Twice As Nice

by Lin Oliver

  “Sara,” I said, taking both her hands in mine. “I hope you’ll forgive me. I’m going to work really hard to deserve your friendship.”

  “I’ll try, Charlie.”

  When Sammie and I came back to the table, Bethany’s dad was pacing up and down the deck, holding his cell phone to his ear.

  “Well, can you please tell her it’s urgent that we speak,” he barked into the phone. “I don’t care if she’s in the middle of a blow dry.”

  “What are you doing, Daddy?” Bethany asked.

  He didn’t answer, just spoke into the phone.

  “Hello, Carol Ann,” he said. “The party’s off. I’m canceling it.”

  “No, Daddy! You can’t do that!” Bethany shouted, jumping up and stomping her foot. “We have hats and party favors and everything.”

  “I can and I have,” he said to her. “If I were you, I’d spend more time figuring out where you’re going to complete high school than thinking about party favors.”

  “Wow, this is intense,” Lauren said.

  Her dad, Chip, stood up and headed for the gate. “First the stock market takes a hit, then this,” he said. “What a week. Come on, Lauren. You’re going to have to get re-acquainted with the inside of your room.”

  Suddenly, Lauren whirled around and shook her finger at me.

  “This is all your stupid fault!” she yelled. “I wish we had never invited your into our club in the first place. We never really wanted you, anyway. We just used you so we could get the charter. I should have known you’d rat us out again. You are so out of our group. Forever.”

  I couldn’t even begin to get a word out to answer her back. But Sammie could.

  “Is this the best you can do, Lauren?” she yelled. “Blame other people for what you’ve done. Well I have an idea. Why don’t you stop blaming everyone else and take a hard look at yourself for a change?”

  “I do look at myself,” Lauren shouted back. “And I look great. A whole lot better than you two losers.”

  Lauren got up to leave, but Sammie followed her to the gate. She was on fire!

  “My sister is way too good for you!” she said. “You will never be half the person she is. So just go home and enjoy your stay in your room. I’d say see you around school, but it sounds like you may be leaving Beachside prematurely.”

  Lauren turned and stomped out of the club, her father following behind her.

  “The girl’s got her mother’s temper,” was all he said as he left.

  Sammie came back to the table and flopped down in a chair. She was practically shaking all over.

  “Thanks for saying that, Sams. I didn’t deserve it.”

  “Yes, you do. You messed up big-time. But I know your heart’s in the right place. Sara knows that, too.”

  “And I’m going to prove it to her.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “Just wait and see.”

  “GoGo,” I said. “Do you still have all the kebabs?”

  “Of course. They’ve been marinating since last night. I’m afraid we’re going to be eating kebabs until they come out of our ears.”

  “And the mini quiches, too?”

  “I’ll have to freeze them, I guess. They won’t be as good, but at least I won’t waste my good cooking on that awful girl and her friends.”

  “If it’s okay with you, GoGo,” I said, “I have another plan for that food. Wait right here.”

  I ran to my room and called Spencer. I felt I owed him an explanation for bolting last night. But I didn’t have to explain anything because he knew all about what had happened. Apparently, everyone did. News like that spreads fast.

  “What are you doing now?” I asked him.

  “Waiting to see what you’re doing,” he answered in a typical Spencer way.

  “Can you come over? I have a project I need help on.”

  “Sure, I’ll come. But you should call Lily, too. She’s been texting me all morning to see if you’re okay.”

  “You mean she still wants to talk to me?”

  “Call her and find out,” he said.

  I was really nervous when I called Lily. I like her so much, and I really didn’t want to lose her friendship.

  “Oh, Charlie,” she said, a whole big gush of words falling out of her mouth at once. “I’m so sorry about everything that happened. How are you? And how is Sara? Does she feel awful? What can we do to make it up to her?”

  “Did you say we?” I asked her.

  “Of course.”

  “You mean you’re still going to talk to me, even after I ratted out Lauren?”

  “I’m done with Lauren,” she said.

  “Jillian and Brooke, too?”

  “That’s up to them,” Lily told me. “They always do what Lauren says, anyway, so if they want to stay with her, fine. But I see a lot of great things for you and me in the future.”

  “Can the future start right now?” I asked her. “As in . . . can you come over at three thirty today? Oh, and can you bring all the hats for Bethany’s party?”

  “I hear the party’s off.”

  “It is. I mean it was. I mean it is. You’ll see. Just come over and bring the hats, okay?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Next I went to Sammie, who was getting ready to go over to Sara’s house.

  “You have to do something really important for me,” I told her. “Can you get Sara back here at four o’clock?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have to start being her friend,” I said. “And four o’clock seems like a good time to do that.”

  “You’re really not going to tell me what this is about?”

  “You’ll know at four o’clock,” I told her. “Oh, and tell Sara to wear the pirate scarf and earrings. I think it looked great on her.”

  When Spencer arrived, he and I put together a big list of telephone numbers and divided up making the calls. I called Alicia and her parents, Will Lee and Etta, Ryan who was still at Winston Chin’s. Spencer called Ben Feldman and Bernard and these kids named Devon and Keisha who are in Truth Tellers, too.

  If you’re wondering why we were making these calls, then you haven’t really been paying close attention. Put the clues together, my friend. The party food, the party hats, a guest list that included all of Sara’s friends. That’s right, you guessed it. I was transforming Bethany’s party into a big celebration for Sara. After what she had been through, the girl deserved a parade in her honor.

  Spencer and GoGo and I cooked all afternoon. Esperanza and Candido insisted on coming over to help us. We had kebabs and quiche coming out of our ears! My dad said he was proud of me and lighted tiki torches on the beach. Sean and Jared were there working, and he asked them to sweep the deck and set up all the chairs and tables. I don’t think I need to tell you that they had plenty of attitude about that!

  At one point in the afternoon, Lauren dropped by to visit them. Personally, I think they had told her that there were big plans going on. She hung around and tried to check things out, without ever talking to me. But I didn’t have any interest in talking to her, either, so finally she stomped off, saying in a really loud voice that she had better things to do.

  You know what? I don’t think she had anything to do at all.

  I had all the guests arrive at 3:30 p.m. Lily came with a carload of hats and we laid them all out along the table. They looked amazing. There were turbans and hard hats, straw hats and baseball caps, Girl Scout beanies and black velvet hats with lace, all decorated with Lily’s unique touch. Of course, Ryan picked the hard hat with the pink velvet bows. So typical. And speaking of typical, little Will Lee picked the tallest cowboy hat you’ve ever seen. It must have added six inches to his height.

  “I know you older women like tall men,” he said, giving me an actual w
ink.

  Honestly, Will. Get a hold of yourself.

  I wore the red-jeweled turban, and Spencer looked pretty cute in a vintage Yankees baseball cap. As each guest came in, I told them to pick out a hat to wear. When almost everyone was there, my dad left to go pick up Sammie and Sara. By four o’clock, all the food was set out beautifully on the tables, the torches were lit, and the guests were all decked out in their fancy fabulous hats.

  All that remained was to organize the group for Sara’s arrival. I asked Spencer if he would help me get everyone’s attention. He jumped up onto a chair, put two fingers in his mouth, and let out a shrill whistle.

  “Listen up, you guys,” he hollered. “Charlie’s going to explain what’s about to happen.”

  He pulled me up onto the chair with him.

  “Okay, everyone,” I said. “We’re going to have to be very quiet until Sara gets here. I’ll give you a signal when I hear the car pull up. Then I’ll count to three and when Sara comes in, everyone throw your hats in the air and shout HATS OFF TO SARA!”

  “Nicely done,” Spencer said, jumping off the chair and helping me get down, too.

  “You had a rough week, Charlie,” he said.

  Then he put his hand on my face and leaned in to kiss me. It wasn’t a huge kiss, but it wasn’t a little one, either. It was a perfect, medium-size kiss. I would have liked it to go on longer, but we were interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up in the parking lot.

  “Okay, she’s here,” I whispered to the crowd. “Everybody ready?”

  We waited in silence, and within a minute, the gate opened, and Sammie came in followed by Sara.

  “One . . . two . . . three . . . ,” I yelled.

  “HATS OFF TO SARA!” the whole group screamed at once. We tossed all our wild, crazy, colorful hats in the air and broke into huge applause. It was an amazing sight.

  Sara put her hands up to her face and looked around. We were all cheering and shouting and throwing our hats.

  You’re not going to believe what she did. Reaching up to her head, she pulled off the scarf. Her hair was tucked on top of her head, and you could plainly see all of her—including her ears. But mostly what you saw was her smile, big and glowing.

  As she stood there in front of us, I felt proud to be her friend. She was happy. She was beautiful. And we loved her just the way she was.

  I watched everyone gather around Sara. I was overcome with emotions of all kinds and I burst into tears—tears of happiness and tears of sadness. Sadness about what I had done, happiness about what I had learned.

  As Sara circulated among all the kids there, Sammie found me and came over to talk.

  “It was really nice of you to throw this party for Sara,” Sammie told me

  “I have a lot to make up for,” I said. “I made some bad choices . . . about Sara and about you, Sams.”

  “Yeah, I believe you owe me a dinner,” Sammie said.

  “Tomorrow night,” I smiled. “Sausage and mushroom pizza at Barone’s. Just you and me.”

  “You better not cancel this time.”

  “No way,” I said. “I learned my lesson. There’s no one more important than you, Sammie.”

  A loud hoot went up from somewhere in the crowd. We looked over and saw that a little crowd had formed around Ryan, who was doing some of his signature power moves on the deck. He’s got this robot thing that he thinks is really cool, although Sammie and I think he looks like a sick chicken when he does it. No one cared, though. In fact, dancing right there with him was Etta, who looked like an even bigger, sicker chicken than Ryan. Everyone was gathered around them, clapping and cheering and having a great time. Ryan threw his arms around Etta and gave her a giant robotic twirl.

  “You’re kidding me,” Sammie said. “Ryan and Etta?”

  “Why not?” I said. “She’s pretty cool.”

  “Listen to you,” Sammie said. “Suddenly you’re a big fan of my so-called weird friends. I never thought that would happen.”

  “I’ve learned a lot in the last few days,” I said. “And I’m sorry I misjudged your friends. They’re great.”

  “So, Charlie, does that mean you’re going to become a Truth Teller? Come to our meetings and events and stuff?”

  I hesitated.

  “Well, maybe not all the time,” I answered.

  “It’s the humming, isn’t it?” Sammie said.

  “It doesn’t help. And neither does having to deal with Will Lee and his sexy sixth-grade moves.”

  We both burst out laughing. Whoa, that felt good.

  “So does this mean we’re friends again?” I asked, when we were all laughed out.

  “Oh, better than friends, Charlie. We’re sisters. Forever and ever.”

  Automatically, we both reached up and did three taps on the chest, right over our hearts. It’s our secret love sign. GoGo says we’ve been doing it since we were in the crib together.

  We threw our arms around each other and hugged until I thought our arms were going to fall off.

  “Hey, I want in on that,” Lily said, coming over and throwing an arm around both of us.

  “Me too,” Alicia said, joining in.

  “Wait a minute. That’s my hug,” Sara said.

  “Oh no it’s not, it’s mine,” Etta said.

  And before you know it, a whole bunch of us were together in a giant group hug. Sammie’s friends. My friends. All of us. It didn’t matter if you had green hair or a good body or fancy clothes or the right makeup or danced like a sick chicken. There was no judgment, no one to impress.

  We were all simply enjoying being together and being what we were, good friends.

  I double dare you to find anything more wonderful than that.

  Reread your favorite moments with Charlie and Sammie!

  I love my sister. She’s always there for me when I screw up. Of course, I’m there for her, too, but she doesn’t screw up nearly as often as I do.

  “Hey, didn’t you guys used to be identical?” Ryan said.

  “Almost identical,” we both said at once.

  Charlie and I always dress alike when we play tennis because our dad thinks it’s good strategy. “Makes your opponent think she’s seeing double,” he says.