Friends till the End

by Laura Dower

All my BFFs are traveling for the summer. And I’m not. I’m in a science nightmare with Poison Ivy. The musical revue is coming at me like a speeding train. And now Mom is leaving Budge to be some big shot at another film company?

  Rude Awakening: Just when I think I have it all figured out, “it” takes off like a rocket, leaving me way in the dust.

  Okay, I’m not in the dust exactly. Just this afternoon, Aimee suggested that I sign up for one of her summer dance classes so I wouldn’t feel too out of touch and so I could limber up, not that I’m in major need of limbering. Or maybe I am? If I’m going to survive all these changes, I definitely need to get more flexible.

  On top of everything else that’s going on in school and life, we got word 2day that the teachers organized this last-minute field trip (a “reward,” they called it, HA!) to Lake Dora. It’s just a day trip for the seventh grade, but I guess it IS something to look forward to. I don’t know anymore. All these things blur together. I can’t forget to have Mom sign the permission slip before next week.

  Madison hit SAVE, because it was getting late and she still needed to check her e-mail. The little mailbox icon blinked. That meant, “Come and get it!”

  She clicked on the icon, and a larger-than-expected e-mail list appeared.

  FROM SUBJECT

  GoGramma My Itinerary

  GoGramma My Itinerary

  GoGramma My Itinerary

  Angelina77 Re: My Itinerary

  DR_BigBOB Re: My Itinerary

  Sk8ingboy Txt trub

  Dantheman Animal Clinic Summer

  Bigwheels W^

  Madison scrolled through the different e-mails. Naturally, Gramma Helen had hit the SEND button a few times too many.

  From: GoGramma

  To: MadFinn (Maddie), Angelina77 (Angie), DR_BigBOB (Bob), FF_Budgefilms (Fran)

  Subject: My Itinerary

  Date: Thurs 8 Jun 11:01 AM

  How wonderful to know that I will be seeing all of you in Far Hills in just a few weeks. I think having Maddie’s moving-up ceremony as an excuse to get family together was just perfect. Thanks, Maddie.

  I will be flying into LaGuardia Airport this time, direct from O’Hare in Chicago on Monday, June 19—a few days early. Fran and I discussed, so no one has to worry about getting me there, ok? If there’s any problem, let me know.

  Oh, and dears—I plan on making a big feast, so everyone come ready to eat. Angie and Bob—don’t forget to bring photos of your beautiful garden. You promised.

  All my love

  Gramma Helen

  After Gramma Helen’s e-mail, there were two responses: one from Madison’s aunt Angie and another from her uncle Bob, Mom’s brother. Both were checking in to see if Mom needed any help with the party.

  The family get-together to celebrate Moving Up Day was really, as Gramma Helen said, a great excuse to get the family together in the warm weather. Ever since the Big D, Madison’s extended family had not had much face time together. And it wasn’t just Mom’s side of the family that was coming. Dad’s brother, Rick, and his wife, Violet, were coming from Canada. And of course, Madison’s stepmother, Stephanie, was coming.

  So, although the day of moving up to eighth grade wasn’t necessarily a major event (not as big as a high school or college graduation), for the Finns and the Hirsches it would be a major bash. Madison just hoped it wouldn’t make her want to bash her head into a wall. After all, as she knew only too well, sometimes mothers and fathers and exes and aunts and uncles just couldn’t mix.

  After the e-mails about the family get-together and Gramma Helen’s planned arrival date, Madison checked the other e-mails in her box, from three of her favorite people. The first was from Hart.

  From: Sk8ingboy

  To:MadFinn

  Subject: Txt trub

  Date: Thurs 8 Jun 3:51 PM

  Hey im trying to txt u right now but I can’t. I think my dad is thinking about getting more data from his cell plan but for now he cut it off completely! DTS?! I guess we had a problem last month when he got the bill and there were like a billion messages I sent that cost all this xtra $$ so he got real mad. He sez I have 2 pay him back ASAP. So we def have txt trub, b/c I can’t get txting fm u either. EML8R?

  Madison smiled. She liked the idea that Hart was upset about not being able to get in touch. That meant he cared, didn’t it?

  Sigh.

  After Hart’s message, Madison read through a quick note from Dan. He had sent information about summer volunteer schedules at the animal clinic. Madison realized that clinic volunteer work was probably a great option for her, in addition to all the other things she had planned. Madison hit REPLY and told Dan that she’d check with her mom and plan her own summer clinic schedule.

  Of course, Madison saved the best message for last. Bigwheels was checking in from Washington. She’d been writing a lot lately.

  From: Bigwheels

  To: MadFinn Subject: W^

  Date: Thurs 8 Jun 4:19 PM

  LTNE-M! HAY? IMU! Wouldn’t it be funny 2 write ONLY in abbreviations? I tried that yesterday w/another online friend fm school and I got soooo messed up. But seriously—HAY—HOW ARE YOU? We’re practically 8th graders now & I am soooo psyched. Have we really been keypals for a whole YEAR???

  Is yr mom having that big party u told me about? +:>) Well…I told my mom about what u said and she decided to steal the idea so now we’re having EVERYONE—my uncles, cousins, aunts, grandmas, and everyone else—over for BBQ. U were right about tests—we have a bunch this week and next week 2. I thought we would be done 4 the yr but NSL. Boo-hoo. I am afraid I might fail math although my mom got me a tutor just in case. She wants me 2 apply to this ritzy private school. Help!

  BTW: Did I tell u my parents were THIS CLOSE to making a reservation to fly to NEW YORK CITY??? Dad’s cousin lives there. But now the plans have been nixed. :>(

  BTW 2 : Reggie asked me to the junior high dance 4 the end of the yr. Do u have a dance 2?

  OK. I better go now. SUS! Well, that should be W2US!

  Yours till the sun beams,

  Bigwheels aka Vicki

  P.S.: WBSTS

  Madison smiled. This was one of those messages that made her feel virtually hugged. Bigwheels was an expert at that.

  Madison had just begun typing her response when she heard the sound of a motor from out in front of the house. A moment later, a car turned in to the driveway. Madison glanced up to see Dad behind the wheel. Stephanie was next to him in the front seat. Smiling, Madison waved.

  “Hello-o-o-o-o-o!” Stephanie waved back from the rolled-down window.

  “Hey,” Madison called. She snapped the laptop lid shut. “Just a sec!”

  She ran into the hall, where Mom was standing. They embraced and said their good-byes.

  “I’ll see you when your dad brings you back,” Mom said sweetly.

  Madison nodded. Phin nuzzled the backs of her knees, and it tickled.

  “See you, too, my little Phinster,” Madison joked around. She bent down to scratch Phin’s ears. “Seriously, Phinnie, be a good boy for Mom.”

  Dad lightly honked the horn. “Let’s boogie!” he called out.

  Mom stood in the doorway and waved good-bye to everyone, including Stephanie. Over the course of seventh grade, Madison had noticed that Mom and Stepmom had actually become a lot friendlier. Despite the Big D, it seemed that the last year had brought everyone a little closer together—almost like one big, happy family with a few blocks, or miles, in between.

  Then again, as Mr. Danehy had said in class, almost was the operative word.

  When it came to families, just about anything could happen.

  And when it came to Madison’s family, anything would happen.

  Madison just had to wait a few weeks to see how everything played itself out.

  Chapter 4

  OUTSIDE THE LOCKED CHORAL room, Aimee twirled impatiently, and then twirled some more. Madison watched as her BFF tried to do t
hree complete rotations without losing her balance. Of course, she could. As far as Madison was concerned, when it came to dance, Aimee could do anything.

  “You’re making me dizzy,” Fiona groaned, grabbing Aimee by the sleeve. “You have to stop.”

  “I can’t stop,” Aimee teased, spinning around again. “Wheee-hooo!”

  Madison giggled. “Yes, you can stop,” she declared, reaching out for Aimee’s sleeve. “Aim…”

  Aimee finally stopped the spin. She threw her arms up and quickly leaned into the wall to keep from falling flat, even though spins like that rarely made a ballerina dizzy.

  Madison and her two BFFs slid down to the floor and sat cross-legged, still waiting for the choral room to open up so the first official revue meeting could begin. A teacher was supposed to open the door, but so far only a crowd of students had shown up.

  “Guess what?” Aimee whispered to Madison and Fiona. “Ben might try out.”

  Aimee’s eyes lit up when she said the name of her crush.

  “Your Ben—is going to sing and dance?” Fiona asked in disbelief. “Aim, you’re making that up.”

  “I am not,” Aimee said defensively. “He said…”

  “He said it to be nice,” Fiona said.

  “Aim,” Madison made a face. “Ben is, like, one of the shyest guys in school. How could he possibly do the revue?”

  Aimee got a worried look on her face, and Madison realized that she’d just popped her best friend’s bubble.

  “He probably just said it because he likes you—and he wants you to keep liking him…or something like that…” Madison said, trying to make Aimee feel better.

  “Chet told me Ben was chosen to do the big speech for our class on Moving Up Day,” Fiona said. “He’s probably focused on that.”

  “Ben is our class valedictorian?” Madison asked. “Since when?”

  “He’s the obvious choice,” Aimee said, smiling wide. “He’s the smartest kid in our class, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, he’s a super-duper-califragilisticexpialidocious genius,” Madison said, borrowing the funny word from the Mary Poppins song.

  Just then, the choral room door made a loud clicking sound. The choral directors, Mr. and Mrs. Montefiore, opened the double doors wide. The two of them were both dressed in navy blue and white. Mr. Montefiore had on one of his ugly blue-striped ties over a wrinkled white shirt. Mrs. Montefiore wore a dark blue dress with thin white stripes. Being a matched set fashionwise wasn’t the only way that they seemed the same. This couple talked alike, walked alike, and even laughed the same way.

  The kids rushed inside. Madison, Aimee, and Fiona staggered toward three seats near the middle of the room. When everyone finally settled in, the room was packed.

  “Is Egg doing the revue, or what?” Madison asked Fiona, who always knew where Egg was—and where he was headed.

  “No,” Fiona shook her head. “He said he’s too busy with the school website. Of course, I told him that was a lame-o excuse. Don’t you think?”

  Madison and Aimee nodded.

  Mrs. Montefiore tapped her baton on the music stand at the front of the room.

  “Welcome, students!” she declared in her singsong voice. “Mr. M. and I are beyond thrilled about this year’s revue. To see so many seats filled with students ready to entertain us … Well, it brings genuine tears to my eyes…”

  “Who is she kidding?” Aimee moaned under her breath. “Those cannot be real tears.”

  Fiona and Madison stifled a giggle.

  Mrs. Montefiore asked everyone to stand up and do a few stretches. No matter what kind of rehearsal it was or what time of day it was, she always added in some kind of acrobatic element. One time, Mrs. Montefiore had had everyone in the room act “like the wind” and blow themselves around the room. It was fun for about thirty seconds—until two kids collided and one got the real wind knocked out of him.

  Madison glanced around the room to see who else she recognized. There were surprisingly few seventh graders, a whole bunch of eighth graders, and a cluster of ninth graders sitting together in the front of the room. Although Egg was indeed not there that day, Madison saw his sister, Mariah, and waved at her to come over.

  Mariah Diaz was a wild ninth grader; today she had her hair streaked pink, a color that was most definitely not allowed in the school dress code. Madison guessed that Mariah had only just put the color in the day before. She was always taking risks like that.

  “Hey, Maddie,” Mariah said when she came over to Madison and the others. No matter what, Mariah always made the time to say hello and be friendly. In many ways, she was the exact opposite of her annoying sibling.

  “Hey, Mariah,” Madison responded. “Are you in the revue?”

  Mariah nodded. “Backstage, I think. I’m helping with the whole set and backdrops, working with the art department. Of course, I won’t be doing much more than painting. You know the deal: teachers are in charge. But I get to do a few of my own designs, which is cool.”

  “Wow,” Madison said, impressed.

  Mariah nodded. “My mom wanted me to play a piano solo, too. I don’t know if I want to perform though, unless it means getting Egg out here to play his head like a coconut!”

  Madison giggled. “Are you excited about graduating?”

  “Sure,” Mariah said. “If I graduate. Today, Principal Bernard said that if I showed up again with another inappropriate hair color, he’d suspend me.”

  “He wouldn’t do that!” Madison cried.

  Mariah nodded. “It’s nothing compared to what my mom will do to me. When she saw the pink this morning, she threatened to shave my head.”

  “I think it looks kind of cool,” Madison said.

  “Face it,” Fiona piped up, “you always look cool, Mariah.”

  Mariah smiled modestly. “Thanks. You do, too.”

  “Too bad no cool rubbed off on your brother,” Aimee joked.

  Mariah laughed hard. “Hey, I better sit down. Mr. M. is giving me the evil eye. Plus, his toupee is about to fall off. Check it out.”

  Madison and the others shot a look at the music teacher just in time to catch him readjusting his hairpiece.

  As the meeting continued, Mr. Montefiore explained how the entire group of participants would choose from a list of musical numbers, mostly Broadway tunes. Most people who volunteered to sing and dance would be singing group numbers, while a select few would do their whole act solo or in pairs. Mr. and Mrs. Montefiore sat down at the piano and belted out a few examples of the songs they’d be singing from shows like Guys and Dolls, Pippin, and Bye Bye Birdie.

  Madison thought about what Ivy had said to her in the hallway, about how Madison wasn’t “exactly” a performer and how she “practically” fell apart when she got onstage. Unfortunately, Madison had to admit that her enemy was right on target. Despite minor successes in speaking onstage at the Junior World Leaders Conference or presenting papers in front of an entire class, Madison Francesca Finn was way better behind the scenes.

  “Okay. I just decided. I’m absolutely not singing,” Madison declared to her friends.

  “Maddie,” Aimee said, “If you’re singing in a group, no one will hear you—”

  “I’ll hear me,” Madison said.

  “You’re too hard on yourself, Maddie,” Fiona said.

  “I’m just realistic,” Madison said.

  “Well, I’m singing!” Fiona chirped. “And I know Lindsay wants to sing, too. Maybe she and I can do a duet. I’ll ask Mrs. Montefiore.”

  “What’s Madhur doing?” Aimee asked.

  Madison and Fiona both shrugged. No one knew for sure.

  After a chaotic hour of song selecting, the large group was dismissed. Madison saw Ivy skip out of the room as if she didn’t have a care in the world. A few rows beyond her, Mariah exited the hall, too, her pink-haired head held high. Despite her outsider stance, Madison looked up to Mariah a lot. Egg didn’t realize how lucky he was to have her for a big
sister.

  “We’ll post the final list of participants up on the main bulletin board in the lobby by tomorrow at lunch, along with a complete schedule of run-throughs and practice times,” Mr. Montefiore said as everyone left the room.

  “Thank you, dears, for coming!” Mrs. Montefiore gushed.

  Madison had made plans to walk home together with Aimee and Fiona, but on the way out of the choral room, she remembered that she’d left a notebook in Mr. Danehy’s classroom. The purple notebook was important, because it contained her preliminary project notes. That night, Madison planned on surfing the Internet for more facts and figures related to the list of topics.

  As Madison walked toward the science room, she saw that there weren’t too many students—in fact, there weren’t too many people at all—left in the building, although Madison narrowly missed a collision with a custodian and his very large bucket of dirty mop water.

  Luckily, Mr. Danehy’s door was ajar, which meant that he was probably still inside. He never left his classroom open at night. There were Bunsen burners, glass jars containing lab specimens, and a whole host of other valuable items stored inside. He knew that pranksters could very easily enter his room and cause mayhem if he didn’t lock it up when he left.

  “Mr. Danehy?” Madison said as she pushed the door open.

  Her teacher was not alone.

  “Oh, I was just talking about you,” Ivy blurted out as soon as she saw Madison come through the door.

  “What are you doing here?” Madison asked. Ivy wasn’t the type to stay after school unless she absolutely had to.

  “The question is,” Ivy said in her most saccharine voice, “what are you doing here?”

  “Ms. Finn,” Mr. Danehy said, “Ms. Daly informs me that the two of you have not yet chosen a topic for the project.”

  “No? Well…” Madison was completely taken aback.

  Ivy held up a notebook. It was purple.

  Madison’s notebook!

  “I was just showing Mr. Danehy our class notes,” Ivy said, holding it up.

  “Our class notes? Wait—that’s—wait—” Madison tried to speak fast, but it came out all garbled. She was too surprised to get the words right.