Three's Company, Mallory!

by Laurie Friedman

  I look at Chloe Jennifer. In third grade, my teacher Mrs. Daily taught us the expression white as a ghost. Now I know exactly what it means.

  Chloe Jennifer looks at herself in the mirror. On one side of her head, there’s a long, blonde, curly pigtail. On the other side of her head, there’s only a little, short pigtail and a big red bow.

  Chloe Jennifer reaches up and puts her hand on the side of her head where her pigtail used to be.

  “I’m so sorry. It was an accident,” I say. I hear the words coming out of my mouth, but the voice saying them doesn’t sound like mine.

  I look at Chloe Jennifer to see if she believes me. But she looks like she’s too shocked to know what she believes. A tear rolls down her cheek.

  My room feels too hot. I don’t know how this happened. I didn’t mean to cut off her pigtail. It was like the scissors had a mind of their own.

  “We have to get your mom,” says Mary Ann. She’s as red as Chloe Jennifer is white. And her voice is loud now. Too loud.

  Everything that comes next is a blur.

  Mom is in my room.

  Chloe Jennifer’s mom is in my room.

  Chloe Jennifer is crying.

  Mary Ann is telling them what happened.

  They all look at Chloe Jennifer to see if she’s OK. Then they all look at me like I’m a criminal.

  I can feel big tears starting in the corners of my eyes.

  I try to tell them that it was Mary Ann’s idea for me to cut Chloe Jennifer’s hair in the first place. I try to explain that I didn’t want to cut her hair and that Mary Ann made me do it.

  But no one seems to be listening.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mom says to Kate and Chloe Jennifer.

  “I think it’s time for us to go home,” says Kate. She helps Chloe Jennifer get her things together. Then she wraps an arm around her daughter. Mom follows them out of my room.

  Now it’s just Mary Ann and me. We’ve been alone in my room hundreds of times, but this time, it feels different.

  I start to say again that I didn’t mean for this to happen, but Mary Ann holds up her hand, stop-sign style. “Mallory, you made a pinky swear that you would show Chloe Jennifer that you like her.”

  “I tried!” I tell her.

  “By cutting off her pigtail?”

  I feel like a stranger is standing in front of me, not my best friend. Mary Ann looks so mad. But I’m mad too. I’m not the only one who did something wrong. This is partly Mary Ann’s fault.

  Everything I’m feeling starts spilling out.

  “I did try! I invited Chloe Jennifer to sleep over. I planned lots of fun stuff for the three of us to do—together—but you were acting like it was your sleepover and you only wanted to do things with her! You were the one who wanted to make up a dance. It was your idea for you and Chloe Jennifer to be cheerleader twins. And it was your idea for me to cut her hair!”

  “I can’t believe you’re blaming me for this!” says Mary Ann. “You didn’t want to invite Chloe Jennifer to our sleepover in the first place.”

  I look at the expression on Mary Ann’s face. A minute ago, she just looked mad. Now she looks scared too. I know she doesn’t want to admit that she had anything to do with what just happened. But she did. She had a lot to do with everything that’s gone wrong, starting on the day Chloe Jennifer came to Wish Pond Road.

  “Ever since Chloe Jennifer moved here, you’ve been acting like she’s your best friend and not me!” I say.

  “I was trying to be extra nice to Chloe Jennifer because you weren’t being nice to her at all,” says Mary Ann.

  “I never meant to be NOT nice,” I say. “But we’re supposed to be best friends!”

  Mary Ann folds her arms across her chest like she’s tired of talking about this. “Mallory, you broke our pinky swear. I can’t be best friends with someone who breaks pinky swears.” She walks to the middle of my room and picks up her sleeping bag.

  As hot as I was before, I’m just as cold now.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  Mary Ann swings her backpack onto her shoulder. “I mean that our friendship is over,” she says.

  I must have heard her wrong.

  We’re lifelong best friends. I open my mouth to tell Mary Ann that our lifelong best friendship can’t be over. But before I can say a word, Mary Ann is gone.

  By Poor Little Mallory McDonald

  Once upon a time, there was a sweet, smart, cute (at least, that’s what people told her) little girl with red hair and freckles who accidentally cut off another girl’s pigtail. She didn’t mean to do it, but she did it, and lots of people were upset about it.

  Her parents were upset. Not only did they have a long talk with her about how disappointed they were in her, but they also told her she was grounded.

  When she asked how long she was grounded for, all they said was that she should not make any plans … FOR A VERY LONG TIME!

  Her brother was upset. His girlfriend said she was scared to come over, because if the little girl with red hair and freckles cut off another girl’s pigtail, there’s no telling what else she might cut off.

  Her brother was angry that his girlfriend wouldn’t come over, so he was hardly speaking to the poor little girl. He hardly spoke to her anyway, but ever since she cut off the girl’s pigtail, he hadn’t said anything to her except that she’s a “whack job.”

  The girl whose pigtail was cut off was upset. When the little girl with red hair and freckles called to say that she was sorry, the other girl said she wasn’t mad—but the little girl with red hair and freckles couldn’t help thinking that she was.

  She thought this for two reasons.

  Reason #1: The other girl was unusually quiet on the phone. She didn’t ask any questions or get excited about things like she usually did.

  Reason #2: She was missing a pigtail. The little girl with red hair and freckles couldn’t help but think that if she was missing a pigtail, she would be mad.

  The other girl’s parents were upset. The little girl with red hair and freckles apologized to them too, but they were even quieter than their daughter, and they never said that they weren’t mad.

  Another person who was upset was the lifelong best friend of the poor little girl with red hair and freckles. It had been almost a week since the little girl with red hair and freckles cut off the other girl’s pigtail, and in that whole time, her best friend hadn’t said one word to her. The last thing her best friend had said was that their friendship was over.

  The little girl had tried several times to talk to her best friend, but her best friend would not listen to anything she tried to say.

  The little girl missed her best friend. And, to be honest, she also missed the girl whose pigtail she’d accidentally cut off. She’d had her doubts about this girl, but the more she’d gotten to know her, the more she liked her. Now that she really thought about it, she knew she’d rather be friends with her than NOT be friends with her.

  And to make matters worse (yes, even worse than they already were), lots of kids at school were also upset about what happened. In the opinion of the poor little girl, these kids shouldn’t have been upset. They weren’t even there when the other girl’s pigtail got cut off.

  But they were at school on the Monday morning after it happened, when the other girl came to school with a new, short haircut.

  The lifelong best friend of the girl with red hair and freckles told everyone that there had been an “incident” and that because of the “incident,” the girl whose pigtail had been cut off had no choice but to cut off the rest of her hair. This made the other girls in the class ask lots more questions, and the answers to those questions made them upset.

  They were upset even though the girl with the new haircut told them it was “no big deal.” She said that she had always wanted to get a short haircut and actually liked the way it looked. But the rest of the kids were still mad at the poor little girl with red hair and freckles.

 
Worst of all, the girl with the new haircut told all the girls in the class that she was having a birthday party this weekend and that everyone was invited.

  The poor little girl with red hair and freckles said that she was grounded, but that maybe her parents would let her go to the party anyway.

  As soon as she said that, some of the girls in the class crossed their arms and rolled their eyes and looked at the poor little girl like she shouldn’t even consider coming to the party.

  This made the little girl sad. But when she looked at the girl with the new, short haircut, she felt even sadder. She had to wonder if …

  A. The other girl really wanted her to come to her party.

  OR

  B. The other girl would be happier if she wasn’t there at all.

  And the more she thought about it, the more she thought that the answer was B.

  This made the little girl feel terribly alone.

  She’s alone today. She’s alone in her room where she’s writing this story.

  And she’s going to be alone tomorrow. Tomorrow, all of her friends will be at the birthday party of the little girl whose pigtail she cut off, but she won’t be there. While her friends are painting pottery and eating cake, she’ll be at home.

  All alone.

  I put down my pad of paper and throw a rock into the wish pond. Whenever something goes wrong, the wish pond is where I come to think about how to fix things.

  I watch the rock sink below the surface of the water. Then I throw another rock.

  I think of all the times Dad has come out to the wish pond and sat and talked to me when I was upset. He usually knows just the right thing to say. And he always tries to help me think of something I can do to make a bad situation better.

  I really wish Dad was here right now.

  But he’s not. I’m not sure he would even know what to say this time. Since I cut off Chloe Jennifer’s pigtail, Mom and Dad have spent a lot of time talking to me about how important it is to take responsibility for my actions. But they haven’t actually told me how to do that.

  Now, it’s just me, and I have to think of a way to make things better on my own.

  I think back to the day of the sleepover.

  Even though Mary Ann was not acting like a good friend, I’m the one who cut off Chloe Jennifer’s pigtail. And even though Chloe Jennifer told me that she’s not mad and that she likes her haircut, I know what I did was wrong. I also know cutting off Chloe Jennifer’s pigtail wasn’t the only thing I did wrong.

  From the minute she moved to Wish Pond Road, I was so worried that she would mess up my friendship with Mary Ann that I didn’t really give her a chance.

  I have to think of a way to show everyone how sorry I am about the way I acted. I have to show Mary Ann that I want us to be best friends again. And I have to show Chloe Jennifer that I want to be friends with her too.

  Think, Mallory.

  I pick up a handful of rocks and start throwing them into the wish pond, one rock at a time. I make a wish that throwing rocks will help me think.

  I close my eyes and make my brain think as hard as it has ever thought.

  And then I, Mallory McDonald, think of an absolutely great plan to make up for what I did.

  I’m not sure I can get the plan to work. But I know I have to try.

  Here’s the problem. There are a lot of parts to my plan, and it won’t work unless I can get every part done. And here’s the other problem: I don’t have much time to do it.

  I look at my watch. Then I pick up my notebook and start making a checklist of all the things I have to do for my plan to work.

  Getting all this done won’t be easy, especially the talking-to-Chloe-Jennifer’s-mom-and-dad part. The only thing I’ve said to them since the day I cut off Chloe Jennifer’s pigtail is how sorry I was that I cut it off. They were still pretty mad then. I don’t blame them. I just hope they’ll listen to what I have to say.

  Tomorrow is Chloe Jennifer’s birthday, and I really want to make it extra special.

  Even though I have a lot to do and not much time to do it, I pick up another rock and close my eyes. I have one more wish to make. I really, really, really want this one to come true.

  I wish my plan will work.

  Now all I have to do is follow my list and set my alarm for tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. Sharp!

  When my alarm goes off, I spring into action. It’s only 6 a.m., but it’s party time!

  Before I even get out of bed, Mom is in my room. She’s still in her nightgown. “Kitchen in five?” she asks.

  I nod. It won’t take me long to get dressed. In fact, it won’t take me any time at all. For today’s party, I’m staying in my pj’s.

  I get out of bed and give Mom a big hug. “Thanks for ungrounding me,” I say. “And for helping me with my plan.”

  Mom wraps an arm around me and gives me a growing-up-isn’t-always-easy look. “I’m glad to see that you’re taking responsibility for your actions,” she says. “And I love your idea! I think Chloe Jennifer and everyone else will like it too.”

  “They’ll be surprised,” I say.

  Mom laughs. “They will definitely be surprised.”

  When I get to the kitchen, Dad is already there. He’s in his robe and slippers. The three of us work together to get everything ready. We set the table, hang decorations, cut fruit, and put everything in bowls and on platters.

  “Time to go,” says Dad when we’re done.

  I look at the clock. It’s 7 a.m. We’re right on schedule.

  “Mallory, you ride with Mom in the van,” says Dad. “I’ll follow in my car.”

  All of a sudden, I feel nervous. “Mom, what if this doesn’t make up for what happened?”

  Mom stops and looks at me. “Mallory, you made a mistake. People make mistakes. What you’re doing is very sweet. I think Chloe Jennifer and your friends will see that you want to do the right thing.” She smiles at me. “I have a feeling everything will work out fine.”

  I hope Mom is right. There’s only one way to find out. I grab the list I made last night. It has the addresses of all the girls in my class on it. I follow Mom and Dad outside.

  It’s time to put my plan into action.

  Our first stop is at Zoe’s house. When we pull up, Mom winks at me. “Go on in,” she says. “Zoe’s mom is expecting you.”

  It feels funny to be knocking on someone’s door so early, but when I do, Zoe’s mom opens it right away and leads the way to Zoe’s room.

  When I get there, I shake Zoe’s shoulder. “Wake up!” I say. When she opens her eyes, she looks confused to see me there.

  “I’m having a surprise birthday breakfast for Chloe Jennifer,” I explain. “It’s like a party before the party. My mom and dad are outside in their cars, and we’re going to pick up all the girls in our class and bring them to my house for breakfast. You’re the first one, and Chloe Jennifer will be the last. That way, everyone will be there to wake up the birthday girl.”

  Zoe blinks like she’s still half-asleep and not really following what I’m saying. “I have to get dressed,” she says.

  “You’re already dressed!” I tell her. “It’s a come-as-you-are party. You can wear your pj’s.”

  Zoe grins like this part of the plan sounds good to her. “Then what are we waiting for?” She slips her feet into her slippers and follows me to the van.

  From there we pick up Brittany, April, Dawn, Pamela, Arielle, Danielle, Emma, and Grace.

  “We just have to make two more stops,” I say once Mom’s van is full.

  I don’t say it out loud to my friends, but I’m nervous about the last two stops.

  When we pull up in front of Mary Ann’s house, I cross my toes inside my fuzzy duck slippers. I really hope this works.

  I knock, and Colleen opens the door. I head straight to Mary Ann’s room. “Wake up,” I whisper to her. I have to whisper it a bunch of times before it works.

  Mary Ann opens her eyes a little, and then sh
e opens them really wide, like she doesn’t know what I’m doing in her room and isn’t sure she likes seeing me here.

  Since Mary Ann still isn’t talking to me, I start explaining right away.

  I tell Mary Ann about my party-before-the-party plan. “I wanted to do something extra-extra-extra nice for Chloe Jennifer,” I say. When I’m done explaining, I recross my toes inside my fuzzy duck slippers. I hope hearing about the party-before-the-party will finally make Mary Ann un-mad at me—at least un-mad enough to go along with my plan.

  When I’m done talking, Mary Ann is quiet. I’m not sure if it’s because she just woke up or because she doesn’t know what to say.

  I look at her like I really mean what I’m about to say next. “I felt terrible about everything that happened.”

  “I feel terrible too,” says Mary Ann. She pauses. Then she adds, “Mallory, we need to talk.”

  I nod and then give Mary Ann a we’ll-have-to-talk-later-because-right-now-we’ve-got-a-surprise-breakfast-party-to-get-to look.

  Mary Ann smiles like she understands everything I’m not saying in a way only a best friend could. I let out a deep breath. I know that smile is Mary Ann’s way of saying that we’re still best friends and always will be.

  I look at the clock by Mary Ann’s bed. It’s almost 8 a.m. “C’mon!” I grab Mary Ann’s arm. “We have to get to Chloe Jennifer’s before she wakes up!”

  Mary Ann slips her feet into her slippers, and we race out of her house. The other girls pile out of Mom’s van and Dad’s car. We all run across the street to Chloe Jennifer’s house. When we get there, Chloe Jennifer’s mom opens the door before we even knock. She has a big smile on her face. “I was expecting you girls,” she says softly.

  We all try not to giggle as we tiptoe back to Chloe Jennifer’s room. When we get there, I push open the door. We all rush in and jump onto her bed.