“Oh, man,” muttered Sunny.
“What else are you going to do tonight?” asked Jill. “Our parents aren’t going to let us go to the other party.”
“Well, that’s true,” I said.
“So come on,” said Jill. “Let’s go to the mall today. We can buy some stuff for our party.”
“And look at clothes,” added Sunny, brightening.
“And window-shop,” I said.
Jill looked from Maggie to me to Sunny. Expectantly. Like a dog who’s just heard his master say a whole bunch of words and is positive that one of them was “walk.”
“All right,” said Sunny. “Mall. Then sleepover.”
Saturday afternoon 10/4
We have been to the mall. In a little while it will be time to leave for Jill’s sleepover.
We had fun this afternoon. We really did. I think we’re going to have fun tonight, too. I hope so. I don’t like this feeling of everything changing. I feel so torn. Sometimes I’m like Jill and I just want everything to stay the way it’s been. I want us to be young and safe. But sometimes I’m like Sunny, wanting to surge forward and get on with things. Impatient for whatever is coming. Not even caring what it is. Just wanting to experience it, taste it, live it.
Jill showed up at the mall with a list of things she said we needed to buy for the sleepover. It included popcorn, sodas, and fortune-telling cards.
Sunny glanced at the list. “Okay, we’ll get all this stuff last. Let’s look around first. How about the jewelry store?”
“Um, okay,” Jill replied reluctantly. She folded the list slowly and slid it back into the pocket of her jeans.
In the jewelry store, Sunny ran to a case of pierced earrings. “Maybe I’ll get another couple of holes in one of my ears,” she said.
“Another couple of holes?” I replied.
“Sure. They can do that here. See that stool? That’s where you sit for ear-piercing … or navel-piercing.”
“Navel-piercing!” I exclaimed.
“Ew,” said Jill.
“You are not getting your navel pierced,” I said. “Or getting extra holes. You have enough holes already. Why don’t you just buy some more earrings? Here. Look at these. These are cute.”
“I guess,” agreed Sunny. “But I want something a little … I don’t know … wilder. Like these.”
“Those?” I said. “They’re just plain gold hoops.”
“They are eyebrow rings,” said Sunny.
“Ew,” Jill said again.
“Maybe we’ve looked long enough in here,” said Maggie. “Let’s go to the pet store. I need some supplies.”
“Goody, we can look at the kittens!” exclaimed Jill.
Sunny rolled her eyes.
I pulled her aside. “Sunny,” I whispered, “quit doing that, okay? Please? Jill is going to see you. Let’s just have a nice afternoon.”
Sunny’s response was to roll her eyes again. “Tsk.”
“What is wrong?” I said, exasperated. And then I caught myself. “Is it your mother?” I whispered.
Sunny turned away from me. “We can talk about it later.”
“Okay,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulder.
We hurried out of the jewelry store and caught up with Maggie and Jill, who were heading into World of Pets.
“What supplies do you need?” I asked Maggie.
“Let me see. Fish food, a water bottle for Cosmo’s cage, a new bell toy for Curtis, and—you won’t believe this—tartar-control dry food and a feline toothbrush for Herman.”
I started to giggle. “What?” I said.
Maggie was laughing too. “I took Herman to the vet yesterday after school and he’s developing gingivitis. So I am supposed to brush his teeth every other day.”
“You can really buy toothbrushes for cats?” I asked.
“Apparently.”
“Wow. What does your mom think of all this?”
“Oh, who knows. All she cares about is where her next pair of shoes is coming from. I think she and her friends must be having some sort of contest to see who can buy the most expensive clothes. And Dad thinks I’m crazy, of course. He says when he was my age he had already started making films. Amateur ones, but still. He can’t believe I want to be a vet. Oh, look. Feline toothbrushes.”
Sure enough. There they were. Maggie tossed one into her basket, which already held the fish food, water bottle, and bell toy. Then she added a couple of dog toys and a box of catnip. Maggie has unlimited money, but you never know it except for when she’s generous to the rest of us—and to her pets.
“Where are Sunny and Jill?” Maggie asked a few minutes later. “Are they together somewhere?”
“I don’t know. They’re not a good combination, are they?”
“Not lately.”
I glanced around the store. Sunny and Jill were standing side by side, looking into a cage full of hamsters. They were pointing at something and laughing. Like old times.
Like last month.
Later Saturday afternoon 10/4
Well, I have to leave for Jill’s soon, but I haven’t finished writing about the mall trip. So I’ll add some more here, before Carol takes Sunny and me over to Jill’s.
After World of Pets we looked in a couple of clothing stores and then Jill insisted we go into this one store called The Bear Necessities. I’d never seen it before, but Jill seemed intimate with it. It was full of—guess what—teddy bears. And accessories for teddy bears and things with teddy bears on them and books about teddy bears and kits for making teddy bears. There was also a huge section of dolls and stuffed animals.
Jill was in heaven. When we left the store (with much eye-rolling on Sunny’s part), she was carrying a bag containing a strip of teddy bear stickers, a pair of teddy bear barrettes, and a plastic perfume bottle shaped like a pony (with a sparkly blue mane).
“Let’s eat,” I said. “I’m starved.”
“Cool,” replied Sunny. “I mean, cool, let’s eat, not cool, you’re starved. Want to go to Rico’s?”
“Do they have salad at Rico’s?” asked Maggie.
“Do they have lemonade?” asked Jill.
We went to Starburst’s, which has everything.
We sat at a booth, we ordered our food, it arrived quickly, and we were all sitting around eating and gabbing and sampling each other’s lunches when suddenly Sunny burst into tears.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her, alarmed.
“Did they give you the wrong meal?” asked Jill.
“Do you really think she’d cry because they brought the wrong meal?” asked Maggie, giving Jill an odd look.
“Besides, she’s been eating it for ten minutes,” I pointed out.
“Well …” said Jill.
Maggie put her arm around Sunny. “What is it?” she asked.
Sunny tried to smile. “Oh, it’s so stupid. I was just, like, thinking about my mom? And I remembered the last time I visited her in the hospital. Thursday, I guess. And she had said she was actually hungry, that for once she was looking forward to her dinner; even if it was a hospital meal. And then her food came and she couldn’t eat it after all. She just looked at it. Then she said the smell was making her sick, so Dad took her tray out in the hall.” Sunny paused. “And here I am stuffing my face. It is so unfair. Mom weighs like a hundred pounds. She looks like a stupid skeleton.”
We all said silly, soothing things then. And I reminded myself to be extra, extra, EXTRA nice to Sunny.
I wonder if “extra nice” extends to navel rings.
I CANNOT believe it, but sometime after we had finished lunch, Sunny said to the rest of us, “I’ll meet you guys at the main entrance in half an hour, okay?”
“Where are you going?” Jill asked her.
“You’ll see.” Sunny ran off.
Half an hour later, she met up with us like she’d promised. She was smiling smugly.
“Okay. What did you do?” I asked.
Sunny
pulled her shirt up a few inches.
Glinting on her belly button was a gold ring.
“You pierced your navel?” I hissed. I couldn’t say the words out loud.
“Cool, huh?”
“What are your parents going to say?” Jill whispered. I guess she couldn’t quite speak either.
“Nothing. They’ll never see it. I’ll just keep it covered up when they’re around. Come on, let’s go.” Sunny turned and headed for the doors.
I wanted to yell after her, “What about bathing suits?” but I didn’t. Maggie and Jill didn’t say anything either. We just followed Sunny out the door, our mouths open.
Sunday night 10/5
So much has happened since that last diary entry that I hardly know how to begin writing it all down. It’s going to take forever. I hope I can explain things. This is the first spare moment I’ve had since I left for Jill’s house yesterday. That was only twenty-four hours ago. But it might as well have been two years ago.
I feel like a different person.
A very scared, nervous, confused person.
I guess I should start with yesterday when Carol drove Sunny and me to Jill’s house in her red convertible. Jeff was with us. That was because he and Carol were going to go out for dinner before they went to king Hotshot to play miniature golf. I kept looking at Carol. I was surprised that she was going out to eat and then to play miniature golf. I mean, most women are sick to their stomachs all the time when they’re first pregnant. Plus, they get really, really tired. But here was Carol on her way to eat Mexican food and play golf with a ten-year-old.
This was when I began to wonder if everything was all right with Carol’s pregnancy. Maybe there was a problem after all. Maybe that was why Carol didn’t seem so excited. I wish I could talk to Sunny about Carol, but Carol has sworn me to secrecy. Besides, Sunny has enough problems of her own.
We drove out to Jill’s house with Jeff making annoying duck noises the entire way. He was sitting in the front seat wearing a Donald Duck mask. Sunny and I sat in the back with a bag of gorp between us. It was our contribution to the sleepover. We also had our sleeping bags and overnight bags.
“Remember when we would go to slumber parties and our overnight bags held candy and stuffed animals?” Sunny asked me.
“Yeah,” I said fondly.
“This time I packed clothes and makeup. Like I was going on a business trip. You know what Lorna Tobias took to her last slumber party?”
“What?” I asked.
“A cell phone.”
“Quack, quack,” said Jeff.
“I feel so old,” I said.
“Me too,” said Sunny.
“Here we are,” called Carol.
“Thanks!” said Sunny and I as we scrambled out of the car.
“We’ll call you tomorrow!” I added.
“Okay. ’Bye!” called Carol.
“Quack, quack,” said Jeff again.
“He is so weird,” Sunny said as we walked to the Hendersons’ door.
Jill flung the door open before I could ring the bell. “Hi, you guys!” she cried. “Come on in. Maggie just called. She’ll be here in about twenty minutes. Something to do with their chauffeur. That’ll be perfect timing. I just ordered the pizzas. They should get here just about when Maggie does. Too bad the pizza guy couldn’t pick her up on his way.” Jill seemed to think this was very funny.
Sunny smiled politely. I nudged her. The second Jill turned her back for a moment, I elbowed Sunny. “Be. Nice.” I mouthed this to her. She got the point.
The thing is, Sunny and Jill used to be close friends. Just like Sunny and Maggie, and Sunny and me. This is just one of the many things that are changing.
It nearly made me cry.
Twenty minutes later, just as Jill had predicted, the pizza guy and Maggie arrived at the same time. The pizza guy arrived in a white van with PAPA’S PIZZA painted on the side, only you could see where it had once said ARACE: FOR ALL YOUR SEASONAL FURNISHINGS AND DECORATIONS.
Maggie arrived in a sleek black limo.
“Whoa,” said the pizza guy.
Maggie ignored him. She breezed into the house, scowling. I knew what was wrong.
“I hate that!” Maggie cried. She meant arriving in the limo. She thinks it’s pretentious. She’s also afraid that people will only like her because of her money and her father’s connections. “At least Lena was driving, and she was on her way home so she was just wearing jeans and a sweater. The worst is when they wear the suit with the cap.”
Out on the front porch I could hear the pizza guy ask Jill, “Is she famous or something?”
“No,” said Jill. “But her father is a producer. He knows John Travolta. And Demi Moore. Gwyneth Paltrow too.”
“No kidding?” said the guy.
“Yes, she is kidding!” Maggie yelled, even though that was the truth. “I’m nobody!”
“Oh, Maggie,” I said.
“I cannot wait until I’m a vet. I’ll drive around in an old station wagon, rescuing wounded animals and finding homes for them. And I’ll live in a normal house and no one will think twice about me. Except my patients.”
“You could change your name to Doctor Dolittle,” said Sunny.
“Very funny,” said Maggie, but she was smiling.
Jill’s mom wouldn’t let us take the pizza upstairs to eat in Jill’s room, but she did leave the kitchen so we could eat there in privacy. As soon as the dishes were cleared away, though, Jill said, “Now let’s go upstairs. I’ve got a big surprise there for you.”
The big surprise was that Jill had wheeled the TV and the VCR from her mom’s room into her room. Plus, her room was all decorated.
“What’s this?” asked Sunny.
“I decorated. For us,” Jill said.
“Oh … Very, um, festive,” I told her.
Jill’s decorations consisted of pink and white streamers, a pink and white string of letters that spelled out BACK TO SCHOOL!, and bunches of pink and white balloons.
“It looks like a birthday cake,” added Sunny. This time I couldn’t tell if she was being mean or trying to be nice.
Jill couldn’t tell either. “Well … thanks,” she said finally. “Okay, are we ready to party?”
Late Sunday night 10/5
I should definitely be asleep now, considering what is going to happen tomorrow. I mean, what is probably going to happen. I’m sure Ms. Krueger is going to want to see Sunny and me. And Ducky. In her office. Which is why I can’t sleep. Anyway, I need to catch up with myself. I’m still writing about last night—and there’s been a lifetime between then and now.
Somehow, I don’t think that the person who coined the phrase “Are we ready to party?” meant with pink and white balloons, popcorn, and a selection of Disney videos for the VCR. I’m pretty sure he or she had something more sophisticated in mind.
But when Jill asked that question last night, I called out cheerfully, “Yeah! Par-TY!”
Sunny looked at me like I was crazy. Then she yawned. “What are we going to do all night?” she whined.
“What are we going to do?” Jill repeated. “Well, we can watch any of these Disney movies. Look. I have Pocahontas and The Little Mermaid and” (she saw our interest waning) “and some older ones that aren’t cartoons. Mary Poppins and Pollyanna.”
“Oh, Pollyanna,” said Maggie. “I haven’t seen that since I was little.”
“Great! We’ll watch it now,” said Jill.
“Oh, no, no. That’s okay. I didn’t mean that. I meant … I just meant … let’s watch something older.”
Jill frowned. She looked through some other videos. “Well,” she said at last, “I have Babe.”
“You know what?” said Sunny. “I’m not in the mood for a movie.”
This was too bad. Sunny should not have opened her mouth. Guess why. Because Jill had about a thousand other plans for the evening, each of them way worse than watching one of the movies.
First she
forced a game of charades on us. When that excitement died down, she said, “Okay, now let’s goof-call the neighbors. Oh, wait. We can’t do that yet. We’ll have to wait until Mom and Liz leave.”
Sunny’s head snapped up. “Your mom and sister are leaving?” she asked. “When? Soon?”
Jill looked at her watch. “Yup. In about fifteen minutes.”
“Really.” Sunny looked like a scientist with an important new piece of information. “Hmmm …”
Jill didn’t seem to notice Sunny. “Okay! Let’s play Cootie!”
This time even Maggie couldn’t help herself. “Cootie? Get real! We’re not going to play Cootie,” she exclaimed.
“Oh, please,” added Sunny. (She said it in exasperation.)
Jill bit her lip. “Um, okay. Then how about … makeovers?”
Sunny snorted.
That was too much for Jill. “All right. What do you want to do, Sunny? You go ahead and run the party.”
Sunny didn’t say anything. For a moment I thought she was gathering her courage to apologize to Jill. But she just kept scowling, and finally a strange expression came over Jill’s face. “You don’t want to be here, do you, Sunny?” she said. “You didn’t really want to have a sleepover, did you? You think they’re babyish. You just went along with the idea because you can’t go to the other party. Isn’t that right?”
“Well …” Sunny said.
“I knew it!” exclaimed Jill. “I knew it!” She turned angrily to Maggie and me. “How about you guys? Did you guys want to have a sleepover? Did you?”
“Well, sleepovers used to be fun,” Maggie replied.
I thought that was a very diplomatic answer, but it made Jill burst into tears.
“Jill,” I said. “Come on.”
I started to put my arm around her, but she jerked away. “Leave me alone. Just—”
“Ji–ill!” I heard Mrs. Henderson call from downstairs.
Jill opened her door. “What?”
“Your sister and I are leaving now. We’ll be back around midnight. You girls have fun. If you need anything, the Bergens are home. Mr. Bergen said they’ll be up late tonight.”