by Rachel Vail
VIKING
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
First published in the United States of America by Viking,
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2020
Copyright © 2020 by Rachel Vail
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE
Ebook ISBN 9780451479471
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To my brother, Jon, with love.
I am your friend, and your biggest fan, forever.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
About the Author
1
“EVERYBODY STAND NEXT to your best friend,” the gym teacher said.
I bumped Ava’s shoulder with mine.
We were already standing next to each other, of course.
We’ve been best friends since third grade, basically since the day she moved here. No. A few weeks after. Still, nearly forever. It’s not like we were making a big, momentous decision right there in front of the entire eighth grade. Everybody knows Ava and I are best friends.
So I wasn’t worried or anything. Knowing, hundred percent, that you can choose her, and that your best friend will of course choose you right back, right away, in front of everybody, no hesitation? Best feeling in the world.
But Ava didn’t bump me back.
I rolled my eyes at Ava and whispered, “We’re not even supposed to have best friends, I thought.”
It’s a rule at Snug Island Primary School: We Are All Friends Here! There’s a poster saying that at the entrance. Ava and I make fun of how fake it is. Come on in and start your day with a lie, kids! We walk under those words literally every day: We Are All Friends Here! The only SIPS teacher who’d ever admit it’s not exactly true, that we’re maybe not all friends, not all equal friends, don’t even necessarily like each other all that much? It would be Ms. Andry, the ancient gym teacher. She’s so over it, no time for that politically correct fakery. Ava and I love how fully fried Ms. Andry is.
Ava wasn’t saying anything back to me.
She was looking at her sneakers.
I looked at her sneakers too.
That’s why I saw her sneakers step-together-step away from me.
Toward Britney.
I smiled at Ava. My mom says, Smiles, sunshine, and a quick cleanup make everything better! “Why is Ms. Andry always so extra?” I whispered to Ava.
Ava always says, Why is Ms. Andry so extra?
This time, Ava didn’t say anything.
“I mean, what’s even her actual plan?” I whispered.
Ava forced out a little one-ha laugh. But she still wouldn’t look at me.
Ms. Andry pointed her bony witch finger right at me. “You!” she said.
Do not pee in your pants, Niki, I told myself.
“Who are you with?” she barked at me.
I was very busy not peeing in my pants so did not have a chance to answer evil Ms. Andry at that time.
“Who’s your person?” Ms. Andry barked at Ava, having realized I was worthless.
“Britney,” Ava said.
“Britney? That’s somebody’s name?” Ms. Andry asked. “Which one is Britney?”
Ava pointed her thumb at, well, Britney.
Everybody knows Britney. Britney, Isabel, and Madeleine. They’re the Squad. Even Ms. Andry had to know that.
Britney leaned toward Ava, my best friend, and whispered into her ear. Ava’s heart-shaped mouth puckered into a smile.
“So who’s yours?” Ms. Andry asked me. Trying again.
I was watching Ava. She was whispering something back to Britney. The two of them flicked their eyes toward me. When they saw I was watching them, they turned quickly away, in unison.
“This isn’t calculus, kids,” Ms. Andry barked. “Just pick your best friend; I don’t care who’s your partner. There’s an even number of you people, come on.”
“What if our best friend isn’t here?” Bradley asked.
“Oh, like you have a best friend,” Chase said.
“Eat dirt, Chase,” Bradley said. “Your best friend is your mom.”
“My best friend is your mom!” Chase said back.
Ava and the Squad were all cracking up at the boys and their loud dissing. Bradley and Chase are best friends. They, along with Robby and Milo, are the boys who Britney, Isabel, and Madeleine hang out with. They have nothing to do with me and Ava anymore. Robby and Milo live next door to me, and we used to play together all the time, but now they glowed up and I, well, haven’t.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ms. Andry interrupted the boys. “You two lugs can work together. Just choose a partner. Let’s go. Who’s left without a friend?”
I raised my hand a little, pushed it up into the air, into the concrete-air of shame weighing it down.
Across the gym, Holly Jones raised her hand too.
No. No. You can’t go backward.
“Fine,” Ms. Andry said. “You and you.” She pointed at Holly Jones, and then at me. Holly walked across the gym toward me.
I kept my eyes on my feet on the high-gloss gym floor. Same sneakers as Ava’s, one size bigger because my feet are disproportionately huge for my body. Same style, though: Superstars. Got them together, Ava’s mom’s treat. Ms. Andry was explaining the exercise we were supposed to do, something called trust falls. I didn’t listen to the instructions because I couldn’t hear anything but the ocean drowning me from inside my head.
Also because I didn’t care.
Holly was saying something, next to me.
I don’t know what, because I was very focused on not yelling, YOU ARE NOT MY BEST FRIEND. AVA IS MY BEST FRIEND. WHAT IS HAPPENING.
I gritted my teeth against it and tried to hear what Holly was saying.
“Who does she think she is, Noah?” Holly whispered out of the side of her mouth.
“What?” I managed. “Noah who?” Ugh, just what I needed was to hear about some cousin of Holly’s named Noah, or some kid named Noah she knew from some retreat her weird, crunchy hippie family went on or something. I NEED TO TALK TO AVA, I was thinking. I NEED TO SORT THIS OUT. I AM NOT BEST FRIENDS WITH YOU ANYMORE, HOLLY.
“Noah! You know, Noah, loading up the ark?” Holly asked.
“I’m not religious,” I said.
“Me either,” Holly whispered. “As you know! But you know, like, two by two?”
“Right,” I said. Right, except me. Like the unchosen llama or hippopotamus or squirrel, I was suddenly and publicly alone.
Paired with this, what, porcupine? Or, to be fair, koala. Whatever, something slightly exotic and sweet. But not two of a kind with me at all.
What happened to the animals stranded alone like that on the ground in front of the ark? The left-out animals, the third ones? I’d never thought about them before. Did they slink away, or did they strike?
If you’re the third lion, you’re dead.
Worse than dead, being the third lion, the extra elephant: condemned to the rising flood. Pre-dead, and knowing it.
Knowing, as you watch the other animals go two by two, that there’d be no place for you inside the ark, no safety. That this is your fate, the end of the line for you. You’d just have to stand there in the drizzle. Alone, abandoned. An unchosen elephant alongside the third koala, maybe, but not half a pair, so basically alone. A random. Watching the two elephants who’d just been right beside you, one of them the one you’d expected to be your partner, as they swish their tails (ponytails) behind them in self-satisfied unison, going giggling up the gangplank onto the ark.
Feeling the floodwaters rise around your sagging ankles.
Ava was catching Britney. Britney was falling, backward, gracefully, toward Ava. Drop her, I wished horribly at them. My mom thinks I am nice. I am obviously not.
The two of them were laughing. Shrieking, just like Madeleine and Isabel, who were also falling backward at each other, taking turns.
I looked full-on at Holly for the first time, with her thick blue-framed glasses, her short cloud of black hair. She was looking back at me. Her face was serious, her mouth a straight line.
Worse than alone, I thought at her sweet, solemn face.
She turned around. I held out my arms for her to fall backward toward me. I felt her pouf of weight hit my arms, and stumbled to not drop her. I succeeded, but it was close.
She was light.
She stood up and faced me again without smiling. “Your turn,” she said.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“You can trust me,” she said. Her eyes are huge and gray, like a manga drawing.
I turned my back to her.
I let myself fall, but not because I trusted Holly. How could I?
Her. Anybody.
I let myself fall backward because who even cares.
She caught me.
Whatever.
It’s not like falling flat on the floor would have made my day worse.
2
LUNCH IS RIGHT after gym, but Ava didn’t wait for me by our stuff. I hung back a few seconds to see if she would. Maybe Britney had grabbed Ava’s arm before I bumped her shoulder, I told myself. Ava and Britney had been talking more lately—maybe Ava, being kind, felt bad for Britney being the third wheel in her friend group? Maybe Ava felt pulled, in that moment, and was trying to be nice and generous to the, well, the most popular girl in the entire grade, whatever, fine, that doesn’t make sense but I just hung back a sec because who knows, maybe Ava would be like, Come on, Niki, why are you always so slow? And then what had just happened to me, being abandoned in gym class right in front of the entire grade, would have not happened.
Or at least would be in the past.
Would be explainable in ways I couldn’t know yet, being still in the moment.
Like the curvature of the earth something something or whatever nonsense the science teacher had been spouting the period before my life went off a freaking cliff.
But no.
Ava grabbed her stuff and hurried to catch up to the Squad.
I wasn’t about to follow along after them.
And anyway, who was I supposed to sit with? I sit with Ava.
I walked the forty-seven miles across the gym to pick up my stuff and then I just stood there holding it for a minute.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ms. Andry barked at me. She’s the first teacher I’ve ever been taller than.
“Good question,” I said.
“I don’t actually care,” Ms. Andry said. “You just have to leave so I can lock the door.”
“Right,” I said. I walked out of the gym and stood there while she locked the door behind us.
“You lost?” Ms. Andry asked.
“Deeply,” I said.
“Well,” she said. “Cope.”
Not sure why that gave me life enough to smile, watching Ms. Andry’s tiny hunched back as she walked away. If I ever admitted to my mom that I was feeling lost, wow, she’d talk me to death. She’d probe why, and want to brainstorm strategies with me for how to manage my feelings and what Ava might be going through to cause her to hurt me. My mom is the nicest person I’ve ever met. I was so glad she wasn’t seeing me right then. She has enough to deal with.
Instead of going to the cafeteria, I went to the library. It’s supposed to be quiet in there. So nobody would be able to talk to me, and I could have a few minutes to pull myself together, talk myself out of how bad I felt.
I sat down at one of the tables in front and tried to start my homework, at least be productive. But then, instead, I put my head down on my notebook and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see that the only other eighth grader in the library was Holly Jones, the kid I dumped as a friend back in third grade, along with Milo and Robby, because Ava was my best friend. Why are you leaving me out? Ava would ask anytime I tried to play with Holly, too. Or, Why is she always trying to play with us? Or, when I played with Milo and Robby: You don’t like BOYS, do you?
It had felt stressful, trying to explain myself to Ava, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, which I knew were fragile despite her outward feisty boldness. But more than that, it was more fun to play with Ava than anyone else anyway. I felt guilty that Holly looked confused and sad that I stopped playing with her, but it’s not like we were officially best friends—that wasn’t even a thing at that point. Plus, friend groups change, sometimes, Mom said. She and Ava’s mom, Samantha, and Ava and I—we were a tight group pretty quickly. And at school everybody wanted to play with Ava, but she always told them all I was her best friend. I stopped looking at Holly’s sad gray eyes when Ava said, Niki’s my best friend, and just let myself enjoy it. Anyway, Holly had other friends, like Nadine and Beth; it’s not like I abandoned her in an empty field.
If Holly was a porcupine getting onto Noah’s ark, now, though, my only chance to save myself was to be her porcupine partner.
I glanced up at her, shelving books off the cart, smiling to herself, wonky, nerdy, wholesome.
No thanks, universe. No.
I’ll take the storm.
3
I GOT OUT of eighth period as fast as I could and dashed to my locker. I wasn’t waiting around for Ava this time. Whatever was going on with her, she could find me when she was ready. Sometimes she gets like this, I reminded myself. It always ends faster if I don’t chase after her.
> Ava’s fragile.
I shoved my stuff into my backpack, grabbed my scooter, and was out the door before the hallway even filled up. Ava complains I’m slow sometimes? I’m not. Not always.
I scooted home fast. Ava and I like scooters, not bikes like the Squad. What was she planning to do, scoot beside them as they rode their bikes?
It was the wind in my eyes making tears stream out, I lied to myself.
Just the wind.
I went straight up to my room, followed by our dog, Fumble, and closed the door behind us. Mom didn’t need to see me with red eyes. Fumble wandered around in a circle a couple of times and ended up back where he’d started. Exhausted by the journey, he flopped down for a rest.
I floofed his ears.
I checked my phone. Nothing.
You okay? I texted Ava.
Send.
Whatever.
Not overthinking it—I reached out. Now it’s her turn to respond, if she wants to.
If she wants to? WE ARE BEST FRIENDS.
“Niki?” Mom yelled up the stairs.
“Yeah?”
“You ready?”
“For what?”
“Danny’s Little League game, remember?”
I flopped down on my bed.
My brother, Danny, is almost nine, in fourth grade. He has been in Little League since kindergarten. My mom goes to every one of his games, and my dad to most. Danny has never hit the ball—I don’t mean never got a home run or he’s not the star of his team; he has never swung the bat at the ball, not once. He is the worst Little Leaguer in the history of Little League. I was not what you’d call an asset to my team, honestly, but at least I quit. Danny plays fall ball and spring ball. My parents think it will help him improve. They both played all the sports.
I asked him this summer if he likes Little League. He shrugged. He was watching TV at the time.
I like scooting, jumping on beds, making up my own games, cutting together mash-ups of politicians saying ummm on the news. Luckily for me I make my parents laugh, and my brother makes them worry; the combination gets me out of a lot of pressure.
Knock on my door.
Mom hates when I close it all the way.