My Best Frenemy

by Julie Bowe

  Jade flips her cell phone shut. She slips it into the front pocket of her jeans. Then she steps out of her room and pulls the door closed behind her.

  She turns to Brooke. “No, ” she says.

  Brooke crosses her arms and scowls as we watch Jade disappear down the stairs.

  “Great,” Brooke grumbles. “She’s in a mood. We better not bug her again until my mom and dad get home. Then she’ll have to be nice to us. ”

  “What should we do until then? ” Meeka asks.

  “What we came here for,” Randi says. “The daremony! ”

  Everyone looks at me.

  “So soon? ” I say.

  Brooke’s mouth curls into a grin. “Randi? ” she says. “Got the potato? ”

  “Check! ” Randi says back.

  “Meeka? Needles? ”

  “Check check! ” Meeka says.

  Brooke nods. “I’ll get the ice. The rest of you clean up the pagoda. We need a completely sterile environment. Five minutes! ”

  Brooke takes off for the stairs. Everyone else heads to Brooke’s room.

  Randi runs to her backpack and digs out a potato. “Here, Ida, ” she says. “Hold this behind your ear so Meeka doesn’t poke your brain out. ”

  Randi tosses the potato to me, but I miss. It bounces on the carpet and rolls to Meeka’s feet. “Time for your pre-op exam, ” she says to me.

  I pick up the potato. “I have to take a quiz? ”

  Meeka pulls me aside while the other girls fuss with the pagoda. “Exam, ” she says, squeezing my right earlobe. “As in examination? ” She squeezes my left earlobe and frowns. “Hmm . . . thicker than I thought. ”

  “Is that . . . bad? ” I ask.

  Meeka steps back and studies my ears for a moment. Then she pulls a pincushion out of her sleep-over bag. It’s tomato-shaped and prickly with pins and needles. “This should do it, ” she says, pulling out the longest needle I’ve ever seen.

  I gulp and look around for Stacey. But she’s with the others, inside the pagoda.

  “I’m back,” Brooke says, running into the room with a cup of ice. She closes the door and leans against it, breathing hard. “Ohmygosh, that was so close! ”

  Everyone peeks out of the pagoda. “What happened? ” Jolene asks.

  “Jade saw me getting ice and was all, ‘No soda upstairs’ and so I had to think super fast and say, ‘It’s not for soda. It’s for Randi. She twisted her ankle in PE.’”

  “Good thinking! ” Stacey says.

  “I know, ” Brooke replies. She looks at Randi. “Be sure to limp if you see Jade. ”

  “Got it, ” Randi says.

  Brooke jiggles her cup and the ice cubes clink inside. “Let the daremony begin! ”

  “What about our dance? ” Jolene says, crawling out of the pagoda. “Meeka and I practiced for hours. ”

  “Fine, ” Brooke says. “Do your dance, but hurry before my ice melts. ”

  Meeka sets the pincushion on Brooke’s desk and grabs her bag. She and Jolene whisper some instructions to Brooke, then disappear into the hallway. The rest of us—me and Stacey, Randi and Jenna—climb onto Brooke’s bed.

  “Ready? ” Brooke asks.

  “Ready! ” we all reply.

  Brooke pops a CD into her player. Creepy music slithers out. The kind you hear during a scary scene in a movie. She shuts off the lights and unplugs the pagoda. It’s totally dark and we can’t help but fake-scream.

  Brooke dives onto the bed. We bounce like crazy and I nearly drop my potato. “Shhh!” Brooke says, crawling out of our tangled arms and legs. “Here they come! ”

  Meeka and Jolene step into the room and close the door. They’re wearing black sweatshirts now, with the hoods up, and holding flashlights under their chins. They blink them off and on so their faces glow like zombies.

  “Spooky! ” Randi says.

  Meeka and Jolene start dancing in a very zombie-ish way and I scoot closer to Stacey because sometimes it feels safer to sit extra-close to your best friend.

  I nudge Stacey’s arm. “Creepy, huh? ”

  “I’ve seen creepier. ”

  I look at Stacey. Only it’s not her. It’s Jenna. “Oh, ” I say. “Sorry. I thought you were Stacey. ”

  “No, it’s just me,” Jenna says. “Stacey bounced over there.” Jenna points to the foot of the bed, where Brooke and Stacey are huddled together, sucking on ice cubes and squealing every time Meeka and Jolene snatch at them with their zombie hands.

  “We should play ghost in the graveyard after this, ” Randi says. She swings her arm like a pendulum. “One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock . . . ”

  “No games until after the daremony, ” Brooke says. She slides off the bed and switches on the lights.

  “Hey, we weren’t finished yet! ” Meeka says.

  “Sorry, ” Brooke replies. “But my ice is having a serious melt-down. We can’t wait any longer. ”

  “I don’t mind waiting, ” I say. “Really. ”

  “Meeka, get your needles,” Brooke says. “Ida, bring the potato. Everyone, into the pagoda. Now!”

  Everyone does what Brooke says.

  Except me.

  I just sit on the bed thinking about how much I don’t want to do this. “Wait,” I say. But no one hears me because they are talking and laughing and crawling over each other to get to the pagoda.

  I drop my potato on the bed and stand up. I plant my feet in the squishy carpet and breathe in as much air as my lungs will hold. “Waaaait! ” I shout as loudly as I can. Which, as it turns out, is pretty loud.

  Everyone freezes.

  “Now what? ” Brooke says.

  “I need . . . I need . . . to go to the bathroom, ” I say.

  Brooke groans and sits back on her heels. “Well, hurry up! ” she says. “I am not getting more ice. If Jade catches me she will start asking questions. ”

  “But, I don’t know where it is,” I say. “The bathroom, I mean. ”

  Brooke groans again and starts to stand. “Downstairs and to the right, ” she says. “I’ll show you. ”

  But I don’t want Brooke to go with me. I want my best friend to.

  I look straight at Stacey. Straight through her. I mouth the word please.

  Stacey does a puzzled look. Then her face goes smooth. She grabs my arm. “Be right back,” she says to Brooke.

  We run out of Brooke’s room, down the stairs, slip into the bathroom, and lock the door.

  It’s a big bathroom, so there’s lots of room for me to pace. Stacey leans against the sink. “What’s going on? ” she asks.

  I glance at her and catch my reflection slipping in and out of the big mirror that hangs behind her. “Um . . . it’s just . . .” I start to say. “It’s not that I don’t want to do it . . . but . . . the thing is . . . ”

  “Ida, what is it? ” Stacey pulls me to a stop.

  I look at the mirror again and see both of us reflected in it side by side.

  I turn and look at the real Stacey. “I—I’m . . . chicken,” I say. “I want to get my ears pierced. Really. But not like this. Not with ice. Not with a potato. Not with Meeka poking the needle. ”

  Tears fill my eyes. They tip over my eyelashes and stream down my face. I don’t try to stop them.

  Crumpling to the floor, I pull my knees up to my chest, wrap my arms around them, and bury my face.

  Then I bawl like the biggest baby in the world.

  Stacey crouches next to me. She puts her arm across my shoulders and lets me cry.

  “It’s okay,” Stacey says. “Don’t worry. I’ll fix it. ”

  Chapter 19

  After I finish crying and splash water on my face and blow my nose three times and let Stacey try to hide my puffy eyelids behind my bangs, we head back to Brooke’s room.

  When we get there, Randi and Jolene are sitting on the bed playing catch with the potato. Brooke is melting an ice cube on her arm. Meeka is sitting just inside the pagoda, cleaning her needles wi
th a wet wipe.

  Brooke looks up. “Finally, ” she says.

  “Yeah, this is getting seriously boring, ” Randi says, tossing me the potato.

  This time I catch it.

  Randi rolls off Brooke’s bed and crawls past Meeka to get inside the pagoda. Jolene follows along. Stacey reaches for the CD player and turns off the music. “Guys, ” she says. “There’s something I need to tell you. ”

  “Now what? ” Brooke asks. She holds the ice cup to her forehead like she’s getting a headache.

  Stacey glances at me, then back at the girls. “Ida doesn’t want to do this dare, ” she says.

  “Of course she doesn’t want to do it,” Brooke says. “That’s the point of a dare. ”

  Stacey crosses her arms. “Then we should think of a new dare,” she says. “Because this one is too mean. ”

  Brooke’s mouth drops open. “Mean? ” She huffs. “We built her a pagoda. Meeka sterilized her needles. I’m donating a pair of my best earrings. ” Brooke takes one of her melting ice cubes out of the cup. “I don’t call that mean. ” She pops the ice into her mouth and crunches.

  I glance at the other girls, but they don’t look back at me. It’s like I’ve shrunk to the size of the potato in my hand. Maybe even smaller.

  This is the size I’ll always be to them, I think to myself, if I don’t do this dare.

  My eyes still sting, but I blink it away and take a breath. The air tastes like lip gloss and gummy bears and sweet pea body spritz. It tastes like fourth grade.

  “Um . . .” I say quietly. “I think I panicked a little. I’m okay now. Let’s do it. ”

  Stacey lifts her eyebrows and looks at me. “Are you sure? ”

  I nod.

  Brooke swallows her ice and smiles.

  Meeka picks up her pincushion.

  I squeeze my potato.

  “Last one in is a rotten egg! ” Randi hollers from inside the pagoda. Jolene scrambles past Meeka. Brooke and Stacey dive for the pagoda, giggling.

  I get in line behind them.

  “Wait! ” someone suddenly shouts from the hallway. “Waaaait! ”

  Meeka looks up from her needles. Brooke and Stacey peek back out. I stop and turn.

  Jenna rushes into the room. I didn’t even know she was gone.

  Brooke crawls back out of the pagoda. “Jenna Drews, ” she snaps. “You can’t make us wait. I’m in charge, not you. ”

  “Not hardly, ” Jenna says. She glances over her shoulder.

  Jade steps into the room.

  She studies the pagoda.

  The cup of ice in Brooke’s hand.

  The pincushion in Meeka’s.

  The potato in mine.

  Then she narrows her eyes. “What are you nut bars doing? ”

  “Uh-oh,” I hear from deep inside the pagoda. “Not good. ”

  Brooke steps past me. “We’re piercing Ida’s ears, ” she says to her sister. “Not that it’s any of your business. ”

  Jade zeroes in on Brooke. “You’re what?”

  Brooke huffs impatiently. “We’re piercing Id—”

  “I heard you, ” Jade cuts in. She studies all of us again. Then she shakes her head and groans. She snatches up Meeka’s pincushion and holds it in front of Brooke’s face. “These are sewing needles, pea brain. ”

  Brooke does a small snort. “Du-uh, ” she says.

  Jade moves in even closer and locks eyes with her sister. “They’re for fixing holes,” she says. “Not piercing ears. ”

  Brooke shrinks back a step. “But I heard Meghan tell you about her cousin. How she pierced her ears for her and—”

  “If you’re going to dip into other people’s conversations, ” Jade interrupts, “then you better keep your pretty little ears tuned in for the whole thing. ”

  Brooke twitches and her ice cubes clink. “W-what do you mean? ”

  “You missed the part about Meghan’s cousin getting a major infection. They had to take her to the emergency room so the doctors could drain the pus.”

  “Eew! ” we all say.

  “Cool, ” slips from the pagoda.

  “She had to have her head wrapped like a mummy for a week, ” Jade continues.

  Brooke shifts a little. “I must have missed that part. ”

  Jade grabs the cup of ice out of Brooke’s hand and plunks the pincushion into it. “No ear piercing, ” Jade says. “Not on my watch. ”

  Jade sweeps past Jenna and down the hall. A moment later we hear her bedroom door slam.

  Brooke just blinks for a minute. Then her eyes slowly shift to Jenna. “You spilled the beans,” she says. Her voice sounds as sharp as Meeka’s needles.

  Jenna doesn’t flinch. She just lifts her chin. “Someone had to. ”

  Brooke doesn’t reply.

  No one does.

  No one even moves. It’s like our feet have frozen to the floor.

  Then I hear a rustling sound.

  A shaggy head pokes out of the pagoda.

  “I’m starved, ” Randi says. “When do we eat? ”

  We don’t dare leave Brooke’s room, so we huddle in the pagoda, eating the grapes Jolene brought, and waiting for Jade to cool down.

  “What about Ida’s dare?” Randi asks, popping a grape into her mouth. “Do we do it or not? ”

  “I vote not, ” I say.

  “But we have to do something, ” Brooke says.

  “Jade took my needles, ” Meeka says. “So it will have to be a substitute dare. ”

  “Maybe something that gets back at Jade,” Randi says. “For spoiling our daremony. ”

  “Jenna is the one who spoiled it, ” Brooke says.

  Randi shrugs. “Then Jenna can do the dare too. Two birds, one stone. Easy cheesy. ”

  “Fine, ” Jenna says.

  “Okay, ” I say. “But afterward, everything goes back to normal and nobody gets left out of the group. Deal? ”

  “Deal, ” everyone says together.

  “Ooo... I’ve got an idea for their dare,” Stacey says. She picks up Randi’s potato and looks at me and Jenna. “You guys have to hide this in Jade’s room! ”

  “But Jade’s in her room,” Jolene says. “They would have to be invisible. ”

  “Plus, they would get seriously murdered,” Meeka adds. “That’s so not healthy. ”

  “Okay, not in her room,” Stacey says. “Just in her shoe or her coat or something. ”

  Everyone agrees. Not because it’s the best triple-dog dare ever, but because sometimes you just have to take what you get and move on before you get bored to death.

  A few minutes later, we all listen at the door while Brooke asks Jade if we can please play ghosts in the graveyard. She uses her sweetest voice. The one Jade taught her for getting her way.

  Brooke flies back to us. “It’s a go, ” she says. “But if we break anything Jade will make us sleep in a snowbank. I’ll be the ghost first so I can turn off the lights downstairs. You guys do the chant and then come looking for me. Ida and Jenna, you hide the potato in Jade’s coat pocket while everyone is running around. It’s in the closet by the front door. ”

  “How will we know which coat? ” Jenna asks.

  “Don’t worry, ” I say. “I’ve seen it before. ”

  Brooke takes off and we start chanting slowly, to give her enough time to hide. “One o’clock . . . two o’clock . . . three o’clock . . . four o’clock . . .” When we get to “Midnight!” we all shout, “We hope we see a ghost tonight! ”

  Everyone scatters down the hallway, looking for Brooke. Jenna picks up the potato. “Follow me, ” she says.

  “Wait, ” I say, grabbing her arm. “There’s something I want to do first. ”

  I take the potato from Jenna and walk over to Brooke’s desk. I find a marker and write Thanks a lot on the potato. Only I don’t write it in a mean way.

  Jenna reads the potato and smirks. “Very thoughtful, ” she says.

  “Yep, ” I say back. “Plus, I wante
d to thank you too, for spilling the beans to Jade. That was really nice of you. ”

  Jenna twitches. “I wasn’t doing it to be nice,” she says. “I just wanted to get back at Brooke for taking over my truth or dare game in the first place. ”

  “Still,” I say. “You were being a good friend when you did it. ”

  Jenna huffs and looks away. “I’m not anybody’s friend. Frenemy maybe, but not friend. ”

  I do the huff too. “Then you were being a good frenemy. My best frenemy. ”

  Jenna glances at me. And smiles.

  We hear a fake scream and then the sound of feet pounding up the stairs. “C’mon,” I say. “Let’s get this dare over with so we can play too. ”

  Jenna nods.

  I lead the way.

  Dear Stella,

  I just got home from Brooke’s sleep-over. I was supposed to get my ears pierced there, but things didn’t go as planned. Jenna told Jade what we were up to and Jade made us stop. She was pretty mad, but she didn’t tell on us.

  She didn’t finish doing our makeup either. I guess that was fair.

  Stacey thought up a substitute dare for me and Jenna to do. It was the only one we did all night. I think we’re done playing that game for a while.

  There’s a knock on my door. Mom looks in. “I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Drews called for you earlier. ”

  “For me? ”

  Mom nods and walks over to me. She picks up George and sits down on my bed. “She needs a favor. ”

  I blink and wait for more information.

  “She has a doctor’s appointment next Thursday when Jenna is at dance and she needs someone to watch Rachel. She wondered if you would babysit for her. ”

  “Babysit? Why didn’t she just ask you? I mean, you’ll be home anyway, right? ”

  “Yes, I’ll be here,” Mom says. “But Rachel wanted you.”

  “Me? ”

  Mom nods. “Mrs. Drews said she’ll pay you. Five dollars an hour. ”

  I do a gasp. “She’ll pay me? Just for watching Rachel? What did you tell her? ”

  Mom sets George on my lap. “I told her you might be busy because you always meet Stacey after dance on Thursdays. ”

  I think about how much I like meeting Stacey and sharing a cookie and talking about best friend stuff. But sometimes plans change. Sometimes friendships do too. Even mine and Stacey’s has been changing lately. Not in a bad way, like Brooke and Jenna’s. Just in a different way. Maybe even a good way. Because even though I still like Stacey, I know I’m not exactly like her. And that’s okay.