by Sally Warner
Purr. Purr-r. Purr-r-r-r-r-r.
Her kitty agreed with her, Alfie thought, giving Princess a hug that was only a little bit sticky.
Princess understood.
Absolutely.
6
Great Advice
“Knock, knock,” Alfie said after dinner, rapping on EllRay’s bedroom door.
“Come in, I guess,” EllRay called out. “Only you don’t have to knock on my door and say ‘knock, knock,’ Alf,” he added. He was stretched out on his bed, doing his homework. “One of ’em is enough. Two of ’em is one too many.”
“Huh?” Alfie said, peeking around the door.
Her brother was long, skinny, and strong, and Alfie was secretly proud of him. It was like she got extra points at school for having a brother in sixth grade.
“Never mind,” EllRay said, laughing.
“Are you busy?” Alfie asked. She sat down in EllRay’s desk chair, which he almost never used.
“Just hangin’ with a bunch of possessive pronouns,” EllRay said. “Why? Are you having trouble with your dreaded fraction circles homework?”
Alfie had been complaining about it during dinner. At Oak Glen Primary School, the kids were supposed to get ten minutes of homework for each grade they were in. So being in second grade meant twenty minutes of homework a night, not counting reading. Sixth graders had sixty minutes of homework—only it usually ended up being a lot more, according to EllRay.
“The math part of the homework was easy,” Alfie said, picturing the circles on her worksheet. They were divided into two parts, or three parts, or four, five, or six parts each. She was supposed to look at the fraction written next to each circle—½, ⅔, 3⁄5, 2⁄5—and color in that many parts of the circle.
“But math is the whole thing,” EllRay pointed out. “That’s why they call it ‘math homework.’ So what’s the problem?”
“Keeping my colored pencils sharp enough so the little pieces of pie look colored-in just perfect,” Alfie told him.
“That’s not an important part of the homework,” EllRay said, laughing.
“It is for us girls,” Alfie said, giving him a look. “It’ll be like a contest, almost. You should see how good Lulu and Suzette are at shading stuff in. They could do it for a living, they’re so great. They never scribble-scrabble at all.”
“Suzette Monahan?” EllRay asked, frowning. “Is she still around?”
Alfie and Suzette had been on-again, off-again friends since preschool, when Suzette had become famous in the Jakes family for demanding a trip to McDonald’s during her first playdate with Alfie. In fact, Alfie’s dad still called any attempt at bossy kid behavior “pulling a Suzette.”
“She’s my friend, for better or worse,” Alfie said, slumping in the chair. “All the girls in my class are my friends, I already told you.”
“Okay, okay,” EllRay said, holding up his hands in pretend surrender. “I give. And I totally believe you. So what’s the problem? Or did you just wanna talk? Because—”
He rattled a few of the papers surrounding him.
“I get it,” Alfie grumbled. “You have lots of homework because you’re an important sixth grader who’s the boss of the world.”
“The boss of Oak Glen Primary School, maybe,” EllRay said, pretending to think about it. “What’s up?” he asked again.
“It’s Tuesday, right?” Alfie said. “And everything was going perfect with the girls in my class until yesterday morning. That’s when Lulu Marino said she’s gonna have a sleepover this Saturday night. The best sleepover ever, in fact. But her mom says she can only invite five other girls, and she has to decide this week who they’re gonna be. And two girls are already her best friends. Suzette and Hanni.”
“So that leaves three empty spaces,” EllRay said, doing the math. “But you should get in easy, right? Because you and Lulu are so tight.”
“Yeah, sure,” Alfie said, making a face. “Last year, maybe. I mean, we didn’t have a fight or anything,” she hurried to explain. “Things just kinda changed over the summer when she went to Maine. I don’t know why. But I still want to go to the sleepover. I just don’t know how to pull it off.”
EllRay twiddled his pencil so fast while he thought that it became a yellow blur. “Wait,” he said, his eyes narrowing, and the pencil blur stopped. “Lulu’s not supposed to be talking about parties at school, is she? Not unless she invites every single girl in your class. So she’s breaking the rules. You should tell her she has to invite all the girls. That’s what.”
“She probably wouldn’t listen, that’s what,” Alfie said, shaking her head. “And nobody’s going to say anything to Mr. Havens about it, either,” she added. “Or Lulu won’t invite them for sure. Besides, Mr. Havens is just a boy, basically,” Alfie said. “And that means he could never understand us girls in a million years. And this is exactly what I was worried about way back last summer, remember? Having a boy teacher? I was right!”
“That was only four weeks ago,” EllRay pointed out. “And how do you think us boys feel? I’ve had a so-called ‘girl teacher’ every single year so far at Oak Glen.”
“But girl teachers understand everybody,” Alfie told him.
“No, they don’t,” EllRay said, snapping out the words. “You could ask Mom what to do, but parents get all mad at each other when their kids’ feelings get hurt. It just ends up making everything worse.”
“Yeah,” Alfie said.
“What about if you remind Lulu you used to be best friends?” EllRay asked.
“That’s too lame,” Alfie said.
“Then do something nice for her,” EllRay suggested.
“But everyone’s already kissing up to Lulu,” Alfie argued. “She’s as happy as a piggy in a puddle. You should see her.”
“Then give her a present so she’ll invite you,” EllRay said, only half paying attention now.
“That’s your great advice?” Alfie asked. “What am I supposted to give her, a bag full of money? Real money?”
“Unless you can get her to take Monopoly money,” EllRay said, laughing.
“That’s lame, too,” Alfie scoffed. “Either kind of money. Anyway,” she added, thinking about it. “I’m not gonna pay somebody to be my friend.”
“I was kidding,” EllRay said. “Even if you did want to pay her, you’re broke. And I’m not lending you anything.”
“Who cares?” Alfie said. “But I’m not getting any closer to going to Lulu’s sleepover, am I?” she asked, scowling.
Alfie could feel hot tears gather at the corners of her eyes. Her family called this “clouding up,” as if Alfie were a day that could turn from sunny to stormy, just like that.
“Wait a minute,” EllRay said, putting his pencil aside. “Maybe I can help. Talk to me, but pretend that you’re talking to Lulu, okay? Because maybe she doesn’t know how much you wanna go to her party.”
“Huh,” Alfie said. But she was listening.
“I’ll be Lulu, and you be you,” EllRay explained.
“Wait,” Alfie protested. “How come I have to be me? I always have to be me. I should get to be somebody else, for a change.”
“Let’s just try it my way first,” EllRay said, sighing.
“Okay. But you start,” she told her brother.
EllRay groaned, but then he spoke. “I’m giving this totally awesome party on Saturday, yo,” he began in a high voice, pretending to be Lulu. “And it’s gonna be pretty chill.”
“But your mom says you can only ask a few girls,” Alfie said, coaching him. “Go on, say it, EllRay. Except Lulu Marino’s mom calls her a special darling, so she never says ‘yo.’”
EllRay gave a dramatic sigh. “But my mom says I can only ask a few girls, yo,” he said, still in Alfie’s face a little as he peeped out the last word.
“Really?”
Alfie said in a pretend-casual, too-sweet voice. “Because I just love parties, Lulu! You remember that from when we were best friends last year, right? And I’m not doing anything on Saturday. Especially on Saturday night.”
“That’s interesting,” EllRay-Lulu said.
“Phoebe loves parties too,” Alfie said, as if she’d just been thinking about it. “And so does Bella Babcock, the new girl with three dogs. Amazing dogs,” she added, exaggerating.
But she didn’t know, Alfie told herself. Maybe Bella’s dogs were amazing.
“Oh! You guys should definitely come,” EllRay-Lulu said, pretending to fluff up his invisible hair.
“Lulu would never say it that easy,” Alfie argued, becoming her regular self again. “She’d stretch it out and make me beg.”
“You’re kidding me,” EllRay said, frowning. “Then why do you want to go so bad? Who needs her, if she’s like that?”
“I do,” Alfie explained, after thinking about it. “Because she’s the one giving the sleepover.” Duh.
“Pathetic,” EllRay said, shaking his head. “You’re better than that, Alf. You gotta stand up to her, if she’s really acts that way! Or at least stand up for what you want.”
“You just don’t get it, that’s all,” Alfie told him, jumping up from her brother’s chair. “I don’t know why I even bothered asking for advice! You’re not a girl.”
“You just figured that out?” EllRay asked, laughing again.
“I should ask my friends, instead,” Alfie told him. “They’ll help me decide what to do.”
“If anything,” EllRay said, and he turned back to his pronouns.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alfie asked, pausing at the door.
“It means that sometimes, you don’t do anything,” EllRay told her. “You just let things happen the way they happen.”
“Huh!” Alfie said-snorted. “That’s sure not my motto.”
“I know that,” EllRay said, still smiling as he shook his head. “Bye, Alfie,” he told her. “Hint, hint.”
“Good-bye yourself,” Alfie said, eager to have the last word.
Brothers. Hah!
7
Miffed, Hurt, Irked, and Furious
“Let’s go hang out at the campfire,” Phoebe said to Alfie at morning recess the next day, Wednesday.
“Okay,” Alfie said. “After I go to the restroom. You go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
Recesses at Oak Glen Primary School were set at different times for different grades, so the hall was not too crowded as Alfie headed toward the girls’ room. But as she was about to pull open the restroom’s heavy door, out charged Lulu Marino. Lulu looked excited, and her face was pink, as if she had just won a tetherball game on a very hot day.
“Move it,” Lulu exclaimed, bumping into Alfie in the doorway. “And mind your own business, while you’re at it.”
“Hey,” Alfie said. “I am minding my own business.”
Because what business could be more personal than a visit to the restroom?
“Don’t say it that way,” Lulu warned. “And the point is, you know what I mean.”
“Not really,” Alfie muttered, making her way into the restroom.
Lulu could be so weird, Alfie told herself, trying to hold her breath for as long as she could. It wasn’t that the girls’ restroom smelled nasty most of the time, but there was always that possibility. And the too-sweet smell of foamy handwashing liquid mixed with the sharp odor of whatever it was the custodian used to clean the floor at night was gross, in Alfie’s opinion.
Today, though, the only unusual thing going on in the girls’ room was the sound coming from behind the closed door of one of the restroom stalls.
Some girl was crying, Alfie realized, horrified.
Crying! With great gulpy sobs!
Alfie froze. Crying at school was way up there on Alfie’s list of nightmares-come-true, right after wetting yourself at school and hurling in class. But there were three kinds of school crying.
There was crying on the playground if you got hurt, which was okay. Not great, but okay—because you’d been wounded in battle, basically.
And then there was crying in front of other kids if you heard something really sad, like a dog dying in a story, or if someone hurt your feelings on the playground. That was embarrassing, but it was understandable.
Crying all alone in the bathroom, though? That was just sad.
The only thing worse would be for someone to see you doing it.
But just as Alfie unfroze enough to make a dash for a stall before the crying girl could exit hers, the other girl’s tan metal door swung open—and out came Bella, mopping at her splotchy, swollen face with a handful of tissue-y toilet paper squares. “Oh!” she said, seeing Alfie. “I’m sorry. And I’m not really crying.”
“Okay. Fine,” Alfie mumbled, disappearing into her stall.
Phew! Close one, Alfie thought, latching the door.
And by the time she went to wash her hands, Bella was long gone.
The new play area was sunken, sandy, and shady. It had two slides, “one straight and one curly,” the littlest kids in school boasted. There was also a circle of upended logs to sit on. Alfie and her friends had started calling this area “the campfire,” even though there was never a fire in the middle, of course.
It was just an ordinary day, Alfie told herself as Phoebe greeted her on the sloping path, and they walked toward the log circle. But the day seemed to have its own sour personality—in spite of that morning’s cloudless blue September sky. The only second grade girl who truly seemed happy today, Alfie thought, was Lulu Marino, the “special darling” sleepover queen.
Bella was nowhere to be seen.
“Were you really best friends with Lulu last year?” Phoebe whispered. She had moved to Oak Glen from Arizona over the summer, and she was still catching up on the other girls’ stories.
“I guess,” Alfie said again. She tried to remember that far back.
Alfie and Lulu had often played dolls when they were on playdates together. Even then, Lulu liked more to fuss with the dolls’ small clothes than to make up stories about them. And making up stories was one of Alfie’s favorite things to do.
The two girls used to watch cartoons, too—more at Lulu’s house than at Alfie’s, because Alfie’s parents had so many rules about TV during the day at their house.
The girls even invented a silly but fun game they called “Upside-Down Heads,” where they would lie on the grass, their heads together but their bodies stretched out in opposite directions. How funny Lulu had looked then, with her eyes seeming to be at the bottom of her face, perched atop her straight bangs! And she herself must have looked unfamiliar too, Alfie guessed, with her mouth where her eyes were supposed to be.
They even tried drawing pictures of each other that way.
It was hard to remember exactly why this had been such a crack-up when they were six years old, Alfie thought now. But she and Lulu had giggled a lot. That much she remembered.
And then Lulu went to Maine with her family all last summer, a summer that had felt to Alfie as though it lasted an entire year.
But even before that, she and Lulu had stopped hanging out as much as before, Alfie had to admit.
Things changed, her mom often remarked.
“Look at them,” Phoebe whispered as they approached the circle of logs. “Nobody looks very happy, except for Lulu and Suzette.”
It was true, Alfie saw. Instead of laughing, or even smiling, the girls looked miffed, hurt, irked, and, in Hanni Sobel’s case, furious.
And Hanni was one of Lulu’s two best friends at school this year!
“Maybe this means Hanni’s not getting invited to the sleepover,” Phoebe whispered, sounding excited—as if she was happy that another vacancy might have opened up on Lulu’s g
uest list.
“That’s messed-up, Pheeb,” Alfie said, surprised. Phoebe was usually so sweet!
Were her second grade classmates really going to turn on each other now?
Alfie walked over to where Hanni was sulking on a log. She whispered, “Are you okay, Hanni? What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know,” Hanni mumbled, her green eyes narrowing as she looked away.
She didn’t know! And Hanni Sobel, “the world’s oldest seven-year-old,” according to Alfie’s mom, was kind of a know-it-all, Alfie had to admit. Even EllRay said so. It was rare for Hanni to say “I don’t know” about anything.
“Only I’m not giving Lulu my dessert at lunch, no matter what she says,” Hanni blurted out. “My mom made chocolate chip cookies last night, and I’m eating mine.”
Well, that group of three was gonna change, Alfie thought, surprised.
“Listen to me!” Lulu’s voice suddenly soared over all the other log circle sounds: over the chittering of cranky squirrels, and over the squawks of blue and gray California scrub jays who were yelling at each other like kindergarteners.
Over the laughter of little kids on both the straight and curly slides.
Over the angry whispers of second grade girls perched on logs.
Suzette, now unhappy, glared at Phoebe with suspicion.
Hanni was kicking at the log she sat on with the heel of her shoe.
Even Arletty—who would probably be busy doing church stuff with her family the night of the sleepover—had folded her arms across her chest as if someone was about to give her a shove. She looked really upset.
Huh, Alfie thought, starting to get mad. Lulu was ruining everything!
“Listen to me,” Lulu said again to the gloomy assortment of second grade girls. “I’m not saying yes to anybody yet about the sleepover, and I’m not saying no, either. Except to that new girl, Bella. I’m saying that I’m still deciding, that’s all. And I have two more days to make up my mind,” she added. “I’ll tell you for sure who’s coming on Friday afternoon. But until then, I’m—”
