As if reading Deja’s mind, Nikki says, “I can turn now. ChiChi showed me how.”
“Well, la-di-da,” Deja says, crossing her arms.
All three girls look over at Deja. Then Keisha and ChiChi look at Nikki, as if waiting to see how she’s going to react to this.
Nikki, with ropes in hand, can only manage to roll her eyes.
Deja gets in the jump rope line. She’ll show them.
“Regular,” Deja says when it’s her turn to jump.
Keisha and Nikki begin to turn with one rope. Deja steps back a few feet, then follows the rhythm of the rope with the palms of her hands until just the right moment. She jumps in and begins to chant: “All last night and the night before, twenty-four robbers came knocking at the door. I got up to let them in, and this is what they said ... One, two, three...”
Deja is jumping with ease. She could do this all morning. When she gets to fifty-four, she feels the rope jerk beneath her foot, causing her to stumble.
“Out!” Nikki says. “Your turn, Ayanna!” Ayanna is next in line.
“I’m not out! You pulled the rope!”
“I did not!”
“You did, too!” Deja insists.
“Keisha, did I pull the rope?”
Keisha shrugs, as if she doesn’t want to get in the middle of it.
“Out, Deja!” a girl from Mr. Miller’s class yells. Then everyone in line begins to chant:
“You’re out, Deja! You’re out, Deja! You’re out, Deja!”
Deja would like to punch that girl. She is not even in her room area. Room Sixteen has tetherball this week. She should tell Mrs. Butler on her. She should try to get that girl benched. Instead, Deja stomps off to Room Ten’s lineup spot. She’s tired of jumping, anyway.
The rest of the day pretty much follows the same pattern. Now Nikki is oh-so-tight with ChiChi and Keisha. Deja spies them passing notes to one another. At the end of the day, they use their free ten minutes to work on the class jigsaw puzzle together. It has five hundred pieces.
But Deja has an idea to get even. She’ll invite Ayanna over to play Ping-Pong after school. Now that Auntie is home all the time, Deja can have company. With this in mind, she doesn’t care a bit about the laughter coming from the puzzle table. She doesn’t even care that Ms. Shelby has to tell them over and over to use their inside voices.
As soon as Ms. Shelby tells Deja’s row to line up by the door to go home and is busy deciding which row is next, Deja turns to Ayanna behind her. “Can you come over? To play Ping-Pong?”
“I’ll ask my mom,” Ayanna says, looking a little surprised. “Can Rosario come?”
“I guess so,” Deja says.
“And Suzanne from Mr. Beaumont’s class? She lives on my block, and my mother gives her a ride.”
“Okay,” Deja says, a little unsure. Suddenly, she’s not feeling so confident, but she can’t back out now.
As she walks to Auntie’s car, she thinks about how she’ll go about getting permission to have company. She thinks about how Nikki will feel now that Deja has new and better friends.
“Where’s Nikki?” Auntie Dee asks as Deja is fastening her seat belt.
“She’s coming, I guess,” Deja says. Once Ms. Shelby let everyone out of the class, Deja noticed Nikki lagging behind with Keisha and ChiChi. Deja thinks it’s really rude for Nikki to keep Auntie Dee waiting. However, Auntie Dee must not think so, because she pulls a book out of her purse and starts to read. Auntie always carries a book with her just for times like this.
At last, Nikki strolls up and gets into the back seat. She greets Auntie Dee, then says to Deja, “I was with ChiChi and Keisha. They’re coming over later.”
“Well, Rosario and Ayanna and this girl from Mr. Beaumont’s class are coming over to my house to play Ping-Pong.” Deja quickly turns to Auntie Dee. “Is it okay?”
Auntie Dee puts her book away. “I suppose so.” She looks back at Deja and then at Nikki. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” they both answer together. Any other time, they would have slapped palms for saying the same thing at the same time. Now they just stare straight ahead.
Nikki and Deja’s guests arrive at almost the same time.
Deja takes Ayanna, Rosario, and Suzanne, the girl from Mr. Beaumont’s class, outside to the Ping-Pong table. A rousing game begins, full of extra-loud laughter. Deja leads with the loudest laughter of all.
She wonders from time to time what Nikki is doing with her guests. She saw them from the kitchen window when they were dropped off together. She had gone inside to get drink boxes for everyone. Then Auntie brought out a tray of her healthy version of snacks: celery and bell pepper strips with peanut butter.
For a while, all is quiet on Nikki’s side of the fence. Deja looks up at Nikki’s bedroom window at one point and sees that it is open. That encourages her to be even louder and to lead the other girls into being as loud as possible, too.
When she gets Ayanna out, she shouts, “You’re out, Ayanna!” She practically leans her head back and aims this up at Nikki’s window.
Rosario is the next to challenge her. Back and forth it goes until Deja sees her opening to slam the little white ball. Rosario misses. Deja leads loud cheers. Then Suzanne takes her place at the Ping-Pong table. She’s good at the game. Back and forth the ball goes—on and on, while Ayanna and Rosario cheer first for Deja, then for Suzanne. On and on.... At one point, ChiChi comes to Nikki’s window and looks down. She’s soon joined by Keisha. Deja loves showing off. She sneaks a glance up at her audience. While she’s busy doing that, Suzanne slams the ball hard, sending it quickly past Deja’s attempt to return it.
“Out!” Rosario shouts.
It takes Deja a moment to realize she’s really out. Then she hears laughter. It’s coming from Nikki’s window! Nikki is at the window with her guests. All three are pointing and laughing. Extra loud, Deja thinks. That’s it, she decides. She’s never, ever going to be friends with Nikki again. Never!
A cool front moves in for the rest of the week. In the car going to and from school, Deja has nothing to say to Nikki, and Nikki seems to have nothing to say to Deja. And that’s just fine. When Deja sees Nikki dash off at recess to join her new best friends, Keisha and ChiChi, she just joins her new best friends, Ayanna and Rosario. Deja likes it better this way, she tells herself. She’ll just be friends with Ayanna and Rosario forever. And not miss Nikki even a little bit.
10
Wedding Day
Nikki & Deja
Nikki wakes very early on the Big Day. She looks at her dress hanging on the closet door. So pretty, she thinks. Her hair is in sponge rollers. She’d gotten it done after school the day before. After the beauty shop lady had finished, she’d looked in the mirror and thought that she could have been a movie star. Her hair looked so pretty. Last night she had to sleep in sponge rollers with a scarf tied over them so her hairdo wouldn’t get messed up.
She looks at her new white patent leather shoes on the floor under her new dress. She has white tights to go with them, which are almost like stockings. She’s going to look like a princess. She smiles thinking about this. Then she has vision of Deja in her homemade dress and laughs out loud. Too bad I didn’t get my dress in lavender, Nikki thinks.
Deja had been so excited she could hardly fall asleep the night before. After they’d dropped Nikki off, she and Auntie Dee had gone directly to Miss Ida’s and picked up Deja’s dress for the wedding. Miss Ida brought it out in a plastic bag, just like the stuff you get at the cleaners. Deja had tried it on and then stood in front of Miss Ida’s standing mirror in her bedroom. It was beautiful! Not homemade-looking or sloppy at all. She looked just like a princess. She loved her new dress, even if it was in peach instead of lavender. It went perfectly with her black patent leather shoes, which still fit. After that, they headed directly over to Auntie’s friend Phoebe’s so Deja could get her hair done.
Sitting in her bed now with sponge rollers in her hair, gazin
g at her beautiful peach princess dress hanging from the top of the closet door, Deja just knows she’s going to look way better than Nikki. Hah, hah, and hah!
Nikki has no appetite. She’s too excited. Her mother places a bowl of oatmeal in front of her, but she can eat only a few bites. She kind of wonders what Deja is doing right then.
It’s all Deja can do to get down her cold cereal. It has those awful little flax seeds in it that she finds hard to eat. They keep getting stuck in her teeth. She wonders, just a little bit, what Nikki is doing right then. And she wonders what time Nikki and her mom are leaving for the wedding, which is at noon at a fancy hotel, followed by a fancy reception with lunch and cake. Deja is really only interested in the wedding cake. Oh, and she wishes she could see Ms. Shelby open all her presents. She looks over at the wrapped present she’ll be bringing, sitting on the kitchen counter.
She thinks about the kente cloth table runner from Ghana. Will Ms. Shelby like it? One thing’s for sure. She won’t be getting another one like it. It came all the way from Africa.
The hotel has an atrium with tall palms that reach all the way to the ceiling. Deja looks up at the skylight and sees the clear blue sky. It is a perfect day for Ms. Shelby’s wedding. Deja decides right then that she is going to have her wedding at the very same hotel.
Auntie checks the announcement board that tells where all the events are. “Crystal Room,” Auntie says, taking her hand and leading the way. Deja follows, feeling a surge of excitement for two reasons. She’s going to see her teacher get married, and she just might run into her best-friend-no-more, Nikki.
A man in a uniform stands at the Crystal Room entrance. “Guest of the bride or groom?” he asks.
“Bride,” Deja says happily. She loves saying the word, because bride means her beloved teacher, Ms. Shelby.
The uniformed man poses the same question to the people behind her.
“Bride,” says a small voice that Deja recognizes. She turns around. It’s Nikki. In a peach chiffon dress with a wide moss-green sash! Deja is stunned, but she hopes she’s hiding it well.
Nikki is surprised as well. She knew she would see Deja eventually, but she didn’t think it would be so soon, and not right in front of her. And she didn’t think she’d see Deja in a peach-colored dress that looks almost like her own. Deja looks her up and down. “Hi,” she says quietly.
“Hello,” Nikki says, then looks away.
***
Auntie and Nikki’s mom say hello and stand there scanning the seating. There aren’t any rows with four seats together. An usher leads Auntie and Deja to two seats in the middle row, halfway up the aisle. Deja doesn’t know where Nikki and her mom will be sitting. She doesn’t dare look back.
The usher escorts Nikki and her mom to two seats five rows behind Deja and her aunt. When they sit, Nikki can no longer see Deja.
The music starts up, and everyone turns to see the groom and the groomsmen walk down the aisle. After they take their places on one side of the altar, Ms. Shelby’s bridesmaids glide up the aisle and take their places on the other side of the altar.
Deja’s mouth drops open. She wishes she could look back to see if she can find Nikki. She wonders what Nikki must think. Deja knows that she’s probably never seen anything so beautiful.
Then the music changes to “Here Comes the Bride.” Everyone stands and turns toward the entrance of the Crystal Room. Deja’s heart begins to beat faster. Behind her, Nikki’s heart begins to beat faster. Nikki’s mom and Auntie Dee take out tissues from their purses. Slowly, Ms. Shelby, in the most beautiful white wedding dress Nikki and Deja have ever seen, begins her walk down the aisle on the arm of her father. Nikki and Deja both can’t believe it. Their teacher is getting married!
The most exciting part happens after all the long, long stuff the man at the front says about marriage and vows and a bunch of other big words that Nikki and Deja don’t even understand. It happens when that man gives the groom permission to kiss the bride.
Nikki holds her breath. Deja holds her breath. Their teacher’s new husband leans over and kisses her ... right on the cheek. Both girls clap their hands over their mouths to keep from bursting into laughter. Now Deja really wishes she could see Nikki’s reaction. And Nikki wishes she could see Deja’s face, too.
“He must be very shy,” Nikki hears her mother say.
Nikki knew it! She could tell when she saw Ms. Shelby’s fiancé in the office that time. She could tell he was the quiet, shy type.
Nikki and Deja watch their teacher go back down the aisle on the arm of her new husband, followed by the bridesmaids and groomsmen. After a bit, everyone else gets to go down the aisle too, and out the double doors to the reception room next door.
There are so many people that the girls don’t see each other. The room is filled with round tables with white tablecloths and silver place settings. Each table has a flower arrangement of white orchids and a card with a number on it at its center.
“Table twelve,” Auntie says, looking around. “Help me look, Deja.”
Deja looks around, but not for table twelve. She’s trying to see where Nikki is.
At the same time, Nikki is searching the room for Deja.
“There it is,” Nikki hears her mother say.
Auntie Dee finds their table just then as well.
Deja and Auntie Dee and Nikki and her mom arrive at table twelve at exactly the same time. There are four empty places, all together. When Auntie Dee and Deja’s mom sit down, they leave the two seats between them empty. “Sit down,” Auntie Dee says, before introducing herself and Deja to the other people at the table.
Nikki’s mom tells her to be seated too, and then turns away to introduce herself to the elderly woman seated on the other side of her.
“Isn’t this nice?” Auntie Dee says.
“It’s absolutely lovely,” Nikki’s mom says.
Nikki and Deja don’t say anything. A waiter comes by and places salad in front of them. Deja looks down at hers, then at all the silverware at her place setting. Nikki stares at her place setting as well.
“I’ve got too many forks,” Deja says to herself.
“Me, too,” Nikki mumbles. Her mother is busy talking to the elderly gentleman sitting two seats away. Nikki holds up the smallest one and studies it.
“I thought you were going to wear lavender,” Deja says out of the blue.
“I decided not to,” Nikki says. “Because lavender’s your color.”
“That’s why you got your dress in peach?”
“Yeah.” Nikki starts in on her salad with the little fork. “But why are you wearing peach?” she asks after a moment.
“’Cause I didn’t want to be twins.” Deja sneaks a look at Nikki to see how she takes this.
“And look,” Nikki says, giggling. “We’re twins anyway.”
Deja can’t help giggling, too. She takes a bite of salad, using the same size fork as Nikki.
***
Later, when the dessert cart comes around, they both choose strawberry shortcake.
After that, a cart comes around with gold boxes of wedding cake to take home.
“I’m keeping mine forever,” Nikki says.
“Me, too,” Deja says.
Then, in the middle of the reception, while everyone is eating the yummy desserts, music starts up. And there’s their teacher, dancing with her new husband—something like a waltz. She still has on her flowing white wedding dress. Their teacher, dancing with her husband... Nikki and Deja look at each other and smile. They’re speechless. This is just too amazing. Ms. Shelby is amazing, her dress is amazing, and the decorations are amazing, too. Watching their teacher dance with her new husband is amazing, and taking wedding cake home is really amazing. But the most amazing thing about all of it, both girls realize with surprise, is sharing this wonderful experience with each other.
About the Author
KAREN ENGLISH has been an elementary school teacher in urban neighborhoods for man
y years, and she wrote these books with her students in mind. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
About the Illustrator
LAURA FREEMAN has illustrated many books for children. Her drawings for this book were inspired by her own childhood. Laura lives with her husband and two children in Dunwoody, Georgia.
Wedding Drama Page 6
