The (Totally Not) Guaranteed Guide to Friends, Foes & Faux Friends

by Megan Mccafferty

  “Um,” Dori said, unsure of herself. “I think it’s because she throws parties?” She looked to Sara for confirmation.

  “Bashy is slang for ‘cool’ in Jamaican,” Sara explained.

  “But I thought they were Japanese.” I was totally confused.

  “They’re musical and multicultural,” Hope chimed in from her spot on the couch in that Hope-y kind of way where I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

  “Ohhhh.”

  And just when I thought Hope might be making a recovery, she asked me to direct her to the bathroom. I pointed down the hall and to the right.

  “Are you going to be okay?” I asked.

  Hope shrugged.

  “You’ve seriously never heard of them?” Bridget asked when Hope had left.

  “Oh, you know Jessica,” Manda said. “She only likes the bands on her vintage T-shirts.”

  “‘Giggle Pop’?!” Bridget said helpfully.

  And then Manda turned the music back on and, like a command, she, Sara, Bridget, and Dori started singing a song that sounded like this:

  “Giggle giggle giggle POP!

  HA-ha-HA-ha-HA-ha-HA!

  Giggle giggle giggle POP!

  HA-ha-HA-ha-HA-ha-HA!”

  Repeat until someone—in this case, me—smashes the singers in the face with a piece of confiscated inflatable weaponry. Bashy indeed.

  “You’re so right, Manda,” Bridget gushed. “It really is the perfect group costume!”

  There was only one problem. By my count there were five Chibi Girls and six of us at the sleepover. You didn’t have to be Brainy Chibi to know who would be left out.

  And yet Dori didn’t seem to have a clue.

  Ack. It was classic Manda to blurt out the details of her brilliant group costume right in front of her, too, instead of waiting for a more appropriate moment so she wouldn’t feel excluded. Like, why couldn’t Manda have stuck to the high road just a little bit longer? Why couldn’t she have waited until Dori had gone to the bathroom before going on about her perfect group costume? Part of me still felt guilty about cutting Dori on the cafeteria line way back on the first day of school. Maybe I could make it up to her right now. I couldn’t stop this girl-on-girl crime from happening at school, but I was not going to allow this blatant nastiness to happen at MY SLEEPOVER.

  “Maybe we can come up with some other group costume ideas,” I suggested.

  “Oh, puh-leeze,” Manda said, waving me off. “Hope, you’re obviously Bashy because of your red hair.”

  Hope had just emerged from the bathroom and responded to this news with even less enthusiasm than I had.

  “Huh?” Hope said in an offhand way. “What?”

  “We’re going to be the Chibi Girls, and you’re Bashy,” Manda said.

  “Because of your red hair,” Sara reminded her, just in case Hope thought for a second it was because she was cooler than they were.

  “Right,” Manda concurred. “Try to keep up.”

  Easier said than done. Who could possibly keep up with all the alliances and factions forming and disbanding?

  “I’m just saying that we should keep our options open,” I said.

  “Okay,” Manda said, smirking. “Let’s hear another option. I would love to hear Jessica’s option, wouldn’t you, Sara?”

  “Yes,” answered Sara predictably. “I would.”

  “How about you, Bridget?”

  “Sure!”

  “Hope?”

  Hope nodded, but I wasn’t convinced she’d even heard what Manda had asked.

  Manda wouldn’t bother asking Dori.

  “Okay! An option!”

  I didn’t have an option. But I had to fill the inevitable awkward silence of Manda NOT asking Dori for her opinion, so I blurted out the first idea that came to mind.

  “We can, um, dress up like various elements from the periodic table.”

  And because no one said anything to stop me, I kept going.

  “It’s so simple! We all wear matching black leggings and white T-shirts with symbols for our elements written in black letters across the front. Like, Manda, you can be Pt for platinum. Sara, O for oxygen.” The idea wasn’t half-bad, really. “Bridget is gold and Hope is neon.”

  “What about me?” Dori asked.

  “Um… helium?”

  MOST AWKWARD OF AWKWARD SILENCES.

  Followed by riotous laughter.

  “Like, it’s not enough that you’re already getting all As?” Manda asked.

  Technically, that isn’t true. I have a C plus average in Woodshop.

  “Omigod! Only you would come up with a costume to earn extra credit in Mr. Odd’s class,” Sara joked.

  Mr. Odd was actually Mr. Todd, our science teacher who bore more than a passing resemblance to Frankenstein’s monster.

  “Seriously,” Dori said. “Kiss it up, kissy.”

  Just hinting at Mr. Odd and kissing sent everyone into a second round of hysterics. This proved that the Chibi Girls bonding wasn’t a fluke. It was possible for everyone at my sleepover to get along… if it was at my expense.

  Manda, Sara, Bridget, and Dori had a grand old time picking an element/costume for me.

  “Wouldn’t Jessica make a perfect lead?” Manda asked the other girls.

  “Omigod! Yes! Ld!”

  “The symbol for lead is Pb,” I corrected Sara automatically. “Not Ld.”

  “Nerd it up, nerdy!” said Bridget.

  “Aha! That’s it!” Dori said gleefully. “Jessica is Nd. Nerdium!”

  Manda and Sara gawked at Dori like they were seeing her for the very first time.

  “NERDIUM!!!”

  They were still far from BFFs, but this unexpected stroke of snarky brilliance earned Dori high fives from Manda and Sara. In fact, there was such a feeling of camaraderie going around the room that they high-fived Bridget, too, just for the heck of it.

  To her credit, Hope wasn’t joining in, but she wasn’t doing anything to stop them, either. She was so hot and cold lately. After our phone conversation, I’d been really looking forward to staying up late with her—later than everyone else—swapping stories. But with the way she was acting, I kind of wished she hadn’t shown up at all. I was asking myself how I’d possibly make it through the night when a surprise visitor came gliding into the living room on my grandmother’s arm.

  “Look who crashed the party!” Gladdie called out.

  It was Bethany! Right on time to save me!

  Chapter Thirteen

  I was so relieved when my sister took the spotlight. If they focused on her, they couldn’t make fun of me.

  “I heard you got the five-foot-four spot in The Alignment,” said Bethany to Bridget.

  Bethany was referring to The Famous Pineville Junior High Arrow Pointing Toward Awesomeness Alignment. It’s been the CHEER TEAM!!! signature formation since my sister’s days as captain. Personally, I don’t see what’s so amazing about arranging yourselves according to height, but I’ve been told that’s because I’m not a CHEER!!! aficionado and therefore unqualified to appreciate a legendary alignment when I see one.

  “Yep!” Bridget squeaked.

  “And you must have the other five-foot-four spot,” said Bethany to Dori.

  “Yep!” squeaked Dori.

  Bridget and Dori were seriously starstruck. The Chibi Girls have nothing on my sister. Especially when she started talking CHEER TEAM!!! business.

  “I was the five-foot-four spot back in the day.…”

  “YEP!” squeaked Dori and Bridget.

  Bridget’s an only child, and Dori’s the only girl in her family. Growing up, Bethany was like a big sister to all of us. And by that, I mean she was way too busy being impossibly popular and pretty and perfect to pay any attention to three elementary-school kids.

  The more she ignored us, the more glamorous we imagined her life to be. We’d act out scenes from her life with our dolls. Bethany was the closest thing to real-life Barbie we’d ever seen
.

  “Ooh, Ken!” Bridget would make Barbie-as-Bethany say. “I’d love to go for a ride in your convertible!”

  “Ooh, Prince Charming!” Dori would make Barbie-as-Bethany say. “I’d love to go to prom with you!”

  Bridget and Dori got annoyed whenever I didn’t stick to their fantasy script.

  “Ooh, G.I. Joe!” I’d make Barbie-as-Bethany say. “I’d love to fight terrorists and save the world with you!”

  Anyway, Bridget and Dori have admired my sister since the 3ZNUF days. But I didn’t expect Bethany to make an equally glamorous impression on Manda and Sara.

  “Omigod! That’s your sister?” Sara asked.

  I couldn’t blame Sara for her disbelief.

  Me: oversize War T-shirt, jeans, sneakers.

  Bethany: formfitting cashmere sweater, miniskirt, knee-high boots.

  Me: brown hair slipping out of a lazy ponytail.

  Bethany: golden hair flowing in perfect waves.

  Me: straight up and down.

  Bethany: curves in all the right places.

  “She’s totally gorgeous,” observed Manda. “She looks nothing like you.”

  Gee, thanks for the reminder.

  Me: my ordinary face.

  Bethany: her extraordinary face.

  Only Hope was unmoved by my sister’s arrival.

  “Bethany, dear,” interrupted Gladdie, “your gentleman friend requires your attention.”

  All heads turned toward Bethany’s “gentleman friend.” We hadn’t even noticed he was there until Gladdie spoke up. He was an unnoticeable kind of guy—with a forgettable face and average build. Even his gray hoodie and jeans blended in with the wall he was standing in front of.

  “Um, hi,” he said.

  Bethany has brought home dozens of boys over the years, but none of them resembled this guy. She usually goes for jocks. And jerks. Guys with big muscles and even bigger attitudes. This “gentleman friend” was shy and looked like he hit the books, not the gym.

  “This is our neighbor Rodney,” Bethany said to the group.

  “Rodger,” said Rodger-not-Rodney.

  “Oh, right,” Bethany said.

  Aha! Rodger-not-Rodney looked familiar, and not just because he had one of those blendy-in faces. He’d lived in our neighborhood forever! In fact, when my sister was my age, he was the preteen genius she’d paid to build a toddler trap to keep me out of her room! I hadn’t seen him in years. He must have been away at college. I remember my parents marveling about his acceptance to one of the big-time Ivy League schools.

  “Gladdie, can you show Rodger to the office? He’s got some work to do for me in there. I’ll join you in a moment.”

  Rodger-not-Rodney was smart, but it seemed he was still a sucker when it came to my sister. As Gladdie escorted him from the room, I tried to figure out what Bethany was up to. She turned to Manda and Sara.

  “So! Are you two on the CHEER TEAM!!!?”

  The weird thing about this question is that Bethany already knew the answer was no. I’d told her the whole story about how they’d been dismissed from tryouts by Miss Garcia because they were too focused on applying many layers of cheer flair to show up on time.

  Flustered by Bethany’s sudden attention, Manda and Sara got all tongue-tied.

  “Not. Like. On. But. Tryouts. So.”

  “Omigod! The team. Five minutes. And flair.”

  “Not. Fair.”

  “Totally. Not fair. At all.”

  Translation: It was totally not fair that they were dismissed from tryouts because they had been too focused on applying many layers of cheer flair to show up on time.

  Manda and Sara were still trying to explain themselves when Bethany coolly turned her back to them.

  “Jessie, can you help me with something?”

  I wondered why she’d need my help when she already had Rodger-not-Rodney working for her.

  “I’ll be right back,” I assured my guests. “Enjoy the buffet! Browse the magazines! Peruse our movie collection!”

  Ugh. Try-hard.

  Instead of following Rodger-not-Rodney and Gladdie into the Techno Dojo (aka my dad’s office), Bethany led me to her bedroom. She’d barely shut the door behind her before she turned on me.

  “What the heck is happening here?” Bethany asked.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing about Rodger,” I said.

  My sister looked at me blankly.

  “You mean Rodney?”

  “Rodger. Not Rodney.”

  My sister waved my correction away, as if knowing his real name was a nuisance, like mosquitoes at a barbecue.

  “He’s making minor adjustments to Mom and Dad’s computer,” she said as she fluffed her hair in the mirror. “To improve the flow of information.”

  “Why do you care about Mom and Dad’s flow of infor—?”

  I hadn’t even finished asking the question when I came to the answer.

  “Aha! He’s hacking their accounts to block e-mails from college about how you failed out!”

  My sister puckered her lips in the mirror, neither confirming nor denying the charge.

  “I don’t understand why you just don’t tell them the truth,” I continued. “They have to find out eventually.…”

  “Hey, sis, don’t change the subject,” said Bethany to change the subject. “What is going on here tonight?”

  “A party,” I replied. “Just like you told me to.”

  “I can see that,” she replied. “And I can also see that you don’t like most of the girls you invited.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “To someone with my expert eye, of course it’s obvious,” she said. “So why are these girls here? Especially the new ones who didn’t make CHEER TEAM!!!?”

  “This is me having fun with my enemies!” I said. “Just like your IT List told me to.”

  “Ohhh,” my sister said, snapping her manicured fingers. “Perfect!”

  See? PROGRESS IS BEING MADE.

  Or so I thought.

  “So what are you going to do?” she said all sneaky-like. “Wait until they fall asleep and give them face tattoos with a Sharpie?”

  “No!”

  “Or when you’re doing makeovers, you could dye their hair a really hideous orange.”

  “Why would I do that?” I asked. “That will just make things worse than they already are!”

  “Well, of course,” Bethany said. “That’s the downside to having fun with your enemies. They get mad when you mess with them. So you have to be prepared for them to retaliate. Omigod, like, once I talked this annoying girl Julia into plucking off her eyebrows.…”

  Julia. Where had I heard that name before?

  “And then Julia tried to get revenge by inviting me to a sleepover where she had planned all these pranks.…”

  Wait. What? Whoa.

  “Julia?” I broke in. “The same slumber-party invitation with the IT List written on the back?”

  “Right! Only I obviously didn’t fall for her trick, because no one was better at getting back than I was.”

  And all at once it dawned on me: My sister wasn’t encouraging me to have fun with my enemies. She wanted me to have fun MESSING WITH my enemies.

  “You’re really good at these power plays. Keep it up; you’ll be the queen of the IT clique before you know it.”

  She beamed at me proudly and strutted out the door to join my grandmother and Rodger-not-Rodney in the Techno Dojo.

  My sister was totally wrong, of course. I wasn’t good at this stuff at all. And for once, I was grateful to be so socially inept. If I had to power-play my way to having infinity BFFs, I decided right then and there that I was better off alone.

  Little did I know how quickly I’d get my wish.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When I returned to the living room, more than half the party had vanished.

  “Where did everyone go?”

  “Hope organized a group trip to the bathroom,”
Bridget replied.

  “We weren’t invited,” Dori added.

  Now I was really annoyed. Hope had barely spoken to me all night. Yet the moment I leave the room, she finds the energy to have a private gossip sesh with Manda and Sara? Of all the low blows I’d suffered at my own sleepover, this was the lowest.

  So far.

  I was wondering how the sleepover could get any worse when I heard the doorbell ring, followed by a riot of giggly squeals.

  “EEK!” Manda came running out of the bathroom with Sara close behind. “THE BOYS HAVE ARRIVED! I REPEAT. THE BOYS HAVE ARRIVED.”

  “What boys?” Bridget asked.

  “Puh-leeze.” Manda winked at Bridget. “You know what boys.”

  I don’t know why I hadn’t figured it out sooner. Boys were the only reason why Manda had insisted on Bridget’s presence at my party. If Bridget came, boys would, too. And they did.

  “We have more unexpected company,” Gladdie announced, ushering the next wave of surprise guests into the living room.

  And they really did come as a surprise because they weren’t at all the boys Manda and Sara had in mind.

  “Hey, ladies,” said the wrong boys.

  “Ew.” Manda curled her lip. “I can’t believe it’s you.”

  I couldn’t believe it, either. It was Aleck. From Woodshop.

  Whoops. I mean, Marcus Flutie, even though I never call him Marcus and he never calls me Jessica. Mouth and Cheddar were standing alongside him.

  “Hey, Clem!” they said in unison.

  “Who’s Clem?” asked Sara.

  “Clem’s me,” I said. “It’s kind of a Woodshop thing.”

  I regretted it as soon as I said it.

  “It’s a Woodshop thing!” Manda and Sara singsonged mockingly. “Ooooooh.”

  Gladdie gracefully stepped between the boys and the girls.

  “You gentlemen are welcome to stay,” Gladdie said, “but that requires full participation in all slumber-party activities.”

  Her blue eyes twinkled with mischief as she left the room once again. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought my grandmother actually wanted the boys to stay. Mouth and Cheddar shifted from high-top to high-top, looking like they were ready to bolt right back out the door they had come in. Aleck, on the other hand, stepped forward and took command of the situation. I still couldn’t believe he had crashed my party. He’d said he would crash my party, AND HE DID.