone. You can’t send pics on a landline.
“Okay,” I say. “So let’s start with my hair …”
For the next hour, I describe my hair, makeup, and outfit down to the teensiest detail. Never mind that Morgan already picked out every last millimeter of my #FirstDayLook. At this crucial stage of influence, Morgan & Ella can leave nothing to chance.
“Remember! It’s the peace-sign top with the sequins that I gave you and …”
“I remember!”
At last, she seems satisfied.
“I think we’ll be okay,” she says. “Just make sure to be at the flagpole no later than seven forty-five so we can make our grand entrance together.”
Together. We are in this together. I will not be lost, left out, alone, or loserish. My best friend, Morgan Middleton, won’t allow it.
“Maddy will film everything for the socials.”
Sometimes I get exhausted by all of Morgan’s prep work. But today I’m exhilarated by it. I’m ready to take on Mercer Middle School and the world!
“Hey, by the way, how’s the ‘Pretty Petty Please’ cover doing?” I ask.
I haven’t seen any stats on the video since it went live on Morgan & Ella last night. After working so hard to learn the chords and then relearn them in the lower key, I sure hope our fans are rewarding our efforts with lots and lots of love.
“I took it down,” Morgan says like no biggie. “It just wasn’t connecting.”
I’m stunned. Less than twenty-four hours ago, Morgan was obsessed with posting that video. And she’s already taken it down?
“But it wasn’t even up for a whole day! That’s not enough time …”
“Ummm … I’ve got, like, a gift for knowing what works for us and what doesn’t,” Morgan says. “If it weren’t for my expertise, you’d still be singing in school talent shows with Ickface.”
I flinch when she uses the nickname for The Best Friend in My Head, the girl whose phone number I can’t forget, no matter how hard over the past year I’ve tried. It’s an old, cold roast Morgan hasn’t used all summer, coined in sixth-grade music class because Sophie was just a little too expressive when she sang. D
oes this mean Sophie’s elementary school nickname is back in fiery rotation for middle school? I hope not. But it’s not like I can do anything to stop her if it is.
“I guess so …”
And it’s when Morgan doesn’t insist most definitely so that I realize she’s not even on the line anymore.
Our call has cut out without a goodbye. That’s not uncommon—Morgan is always griping about our town’s poor cell coverage—but it feels personal. I stare at the phone in my hand for a minute or so, trying to make sense of Morgan’s decision to take down the video. When it rings, I immediately press talk, eager for a do-over.
“Morgan!”
“No, Lala!”
“Lolo!”
I don’t know why I’m so surprised to hear my sister’s voice. She’s literally one of only two people who have this number. This is the most action this landline has seen in years. Mom must have told her I lost my phone.
“Are you ready for the first day of middle school?”
It’s just like my sister to get right to it. Lauren hates small talk. College hasn’t changed her too much yet.
“I guess so,” I say. “How do you know if you’re ready?”
“You make plans,” she says. “You get organized. You prepare.”
“I got a manicure.”
“That’s not the same thing,” Lauren says. “How is a manicure going to help you get into college?”
“But it’s, like, a really special manicure,” I try to explain. “The nails are shorter on my right hand and longer on my left for—”
Lauren sighs. “You’re obviously still hanging around that Morgan girl.”
“You’ve only been gone for a few weeks!” I say. “Of course I’m still hanging out with Morgan. She’s my best friend!”
Lauren snorts. She does not like Morgan, but she also doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about her. Not enough to make her Bottom Five, my sister’s ever-changing list of The Worst People in the World.
“Have you heard from our father?”
He’s always referred to as “our father” by Lauren and “your father” by Mom. The space behind my eyes gets all prickly every time they do. Which, thankfully, isn’t all that often. “Our father” battles for the number one spot in Lauren’s Bottom Five with a professional soccer player named Luis Somethingsomething, who she really, really hates for reasons I can’t remember right now.
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