Friend or Fiction

by Abby Cooper

  “Hi, Clue,” I whispered.

  “Hey,” he said.

  We stood there silently.

  He pointed to my notebook. “Why are you always writing in that at school?” he asked.

  I guess I was known for writing in my notebook like he was known for giving everyone clues in class.

  The funny feeling in my stomach sped up to my throat. “My stories,” I blurted out. “I write about a made-up girl named Zoe. We do a lot of fun stuff together. Like we sing and dance and hang out at the pond. We’re sort of best friends.”

  My face turned red the second I said it. The fact that I didn’t feel like myself, because of all the new Dad-having-cancer stuff didn’t make it okay to just spill private information like that.

  I tried to change the subject. “Are you here with your parents?”

  “Yup,” he said. His eyes stayed glued to my notebook. “My dad and my pops are around here somewhere.”

  “Do they work here?”

  “No…we’re just…here,” he said. For a guy so good at sharing hints, he sure wasn’t giving anything away now.

  I pointed behind him. “Are they somewhere in this giant room?”

  He shook his head.

  “So it’s free?”

  I let out a big breath as my whole body relaxed. How cool would it be if I could go back to Mom and Dad and Bo and tell them I got a room with a window?

  But then Clue said, “No, it’s not free.”

  “Oh.”

  And just like that, all of the seat-for-dad-by-the-window stuff went, well, right out the window.

  I went back to our closet of a room and wrote stories while Bo and Giraffe drew pictures. Mom played classical music from her phone and stared at the walls, probably imagining how she’d like to open them up so Dad could see outside. Dad sat in the giant chair with all the tubey things and closed his eyes. He smiled, but he was sad. I could tell. I wasn’t sure about what exactly. (The cancer? The walls? The picture Bo made of him defeating the bad guy where he kind of looked like a zebra?) Whatever it was, it made me sad too.

  Eventually I had to go to the bathroom for real. It felt like hours since we’d gotten there. On my way I passed the room where I had seen Clue. Now the door was wide open, giving way to the emptiness inside. Clue stood in the doorway in the same firm position I’d seen him in before, like he was pretending he was a statue or a security guard or something.

  “You said this room wasn’t free.” My voice came out crackly but sharp. He obviously just wanted to hang out in the best room while his parents were wherever they were. While my whole family was bored and miserable and squashed, he’d probably been watching TV, looking out the window, and having the time of his life.

  “It wasn’t free, and it still isn’t.”

  I couldn’t think of what to say back, so I didn’t say anything at all. I just turned and walked away, with hot, uncomfortable anger thudding in my ears. We couldn’t do much about Dad having cancer, but this room thing was a problem that had an easy solution. It was easy and it was there, and Clue, who said it was being used when it wasn’t, had taken it away.

  Back in the room Mom’s face had lost the energy it had when we’d come in. She looked like she needed a nap, even though we’d been doing nothing all day. Dad’s face had drooped too. And Bo’s. We were one big sad family, and it was all Clue’s fault.

  For ages I’d been trying to push the memory out of my mind. But seeing Clue at school always reminded me why I would never be the president of his fan club, or even a member. Once again I tried to push the memory aside as I scanned the hall for Zoe. Clue brought her to life, and that was awesome. But that day at the cancer center might’ve been a little bit easier if we’d just had the better room.

  14

  Ready, Set, Shop

  My heartbeat sped up with every step closer I got to her locker. I’d been with her on the walk to school, but it suddenly felt like hours had gone by, even days. I couldn’t wait to see her, to talk to her, to laugh with her, all of it. I actually could not wait.

  Only it looked like I would have to.

  There was a giant crowd of people around Zoe at her locker. It seemed like almost every sixth grader was standing there—Sparkle Girls, non-sparkling girls, guys, everyone. Even teachers poked their heads out of their classrooms like they wanted to be part of whatever was going on. I stood at the edge of the crowd, trying to peek in to see what was going on. I finally gave up and pretended to tie my shoe, even though it was already in a super-solid double knot. Eventually everybody moved along, leaving Zoe all by herself.

  “Jade!” She grinned at me and I forgot all about hospitals and rooms without windows.

  “This school is the greatest,” Zoe said. “Everybody’s so nice. They were all worried about me after the liver incident yesterday. Even people who weren’t in our class heard about it.”

  “That’s so awesome,” I said. “You’re like, famous.”

  I watched as a few people walked by and gave Zoe high fives. I’d always imagined her as a popular person. It was pretty cool to see it happening.

  Zoe closed her locker, and I linked my arm through hers. As we walked down the hall, heads turned and people stared, like we were actually walking down the red carpet on our way to the premier of our movie about being the Coolest Best Friends Ever in the history of best friends.

  I, Jade Levy, not only had a real best friend. I had one everybody wanted. And she was all mine.

  I lifted my head a little higher, and we kept on walking.

  * * *

  It got even better at lunchtime. I talked until my jaw got tired, laughed so hard I snorted, and apple juice came out of Zoe’s nose. We almost forgot to eat.

  Like yesterday, I couldn’t believe it when it was time to go. It felt like we’d just sat down, like we’d blinked and now lunch was over.

  It was the best feeling and the most disappointing one at the very same time.

  “Word count?” Mrs. Yang asked as we walked by.

  I shrugged and shot her a sheepish grin. I tried, I swear, I wanted to tell her. Even though that wasn’t exactly the truth.

  “What’s she talking about?” Zoe asked.

  “Oh, I used to write some of my stories about you at lunch,” I said. “But hanging out with the real you is so much better.”

  “Hanging out with you is the best,” she said. “You get me so well. But I guess that’s because you invented me.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. I smiled to myself and tried to ignore the funny feeling in my stomach. It was pretty weird to hear her say that I’d invented her, like she was some kind of cool new app or game or something. But she was only saying the truth. I had invented her, and now I was helping her learn new things and have fun. And she was happy about it. We both were. But that didn’t mean we had to talk about it all the time. As we walked into health, I made a mental note to write in my notebook that Zoe never mentions the whole being-invented thing again.

  * * *

  “What are you doing after school?” I asked Zoe at the end of the day.

  She gave me a funny look. Oh, right—she didn’t know what she was doing after school. Because that, like everything else, was up to me.

  “Hmm,” I said. “We could hang out outside, but it’s pretty windy today. Or we could go to the coffee shop, maybe.”

  I wasn’t allowed to drink actual coffee, but everybody got those amazing blended drinks instead, with the whipped cream and the chocolate shavings on top, and there were really comfy chairs you could sit in while you drank them. It was a super-great place, even though it could only hold like five people at a time.

  One of the Sparkle Girls, Afiya, whipped around in her seat. “Have you tried the new Mint Mocha Freeze?”

  I folded my arms across my chest. Couldn’t she see we were trying to talk, here? Priva
tely?

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just love the coffee place so much. And those new mint mochas are my life. Zoe, you have to go there sometime. Do you like chocolate?”

  “I…think so?” Zoe tilted her head and gave me a questioning look.

  Afiya laughed before I could help Zoe out. We hadn’t actually gotten to eat our chocolate-chip banana bread in that one story I’d written, but she totally would’ve liked it if she had the chance to take a bite.

  “I know it’s a complicated question,” she continued. “Milk chocolate is my favorite, but dark chocolate is good too. And so is white chocolate, but it has to be the melt-in-your-mouth kind. It’s best with lots of whipped cream.”

  Zoe made a face I didn’t totally recognize.

  “There are so many kinds of chocolate,” she said. “I wonder which one I would like.”

  “Right? You’ll have to eat little pieces of all of them sometime, one after the other. That’s how I figured out my favorite.” Afiya turned back around. Finally Zoe and I could get back to talking about our plans.

  “We should go to the mall,” I said as we packed up our stuff. I’d written this epic mall story a few months ago. Even though the mall was tiny, Zoe and I still had a ton of fun. If we went there today, our Best Mall Time Ever could happen for real—and this time, I could shop with actual money. Zoe and I could really buy things—special best-friend things—and take them home and keep them forever and ever.

  “Yeah, let’s go to the mall,” Zoe agreed.

  I smiled. “You’re going to love it.”

  Zoe grinned. “I already do.”

  * * *

  After I called Mom from the office phone to make sure it was okay, Zoe and I made the short walk down the street until we were there. As much as I complained about Tiveda, it was nice how easy it was to get around. You could walk pretty much anywhere, and you didn’t even need a parent to go with you most of the time. Which was especially good since I still didn’t know how I was going to explain Zoe to Dad.

  When we got to the mall, bright lights beat down on us like they were shining a giant spotlight over our heads. There were some other people around, but it felt like we were the only ones there. The mall was ours. It was ready. It was waiting. It was time.

  Zoe grabbed my hand like she had in my story, and my skin tingled with excitement. It was like I was in the best dream ever, but it wasn’t a dream at all. It was real life.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “Set,” she said.

  “Shop,” we yelled together.

  We raced into the photo booth and took thousands of pictures making the funniest faces we could. We played on the mini indoor playground in the hallway between stores, even though it was technically for little kids. At Save-a-Lot, we bought a present for Bo and a new hat for Dad. We got gummy bears at the hardware store because they had really good candy. And then, finally, we went to Glimmer N’ Gleam, because we were saving the best store for last.

  We twirled around racks of clothes and jewelry and hair stuff and more. I always thought this mall was so dumb. But now, with Zoe, it was fun. Maybe places themselves weren’t good or bad. Maybe it was the people you were with and the things you did that made places special.

  “We should get matching bracelets,” I told Zoe. I held up a couple beaded green ones. I had totally suggested this in my story, only now we could really get them. We could actually clasp them around each other’s wrists and wear them everywhere for everyone to see. Whenever I felt sad or scared or any other feeling that was even the tiniest bit rotten, I could look at it and remember that I had a living, breathing best friend with the very same piece of jewelry around her arm.

  I checked the price tag and thought about how much money I had left. I’d been saving up the money I made from watching Bo and helping out around the house forever, not for any real reason, just because there wasn’t really anything I wanted to buy that bad until now, other than a blended drink from the coffee shop every now and then. After photos and the presents for Dad and Bo, I still had enough to get two bracelets and maybe even a couple little things from the clearance bin.

  “Maybe we should get some hair stuff, too,” I said. I grabbed a clip-on sparkly pink hair streak from the sale box. This wasn’t part of my old story. In that story I never imagined that I’d have extra money. It was just one more way real life with Zoe was turning out to be even better than what I’d written.

  I handed Zoe the hair clip, and she held it across her face like a mustache.

  I giggled. She was so funny, even when she wasn’t trying to be. “It goes up here,” I said, and helped her attach it to the top of her head. Zoe spun around a few times and struck a funny pose.

  We laughed as I stuck a few more clips to her head. I grabbed every different color and style I saw. It was hard to get them on there since she was spinning and dancing all goofy at the same time, but that’s also what made it fun. I wrote about Zoe singing and dancing in most of my old stories, so it was no surprise that she was doing this now. Everyone else in the store was staring at us with huge smiles on their faces, like they had front-row seats to the greatest musical of all time.

  I stood back as Zoe spun around faster and faster until she didn’t even look like herself anymore—she just looked like this happy rainbow blur of joy and fun.

  And that gave me an idea.

  15

  Mmmm, Carrots

  “I’m home!”

  Bo practically tackled me as soon as I opened the door.

  “Jade! You didn’t pick me up from school today,” he said, as if I had no idea. “Mom picked me up in the truck, and Dad came too! And the truck defeated the bad guy. You should pick me up from school again soon. And then maybe one day you will be able to defeat the bad guy!”

  I ruffled his hair. “I hope so. Hey, guess what? I brought you a present.” I took out a brand-new set of crayons from my Save-a-Lot bag. There were only four in the box, but they were the fancy twisty kind where each crayon was actually two different colors. Bo’s eyes practically popped out of his head.

  “Do you like them?” I asked.

  He grabbed them out of my hands and took off, so that seemed like a yes.

  “Bo, manners,” Mom called from the kitchen. He ran back and gave me a big hug.

  “Thank you, Jade.”

  “Welcome,” I said.

  “Welcome,” Zoe echoed.

  We wandered into the living room. All of a sudden Mom appeared next to us. She was out of breath, like someone had chased her in here from the kitchen. Mom always seemed like someone was chasing her. She wiped some hair out of her face, set down the screwdriver in her hand, and shot Zoe a smile. “Who’s this, Jadey?”

  I twisted my hands together and rubbed them on my pants. Seriously, where did all this hand sweat come from whenever I was nervous? I could have totally normal hands—dry hands, even—and then, bam, they were the slimiest, slipperiest things ever.

  I took a breath. It was now or never.

  “This is my friend I went to the mall with,” I said. “Zoe. She’s new at school. She actually lives right across the street.”

  Mom looked Zoe up and down, and I bit my tongue, hard. Once I had my idea at the mall, I’d used all my extra money to get as many cheap-o accessories as I could. Now Zoe was wearing a clip-on blue streak on one side of her head and a clip-on pink one on the other. She wore blue glasses that didn’t really do anything for seeing but looked really cool, and a pair of very realistic-looking stick-on earrings above her real ones made it looked like her ears were double pierced. It was all kind of silly, but necessary too. Dad would never connect this Zoe to the one in my notebook.

  “Nice to meet you, Zoe,” Mom said. “I’ve been meaning to reach out to our new neighbors. Hope you and your family are enjoying it here so far.”

  “Zoe?�
�� Dad said, shooting me a surprised look. “I didn’t think that was a common name.” Then he winked at me. Whew. Apparently Dad knew some sort of secret parent-kid code about not mentioning your daughter’s imaginary best friend when her new real one with the same name shows up. Little did he know they were the same person.

  I exhaled and let my tongue free.

  “Check out what I got at the mall.” I pulled it out of the bag and held it up. “Ta-da!”

  The cap of the hat looked like half a basketball with a skinny black cylinder coming out of it. On top of that was a mini hoop. I went over to Dad’s chair and handed it over, along with the teeny ball it came with.

  “That,” he said, “is amazing.”

  Mom laughed and started running in place. Then she swerved around an invisible member of the other team, dribbled an imaginary ball, and finally tossed a wiggly noodle through the hoop above Dad’s head.

  “Three pointer,” she yelled, and pumped her fists in the air.

  “Playing basketball together takes on a whole new meaning now,” Dad said. He dropped the noodle into his mouth. “Thanks so much, Jade. Very thoughtful. This also makes eating extra convenient. Anyone want to throw a cookie in here?”

  “Not before dinner.” Mom wagged a joking finger at him. “Ten minutes till it’s ready,” she told us. She picked up the screwdriver she’d set down. “And, if we’re lucky, we might have a fixed kitchen sink for dessert.”

  Bo giggled. “That’s not a food.” He turned to Zoe. “Want to help me make art?”

  Zoe shot me a look, and I nodded. That weird pang from earlier slid back into my stomach. Was it weird that Zoe was looking to me to decide something like this? In some ways, shouldn’t she just be her own person and make her own choices? I swallowed and tried to brush it off. It was fine. She was just trying to do the right thing, and I was trying to help.