You’re Invited Too

by Jen Malone

  I swallow the frog that has apparently taken up residence in my throat while I wait for things to click with Mom. She blinks and her eyes widen.

  There it is.

  Mom turns to me. “Sadie?”

  It’s like my brain has fuzz growing on it, and I can barely form a sentence that makes sense. “I, um, yeah. No. I mean, I was gonna . . . I was trying to . . .”

  Izzy’s head swings back and forth between us, and her forehead wrinkles like she’s working a long-division problem in her head.

  I try again, and this time all my words slur together: “It’sjustthatIwasgonnatellyoubutAlexandraWorthingtonsaidshewantedtoworkwiththebestwhichissillybecauseofcourseyou’rethebestbut—”

  Mom holds her hand up. “Stop.”

  She pinches the top of her nose with her fingers and shakes her head. Then she takes a deep breath and looks at me. I can’t believe this is all going down on the floor under the kitchen table, of all places.

  “So, let me see if I have this straight. I was fired by my bride. Who then turned around and hired you and your friends? Am I getting it right so far?”

  Mom’s voice sounds totally even, so I can’t get a read on what she’s feeling. Is she mad? Or not?

  I nod and avoid her eyes. Izzy inches out from under the table and slinks out of sight (although I’m guessing she goes somewhere she can listen in on every word).

  “And when did this all happen?” Mom asks.

  “Um, last month,” I manage.

  “I see.” Again with that totally even, everyday voice. Like we’re talking about what time high tide is or where we should order dinner. “And you didn’t think it was maybe something you should mention to me?”

  “Um . . .” I trail off and study my palm like the map to Atlantis is hiding between my life line and my love line.

  Mom sighs deeply. “I have to tell you, Sadie, I’m very disappointed. Not so much about you planning the wedding, though I’ll admit that I’m a little concerned about you taking on the responsibility of such an important event. I’m sure you girls are fantastic at what you do, but I can’t really imagine what Alexandra was thinking. The part that really bothers me is that you hid it from me all this time. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

  “Well, no, but . . .” I can’t think of what else I want to say, so I close my mouth.

  Mom sits quietly, waiting. After what feels like forever, she pushes up off the floor and stands. She folds and refolds one of the rags in her hands.

  Finally she says, “Sadie, I’ve given you a lot of freedom and a lot of responsibility, because you’ve always been mature for your age. But I have to tell you, these are not the actions of a mature girl. You’ve broken my trust in you, and I’ll be honest, it’s going to take a while for you to earn that back.”

  The frog is back in my throat and it’s settling in for a long stay. I can barely swallow. I curl my legs in under the table. Mom grabs her keys off the counter and calls out, “Izzy! Come on, sweets! We’re going out to grab more milk.”

  I listen to the door click shut and the car’s engine start, and, finally, it fades away down the street, but I can’t move as tears slide down my face.

  This is maybe the worst feeling ever.

  First my mom fires me because I’m so incompetent. And now she full-on hates me.

  SANDPIPER BEACH VOLUNTEER SEA TURTLE ASSOCIATION

  We love sea turtles!

  All residents and visitors to the island are invited to watch sea turtle hatchings! Please be respectful of the turtles and follow the tips listed below. Hatching times are unpredictable, so come prepared to wait!

  Did you know that North Carolina’s very own

  loggerhead sea turtles are an endangered species?

  Tips for helping the loggerheads:

  • Turn off all outdoor lights at night. The lights

  distract the baby turtles, leading them

  to homes rather than to the sea.

  • Don’t disturb turtle nests. Volunteers mark all known nests on the island, and the nests are protected by the City of Sandpiper Beach, Ordinance No. 17.2:1–4.

  • Spread the word! Let others know about

  the sea turtles and how to protect them.

  • Alert the Sandpiper Beach Volunteer Sea Turtle Association immediately (910-555-1772) if you see a new nest or if an existing nest has been disturbed.

  Fun Facts about the Loggerhead Sea Turtle!

  • We can live up to 67 years old! That’s over

  four times longer than your pet dog or cat.

  • Yum! Shellfish are our favorite food.

  • We can grow up to 31/2 feet long.

  • One turtle can make an average of 4 nests

  in a season. Each nest has between 100 and

  126 eggs. That’s a lot of turtle babies!

  • Our two biggest fears: commercial fishing gear

  and coastal development. But we’re not

  afraid of the dark—we love it!

  Come to the Sandpiper Beach Visitor’s Center in the square for more information about the Sea Turtle Volunteers.

  Lauren

  dishearten verb -

  to cause to lose confidence or determination

  Use in a sentence:

  I feel disheartened about everything I thought I could do, even though I planned it all out so carefully.

  I am in what Mom would call A Mood. Since I turned twelve, she seems to expect me to be in A Mood all the time. She always asks me if I’m in A Mood when really I’m just reasonably annoyed or mad about something. Which I guess I am now, too, but the annoyed and mad feelings are stretching out way beyond the thing that caused them.

  “Those baby turtles could outwalk you, Lo,” Becca calls from up ahead. She and Vi and Sadie are already at the sea-turtle nest and setting up their chairs.

  “I’m . . . coming . . . ,” I growl. The beach chair bumps against my legs, and my water bottle is slipping out of my hands, and I keep dropping my jacket.

  Fun. This is supposed to be fun. I am officially in my Fun Time right now. And it would be, if I wasn’t in A Mood. But I can’t stop worrying about whether I’m making the most of all my different slots of time. Especially the ones I’ve labeled “studying” and “homework.”

  I huff and puff the last few feet to the turtle nest. My friends are already sitting in a neat row next to some other people from town. The chairs line each side of the narrow length of sand the turtle volunteers have smoothed out to make it easier for the baby loggerheads to crawl to the ocean.

  A little flutter of something happy tickles my insides. I haven’t actually seen a single turtle hatching this year, mostly because I’ve been too busy with RSVP. When I was younger, Mom and Dad would let me, Zach, and Josh stay up late at least one night each year to watch a hatching. This is one of the last nests on the island that hasn’t hatched yet, and word is that it will probably happen tonight. No matter what kind of mood I’m in, I’m not about to let this be the first year I don’t see a turtle hatching.

  “S’mores cookies, anyone?” Vi uncovers a container and passes it down the line. Becca takes three and hands the container to me.

  “I’m not hungry.” I pass it back to Becca.

  She blinks at me. Sadie’s head pops out around her.

  “Are you sick?” Vi asks.

  “She’s been Lady Grumplepants all day long,” Becca says. “She didn’t even touch her milkshake at lunch, and you know we totes deserved milkshakes after running around all morning with Alexandra Worthington. And then she had nothing to say—nothing!—when Alexandra Worthington called about that Elvis thing.”

  After spending the whole morning visiting every place on the island and the mainland that could possibly sell or order wedding favors, our bride finally picked out bobblehead dolphins. Sadie ordered 120 from the store before Miss Worthington could change her mind. And then she had the nerve to call an hour later and ask if it was possible to move the whole wedding onto
a boat so that an Elvis impersonator could parachute in, and whether that would break her budget. Of course it would break her budget, but I was too busy stewing in A Mood to say that.

  Although none of us really said anything until Sadie croaked out, “Well, maybe we could . . . ,” and Becca said, “Elvis is pretty awesomesauce, Alexandra, but what if he landed smack-dab on someone’s head or missed the landing and crashed into the ocean? And if you’ve got everyone on a boat, they might get seasick, and that could get kinda . . . messy. Plus, there are seagulls that could ruin everything.”

  And then, as Miss Worthington actually agreed(!) with Becca, Vi elbowed Sadie, who turned bright red because of the whole seagull-doo-doo/bridesmaid-and-dog-overboard complete disaster of a boat wedding that got her fired from Mrs. Pleffer’s business in the first place. Though that whole thing is what led us to start RSVP, so who knows what brilliant idea an Elvis boat wedding could’ve caused.

  Vi, Becca, and Sadie are still looking at me. Why did my not drinking a milkshake during my scheduled RSVP work time make them so suspicious? Suspicious: to have a distrust . . . oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter anyway.

  “So spill it,” Vi says through a mouthful of cookie.

  I turn away from my friends and toward the ocean. The sun’s just set, and the sky is full of those beautiful dark blues and purples. Plus, there’s a full moon casting a pretty trail of light across the water. Or it would be really pretty if I wasn’t in A Mood.

  “Lauren, if you don’t say anything, I will,” Sadie says.

  I snuggle deeper into my sweatshirt as the wind picks up. Then I look around to make sure Mom and Dad aren’t here. “Fine. You tell them,” I say to Sadie.

  Sadie takes a deep breath. “Lauren got a . . . bad grade.”

  Becca’s mouth makes a little O, and I think Vi actually gasps.

  “Don’t worry, Lo.” Becca reaches an arm around my shoulders. “You can make it up.”

  “I got a D on a test last year,” Vi says. “We all get bad grades sometimes.”

  “Remember that C I got in PE?” Becca asks. “I mean, who gets a C in gym class?”

  “Only people who don’t even try to hit the ball,” Sadie says with a grin. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile since the whole Alexandra Worthington thing happened with her mom last weekend.

  “So what was it? Was it that pre-algebra test?” Vi asks.

  I nod. The whole humiliating scene replays itself in my head for the millionth time. Sitting at my desk last period yesterday, trying to keep my eyes open because Zach had showed me this crazy-fun video game where you can create people and build houses for them and get them a job and a family and have them cook turkey for dinner and pretty much invent their whole entire lives. Anyway, I got so into it on Thursday night that I stayed up way too late playing it—ignoring the alarm I’d set to remind myself to go to sleep.

  After we spent forty-five minutes working problems on the whiteboard and then doing group work, Ms. Snyder started handing back our tests. Sadie got hers first. She held it up to show me the shiny A-minus on the front page. Ms. Snyder put my test upside down on my desk.

  That’s never a good sign.

  I ducked my head down and lifted the corner of the paper to see the grade. And my stomach dropped.

  Becca pokes me, and I stop reliving the whole horrible scene. For now, anyway. “Lauren, what was it? An F-minus? You know we’ll still love you even if you flunk seventh grade.”

  Vi snickers and then turns it into a cough.

  “It was . . .” I can’t even say it. I look at Sadie.

  “It was”—she pauses—“a B.”

  Becca giggles.

  “Laur-en!” Vi says. “You got a B? That’s why you’re in such a bad mood?”

  “It’s probably the only B she’s ever gotten,” Becca says.

  “It is. So what? Some of us have goals, you know. Like big, enormous goals.” I pick up my chair and turn it so I’m facing the ocean, my back to Becca. My flashlight pokes me in the hip. I pull it from my pocket and flick it on, away from the turtle nest. Then off. Then on. Then off.

  “Oh, come on, Lauren. It’s okay. They’re just teasing you,” Sadie says.

  “But it’s a big deal!” I say over my shoulder. “It starts with a B, and then who knows what?”

  “Then you end up getting arrested and tossed in jail,” Becca says, her face all serious.

  “Or you run away and live in a cave and forget how to speak,” Vi adds.

  “And then you have to, like, fill your own cavities because you eat too much coconut,” Becca says.

  “Yeah, and pull out your teeth, like in that old movie with Tom Hanks where he’s stranded after his plane crashes!” Vi shudders.

  “I don’t think Lo can grow a beard like Tom Hanks.” Becca shines her flashlight at my chin and pretty much blinds me. I twist back toward the water. “Nope, no can do on the beard front.”

  I bite my lip so that I don’t laugh. I get it, I do. Getting a B isn’t the end of the world. But what my friends don’t understand is that now I’m afraid. Am I having too much fun? Are RSVP and that trip to the roller rink with Becca and video games with Zach and playing Words With Friends with Bubby ruining everything I’ve worked so hard for? Or maybe it’s just that I haven’t been using my study time as well as I should. That’s got to be it. I just need to study harder, more efficiently. If I can do that, I can still do the fun stuff.

  “Hey, look,” Sadie says. “Is Lance hanging out with that Philippe guy?”

  I move my chair back around to see what she’s pointing at. Mostly I’m just happy that the attention is off me.

  Both Becca and Vi shade red in the glow of their flashlights and look down. Vi toes the sand and Becca starts messing with her hair. Which is pointless since the wind off the ocean just keeps messing it up anyway.

  “Ooookay,” Sadie says. She looks over Becca’s head toward me for help.

  I shrug. It’s kind of obvious that Becca likes Philippe, even if she won’t admit it, and Vi’s been ignoring Lance for three weeks—since the whole dance-and-Linney fiasco. Fiasco: a completely humiliating failure—like Vi at the dance or me getting my test back yesterday.

  We sit in silence for a few minutes while the turtle volunteers peer into the sand that covers the nest.

  “We have movement!” one of them announces.

  A ripple of excitement rolls through the crowd. I sit up a little straighter in my chair.

  And then nothing happens for an hour.

  As the beam from Bodington Lighthouse sweeps across us every thirty seconds, Becca goes on and on about Philippe’s accent and his hair, and Vi keeps reminding her that she’s sworn off boys. Sadie smiles as they talk, but it’s not a real smile. I get up and move around Becca to kneel behind Sadie’s chair.

  “Hey.” I poke her in the back. “You okay?”

  She shrugs. “I guess. It’s just weird at home.”

  “Is your mom talking to you?”

  “Yeah . . . but it’s not the same. It’s all very ‘How was school today, Sadie?’ and ‘Can you pick up some eggs on your way home today?’ ” She frowns. “It feels like there’s something huge between us.”

  “Named Alexandra Worthington?” I scrunch up my face so that I look like Miss Worthington when she gets one of her “brilliant” ideas. “Sadie-babe, I was thinking.”

  Sadie giggles—just for a second.

  “I hate that things aren’t right between you and your mom because of RSVP.” I rebalance myself as my toes sink too deep into the sand.

  “I could have said no to Alexandra Worthington,” Sadie says. “And in a way I’m glad I didn’t, but I wish it didn’t hurt Mom so much.”

  I stand up and give her a hug.

  “Sorry about your B, too,” Sadie says, her voice muffled.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re not going to quit, are you?”

  “Quit? You mean, RSVP? No way! I just . . .” I smoo
th my hair as I ask my brain the same question I’ve been asking it since yesterday afternoon: Should I cross some of my fun stuff off my schedule? But I shouldn’t have to, not if I’m studying harder. “I have to figure out how to make the most of my homework time, that’s all.”

  “I know you will.” Sadie squeezes my hand.

  Becca grabs my arm the second I sit back down. Then she shoves her phone under my nose. The bright light is blinding, and I have to blink for a second in order to read.

  Bubsters3000: My Lo Baby got a B on her pre-algebra test yesterday! Yayness! She’s totes got the smarts!

  “What?! What is this?” I squint at the screen and reread. It’s not that my grandmother talks just like Becca—I’m used to that. And the fact that she can out-pop-culture me and that she likes to shop in the same mall stores my friends and I do. Used to all of that, too. (Mostly.)

  “It’s a tweet from Bubby. See, someone’s happy you got a B—a B is good,” Becca says.

  “Noooooo . . .” I click the phone off and hand it back to Becca. Then I slump down into my seat. I can’t believe Bubby would tell the whole entire world about my B. I called her yesterday to get some advice, but all I got was her being thrilled at my grade. I suppose that when you’re used to grandkids like Zach and Josh, anything higher than a C-minus deserves balloons and cake and tweeting to everyone on the planet.

  “She’s proud of you,” Becca says.

  “Everyone is going to know now!” And I mean everyone. Our entire school follows Bubby on Twitter because of a party at Sandpiper Active Senior Living this summer. What if one of my friends on It’s All Academic mentions it to our faculty advisor? What if I lose my vice captain’s seat? What if I keep getting Bs? What if . . . ?

  “Flashlights and phones off, folks!” a turtle volunteer calls from the nest. That means something’s happening. Baby turtles need to follow the light of the moon to get to the ocean, and they can get distracted by other kinds of lights.

  We lean forward. I can just barely see some sand moving. After a few minutes, there’s a rustle and an excited “Oh!” from closer to the nest.