Stacey's Ex-Best Friend

by Ann M. Martin

  “Guess what,” I said. “I got permission for you to come to school with me tomorrow. You won’t have to spend the day alone.”

  “Come to your school?” repeated Laine.

  “Yeah. You can follow me around, go to my classes.”

  “But, Anastasia, I’m on vacation. The idea is not to be in school.”

  More and more, Laine was calling me Anastasia. And I did not like it. Mostly, people call me by my full name when they’re angry at me. Or frustrated with me. I knew Laine used the name just because it sounded more grown-up. Still, every time I heard it, it took me by surprise. I felt like snapping, “What did I do?”

  “You don’t have to come to school,” I replied. “It was just an idea. I want you to meet my friends. I mean, the ones who aren’t in the BSC. I want you to see SMS. I don’t know. It’s like … we used to be part of each other’s lives. When I was living in New York and we went to the same school, we were practically sharing one life. Now our lives are so different. We talk a lot, but we hardly see each other. I feel as if I’m losing half of me, and I’m trying to figure out how to get myself back. I miss you, Laine, I really do.”

  Laine smiled. “I’d like to come to school with you tomorrow,” she said.

  Which was why I was leaning into the guest room on Tuesday morning, trying to rouse her.

  “How are you getting to school today?” Laine mumbled from under her pillow.

  “Walking,” I replied. “Mom drives me if it rains, but the weather is supposed to be gorgeous again today. Early spring. Saugatuck Sam must have had an off day when he peeked out of his hole.”

  Laine giggled. She tossed her pillow away, flung back the covers, and sat up. “You’re demented!” she cried.

  “Thank you. I take that as a compliment.”

  Silly me. I also took it as a sign that the day would go well.

  * * *

  Laine and Mom and I ate a quick breakfast. As we were finishing, I said, “Hey, Laine. Remember that telephone code we used to have?”

  “The school code?” asked Laine.

  I nodded. In New York, Laine and I had gone to the same school but had lived in different apartment buildings. If one of us wanted to meet the other before school, we would call, let the phone ring once, and hang up. (There was no reason we couldn’t have made an actual phone call; we just liked the idea of using a code.)

  “Well, Mallory Pike and I have a code now,” I said. “Look out the window.” I pointed out our kitchen window to the back of the Pikes’ house. “See that white towel on Mal’s patio?”

  “Yeah?” said Laine.

  “That means Mal wants to walk to school with Mary Anne and Dawn and me. A red towel means she has to walk her brothers and sisters to school.”

  Laine gave me a funny look. “Why don’t you guys just call each other?” she suggested, frowning.

  I shrugged. I could feel my face reddening. “I don’t know,” I replied. “How come you and I didn’t just call each other?”

  “Because we were only ten,” said Laine.

  Mom put an end to the conversation. “You better get a move on, honey,” she said to me. “It’s getting late.”

  “Yikes, you’re right!” I exclaimed. “And there’s Mal!” (She was standing on the patio, peering at our house.)

  Laine and I left in a frantic hurry. We ran to Mal’s, and the three of us ran to Mary Anne and Dawn’s. Then the five of us ran to SMS, picking up other friends along the way.

  I was in a good mood by the time we reached school.

  Apparently, Laine wasn’t.

  Here are a few of the things that happened that day:

  Laine and I ditched a study hall and joined Claud and Mary Anne, who were working in the library. As the four of us sat at a table, Laine gazed outside and said, “How long is this period?”

  “Exactly forty-two minutes,” Claud answered.

  “Enough time to run downtown and go to the coffee shop?”

  “Well, yes,” I said. “If we could leave school.”

  “You can’t leave school?”

  “Nope.” I shook my head.

  Mary Anne looked surprised. “We can’t leave campus during school hours,” she said. (Frankly, I don’t think the idea had ever occurred to her.) “Not without an adult. You know, like on a field trip.”

  Laine rolled her eyes.

  “Well, we can’t,” I said defensively. “It’s hard enough to cut study hall. I don’t particularly want to be suspended.”

  (At this point, I waited for a response from Laine but got none.)

  Later, during a class, Laine was amazed that only one student at a time was allowed to use the bathroom.

  “What a stupid rule,” she whispered to me.

  “It’s so kids can’t duck out of class together and fool around.”

  “Well, what if two kids both need to use the bathroom really badly?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied crankily. “I guess the teacher would make an exception. And keep your voice down, Laine. We aren’t supposed to be talking.”

  Laine rolled her eyes.

  I thought lunch might come as a relief to Laine. We have practically no cafeteria rules (except the obvious ones, like don’t throw food). “See?” I said, as we entered the cafeteria. “We can sit wherever we want, with whomever we want. We can eat whatever we want. We can change places. We can go back and buy more food.”

  I had even arranged to sit with some boys. Usually Claud, Dawn, Mary Anne, Kristy, and I and sometimes Logan sit together, but I thought Laine might be tired of seeing nothing but the faces of BSC members, so I asked a bunch of other kids to join us. Among them were Pete Black, Rick Chow, and Austin Bentley.

  “Hey, lookit this,” said Austin, halfway through lunch period. “If you poke pretzel sticks into a prune it sort of looks like a space satellite.”

  We laughed — except for Laine, who looked dumbfounded, and except for Pete, who couldn’t take his eyes off Laine. Oh, and also except for Kristy, who had been glowering silently throughout lunch.

  Mary Anne nudged Kristy. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Bart might not be able to go to the dance on Friday,” she said crisply, biting off each word. “He calls me at home this morning and has the nerve to tell me he might want to watch a game on TV then.” She shifted her gaze to Pete. “What are you staring at?” she demanded.

  Pete was still watching Laine. He didn’t even hear Kristy.

  “Jerk,” Kristy muttered. I wasn’t sure if she meant Pete or Bart.

  “Hey!” exclaimed Rick, getting into the spirit of the prune sculptures. “If you take a bunch of prunes and join them with pretzel sticks, you can build molecules.” He held up a sculpture. “This is water,” he announced. “H-two-oh. And this one is carbon monoxide.”

  “Thank you, Professor Chow,” I said, giggling.

  “Where does he get the nerve?” sputtered Kristy.

  Dawn nudged her. “Give it a rest,” she whispered.

  “Boys are pains,” grumbled Kristy, but then she did keep quiet.

  Which was a good thing, because Laine was giving her a strange look.

  Lunch continued. The boys built prune models of hydrogen peroxide and some sulphur stuff.

  While Rick was trying to figure out how to make triethanolomine (or something like that), a silence fell over our table. And Pete chose that moment to murmur to Laine, “You have hair like gossamer.”

  Finally Laine laughed. It was the only time she laughed while she was at my school.

  That evening I had to do homework. I was sorry not to spend all my time with Laine, but homework was homework. However, near nine o’clock I decided I needed a break, so I joined Laine in the guest room, where she was reading a book.

  “You know, Pete Black likes you,” I said to her. I curled up in the armchair while Laine stuck a marker in her book, then rolled onto her side and propped up her head with her hand.

  “He wasn’t very subtle,�
�� she agreed.

  “I wonder where he ever found the word gossamer.”

  “Who knows? It sounds like it belongs on a vocabulary list for a fairy-tale book. Along with swoon and parapet.”

  “And swanlike neck,” I added.

  “I’m surprised he didn’t tell me I have ruby-red lips.”

  “Give him a chance,” I said. And then another wonderful thought sprang into my mind. “Hey! Invite him to the Valentine Dance!” I cried. “You know he’d go with you. And then you’d have a date on Friday.”

  “But Anastasia, he is such a dweeb.”

  “Pete?” I said. “Oh, Laine. No, he isn’t. Not really. You don’t know him the way we do. He’s smart and funny —”

  “He told me I have hair like gossamer.”

  “I think that’s sort of sweet. Don’t you?”

  Laine shrugged. “King would never say something like that.”

  “What would he say?” I asked. “I mean, how would he compliment you?”

  Again, Laine shrugged. Then she looked thoughtful. At last she said, “He’d say to me, ‘Awesome, Babe.’ That’s what he calls me. Babe.”

  “He calls you Babe?” I was incredulous. No one had ever called me Babe. And I didn’t think I wanted anyone to. Unless maybe some incredible performer was singing a song just for me. He could call me Babe in the song. That would be the only exception to the Babe Rule.

  Laine was smiling. “Yup,” she replied. “King calls me Babe and I call him Heart. Like in the King of Hearts. The King of my Heart.”

  I nodded. “Well, anyway,” I went on, “the King of your Heart is back in New York. And I’m sure Pete Black wants to take you to the Valentine Dance. You do want to go to the dance, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Laine answered.

  “So what’s the big deal? Go with Pete.”

  “The big deal is that Pete Black is a dweeb. Like I said.”

  “No, he isn’t. But if he was, why should you care? You’ll go to the dance with him on Friday. Then on Saturday you’ll go back to New York and King. It’s not like Pete will ask you to go steady.”

  “But what will people think?”

  “What people?” I asked, confused.

  Laine threw me a look that plainly said, “What are you? Crazy?” She spoke slowly when she answered me, as if I might not be able to keep up with her words if she spoke more quickly. “Everyone … at … the … dance … Your friends … The other kids … The teachers.”

  “They don’t know you,” I replied. “They’ll just think they see Pete, who’s a nice kid, dancing with some strange girl.”

  “Thanks a lot!” cried Laine.

  “Oh, come on. You know what I mean. Not that you’re strange. That you’re a stranger.”

  “I’m not a stranger to the other members of the BSC.”

  “And neither is Pete,” I pointed out.

  Laine grew silent. She examined her sweater and removed two tiny pieces of lint from it. I thought I saw her mouth tremble.

  “Laine, what’s the real problem?” I asked.

  “I guess I’m afraid of what King will think.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “If I’m being, you know, unfaithful to him.”

  “But this wouldn’t be unfaithful. The dance wouldn’t mean anything. Think of Pete more as your escort than as your date.”

  Laine squirmed. “I don’t know …”

  “Oh, go on. Call him,” I urged her.

  More squirming. Laine brushed back her hair.

  “You aren’t afraid to call him, are you?”

  “Of course not,” replied Laine. “Watch this.”

  Laine stood up. She led me into Mom’s room. She reached for the phone on the night table. And the phone rang!

  “Yiiiiiii!” we shrieked.

  I composed myself. I answered the phone.

  “Hello?” said an unfamiliar voice.

  “Hello?” I replied.

  “Um, hi. This is King. How’s Ba — I mean how is it there in the sticks?”

  “Fine,” I answered tightly. I motioned to Laine. “It’s King,” I mouthed.

  Laine grabbed the receiver. “Hi!” she cried. “Hi, Heart. It’s me, Babe.”

  I sat on the edge of Mom’s bed, next to Laine. I planned to give her moral support in case she had a difficult time telling King about Pete. But after several seconds had passed silently, I glanced at her and found her staring openly at me. She cocked her head toward the door.

  “What?” I whispered.

  Laine nodded to the door a few more times. So I looked at the door.

  Exasperated, Laine covered the mouthpiece with her hand. Then she whispered loudly, “I need some privacy.”

  “Oh!” I exclaimed, jumping to my feet. “Sorry.” I left Laine in a hurry and retreated to my room. I picked up a pencil and tried to concentrate on my homework. But bits of Laine’s conversation with King kept floating down the hall and into my ears.

  “… to a Valentine’s Day dance!” I heard her say, and giggle. There was silence. Then, “Yeah. I know…. I know.” A minute later, I thought I caught the word “childish.” Laine must be telling King about some of the children my friends and I baby-sit for, I thought. I smiled, glad to have Laine part of my life here in Stoneybrook.

  Fifteen minutes later, Laine had hung up the phone and sauntered into my room. Before she had a chance to sit down, though, the phone rang again. I dashed back to Mom’s room, calling, “I’ll get it!” I picked up the phone, mid-ring. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Stacey?” (Another male voice, vaguely familiar.)

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, hi, this is Pete. Um, Pete Black.”

  “Hey!” I cried. “What’s up?”

  “Well, I was just wondering. Is Laine there? Could I talk to her?”

  “Sure!” I exclaimed. This was great! I was sure Pete wanted to invite Laine to the dance. I was so proud of him. Plus, now Laine really would have a date for Friday night, so she could come to the dance with the rest of the BSC and our dates. What a perfect way to finish up Laine’s first visit to Stoneybrook.

  I called Laine to the phone, whispered who was on the other end, and then edged toward the doorway. But Laine reached out and caught at the sleeve of my shirt, asking me to stay.

  So I did, not sure why she wanted me around for this conversation. Especially when Laine’s end of it consisted of her saying, “Yeah … yeah,” about fifteen times. And finishing up with, “Okay. Thanks. I’ll see you Friday…. Yeah…. ’Bye.”

  When Laine hung up the receiver, she fell onto Mom’s bed and giggled uncontrollably. She laughed so hard she cried.

  “What?” I asked. “Did Pete ask you to the dance?”

  “Yes!” exclaimed Laine. Finally she calmed down enough to say, “Pete told me he thinks I’m cute. And that my eyes are like limpid pools. We have to add limpid to our vocabulary list, Anastasia.” Laine was overcome by giggles again. But she managed to say with a gasp, “Oh! I have to call King to tell him this.” Then she stared at me.

  I took that as my cue to leave.

  I didn’t return to my room, though. Instead, I hovered in the hall, shamelessly listening to Laine’s conversation. For someone who had been so reluctant to talk about something, she didn’t seem to have any trouble letting King know that she now was, in fact, going to a dance with another boy. She told him all about her very brief encounters with Pete that day — and she made Pete sound like a fool.

  I wandered back to my room. Something was wrong. Did Laine have to act this way to make sure King wouldn’t feel threatened by Pete? Well, that wasn’t fair. Not to Pete and not to King. Not to Laine, either. I found myself growing angry. But, I reminded myself, Laine and I have been mad at each other before. We’ve had some huge fights. And we’ve always made up.

  My friends and I like the Hobarts very much. As I said, the Hobarts live across the street from Claud, in Mary Anne’s old house. They bought it when her dad got
remarried and the Spiers moved to Dawn’s house.

  There are four Hobart boys. Ben, as I’ve mentioned, is eleven and is sort of Mal’s boyfriend. They go to the movies a lot and study together at the library. Then there’s James, who’s eight; Mathew, who’s six; and Johnny, who’s four. The Hobarts moved here from Australia. (And I thought Dawn had come a long distance when she moved from California.) When the Hobarts first came to this country, they spoke with these wonderful accents, but already the boys’ accents are beginning to fade. The Hobarts are making friends in the neighborhood, and we sit for them pretty often, so we invited James and Mathew to the Masquerade. (Ben’s too old and Johnny’s too young. Ben promised Johnny a special treat on Saturday so that he wouldn’t feel left out of the celebrations.)

  When Jessi arrived at the Hobarts’ on Wednesday afternoon, she found three exuberant little boys. They were excited about Valentine’s Day, and James and Mathew were looking forward to the party. Jessi thought they might be looking forward to it a bit too much.

  “We’ve never been to a party celebrating Valentine’s Day,” said James to Jessi. He took a bite out of a pear, then wiped his chin with a napkin.

  Jessi was sitting at the Hobarts’ kitchen table while she and the boys shared an after-school snack from the fruit bowl. “I think you’ll have fun,” Jessi replied. “You’ll know the other kids at the party. You’ll get tons of valentines. Maybe you’ll win a prize, playing a game.”

  “Awesome,” James said.

  “Yeah, awesome,” added Mathew. “Jessi? What do you wear to a Valentine masquerade?”

  “I’m going to wear —” Jessi began to say.

  But Mathew interrupted her. “No, I mean, what do six-year-old boys wear to a Valentine masquerade?”

  “And eight-year-old boys?” asked James.

  “Oh,” said Jessi. “Well, you can wear —”

  But again Mathew cut her off. “I’ll show you what I want to wear! I hope it’s all right.”