Dare to Be Different (3 page)

Macy, who was watching her weight as usual, picked the sausage and pepperoni off her pizza. Kelly, who never worried about her weight, silently reached over to grab Macy’s pepperoni.

“Hey!” Macy smacked her hand away. “What are you doing?”

“Well, you’re not going to eat them.”

“No, but I’d rather not have it shoved in my face that you can eat anything you want and never gain weight!” Macy whined.

“My mom gets so mad when I talk about dieting or watching what I’m eating,” Lindsay said. “She thinks we’re too young to worry about it and that we should just enjoy being kids.”

“No one wants to get fat,” Kelly snorted. “And we aren’t kids, but we aren’t grown-ups yet either, so I’m not going to worry about it just yet.”

“I agree that no one wants to be fat,” Lindsay countered, “but we should be careful and think about what we eat because it’s healthier, not so we can be skinny.”

“Easy for you to say,” Macy grumbled.

“I’m not skinny at all,” Lindsay said defensively.

“No, not skinny, but you’re not fat either. You’re perfect.”

“Oh, I don’t feel perfect. I don’t think anyone does,” Lindsay explained. “I just think we should be able to relax about things a little more. There’s too much pressure to be what other people want us to be. As long as we’re happy about who we are inside, that should be enough for people to be friends with us, right?”

“It’s not like it’s something you have to choose between, Linds. I mean, we can be nice and skinny at the same time, right?” Sam was confused.

“Of course you can. I’m just talking about priorities. I don’t want to be the kind of person who looks at someone’s outside appearance and judges them on whether they’re skinny enough or not.”

“True,” Sam agreed. “But unfortunately, not everyone feels that way. And for that reason, I’ll stick to my salad and skip the french fries when we go out to eat.”

“Yeah, and if you don’t mind,” Macy replied, still irritated, “I’ll pick off my pepperoni if I want to.”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Lindsay gave in, laughing. “I was just trying to give us a new outlook. You guys are perfect in my book, no matter how you look.”

Chapter 3

“Mom, did you hear the doorbell ring?” Sam shouted excitedly, forgetting that her mom wasn’t even home. She’d been waiting for her friends for what seemed like hours. Running to the front door, Sam swung it wide open to find Kelly and Macy. The three girls squealed in excitement, and Kelly turned to wave at her mom as she backed out of the driveway with a little honk. They all turned to look down the street, anxious because they couldn’t get started without Lindsay. With Lindsay nowhere in sight, they dropped to the porch step to wait until she arrived.

“She’s here! She’s here!” the girls yelled when Lindsay’s mom pulled into the driveway to drop her off for the night.

“Hi, Mrs. Martin.” Sam waved a greeting.

Mrs. Martin chuckled at the girls’ excitement. “You girls see each other almost every single day. How can you get so excited over just one more day?”

“Oh, Mrs. Martin, this is different,” Sam assured her. “This is a special night. It’s our first sleepover as eighth graders.”

“Well, all right.” Mrs. Martin laughed and rolled her eyes. “Just be sure that you eighth graders stay out of trouble.”

“We will,” the girls promised.

“Now come on!” Sam linked arms with Kelly, Kelly grabbed Lindsay’s arm, Lindsay grabbed Macy, and they all started to walk in together.

Mrs. Martin honked and waved. Through her open window, she reminded Lindsay, “You remember what I said—be good.”

The girls walked together into the house, squealing and giggling all the way.

“What should we do first?” Kelly asked.

“My mom bought all the stuff for us to make pizza, and she left instructions for us. She and Dad went to a friend’s house for dinner and won’t be home until later, so she thought that would be
fun for us,” Sam explained.

“Cool!” The girls agreed it would be fun to make their own pizza, and knowing how long things could take when they started messing around, they got started right away.

Looking at the list, Sam got out the ingredients. There was dough to unroll, sauce to spread, cheese to sprinkle, and, of course, pepperoni to put on top.

“Oops … we almost forgot. It says to preheat the oven to four hundred degrees,” Sam told the girls.

“I’ll get that,” Lindsay said, since she was standing right in front of the oven. Sam dug out pizza pans, and the other girls washed their hands and rolled up their sleeves.

Pizza Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
.

2. Spray the pizza pan with nonstick spray, and sprinkle with flour
.

3. Spread the dough onto the pizza pan evenly
.

4. Evenly apply the pizza sauce to cover the dough
.

5. Sprinkle the cheese all over the pizza
.

6. Spread the pepperoni on the top of the pizza
.

7. Bake for approximately 15–18 minutes, checking it regularly
.

8. Be careful when you take it out. It’s going to be HOT!

Lindsay said, “I’ll do the spray.”

“I’ll sprinkle the flour,” said Kelly. When it came time for that, she got a mischievous look on her face and flicked her fingers at Lindsay and Sam, who were standing nearby.

“Hey!” The girls giggled as they shook their long hair over the sink to get the flour out.

Sam spread the sauce, and they all took turns sprinkling the cheese. They worked on spreading the pepperoni until the pizza was completely covered and then added a few more just to make sure. Into the oven it went.

Sam set the timer, and the girls turned to take a look at the kitchen that they needed to clean while the pizza cooked. What a disaster! With a chorus of four loud groans, they started cleaning up their mess, wishing they hadn’t been so sloppy while they prepared the pizza. They had to put all the ingredients away, clean up the dishes, wipe
off the countertops, and clean the floor. Eventually, though, they had the kitchen restored to what they thought was its original condition. Sam’s mom might disagree, but hopefully it would be good enough.

Sam’s mom had picked up some movies for them from the rental store, they chose one to watch on Sam’s huge plasma television screen while they ate their pizza, which had finished baking at almost the exact time that they finished their cleaning. Armed with plates piled high with pizza and cans of soda, they settled in on the big leather sofa in the basement to watch their movie.

After a little while, Sam nudged Lindsay. “Hey, look over there.” Sam pointed to Kelly, who was sound asleep on the sofa. The girls giggled quietly.

“Hmm … what should we do to her?” Lindsay asked the girls—because, as everyone knew, the first person to fall asleep at a sleepover got pranked. It was usually Macy who fell asleep first, but now it was Kelly’s turn.

“We could fill her shoes with shaving cream,” Sam suggested. The girls laughed but dismissed
the idea because Kelly wouldn’t discover it until the next morning, which would be no fun—plus they could get in trouble if her shoes got ruined. So, after conspiring together for a few minutes, they concocted a pretty devious plan that they were quite proud of.

Sam went to the kitchen to fill a glass with very cold water and even added a few ice cubes to it to make sure it was cold enough. They balanced the glass very carefully on the back frame of the couch, which was leaning against the wall, and then propped it there with the little decorative pillows that Sam’s mom had sitting around on the sofa. They made sure that the only direction the glass could fall was forward. The three girls tiptoed to the door and quietly left the room. When they made it out the door, Sam reached back, took the doorknob, and pulled really hard.

Bam!
The door slammed shut. The girls quickly opened the door just a crack so they could see the scene they had created.

With the slamming of the door, Kelly immediately woke up and looked around the room, half asleep and confused. Startled and seeing that she was alone, she sat up abruptly. The pillows
supporting the water glass were disturbed, and the glass tumbled forward, drenching Kelly from her neck all the way down the front of her shirt with ice-cold water.

She squealed as the water touched her skin and her body shivered. Her eyes flashed in anger as she searched for someone … anyone. Then she heard the girls trying really hard not to giggle, and even though she tried not to laugh, she couldn’t help herself. When the other three saw that she was being a good sport, they tumbled through the door, laughing so hard they could barely stand up straight. Sam fell to the tiled basement floor in fits of laughter as Kelly grabbed a towel from the laundry pile to dry herself.

“It serves … you right … for falling asleep … so early!” Lindsay tried to talk in between gales of laughter.

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Kelly gave in, shaking her head. “But you had all better be careful, because I am well rested now, and I’ll be up long after all of you fall asleep.” The girls laughed good-naturedly.

They carried their dishes and garbage upstairs to the kitchen so they could make sure everything was cleaned up before Sam’s mom
and dad got home.

“So, Macy …,” Kelly hesitantly began while they were straightening the kitchen.

“Yeah?” Macy raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“What’s the deal with you and Tyler Turner this year?”

Lindsay and Sam stopped what they were doing. Sam turned off the water in the sink so she could hear Macy’s reply.

“What are you talking about?” Macy asked innocently but smiled as she looked away.

“Oh no! Don’t even think about pretending that you don’t know what I’m talking about.” Kelly wagged her finger.

“She’s blushing!” Lindsay shouted when Macy’s cheeks turned bright red.

“No, I’m not blushing,” Macy insisted. “I’m just hot.”

“Right! Sure!” The girls didn’t believe her and continued demanding answers. “It’s time to fess up,” Lindsay insisted.

“All right, all right,” Macy relented. “The thing is, I don’t know what is going on with Tyler. I mean, you guys know that I’ve liked him forever—like, for two whole years. But I don’t think he knows that I exist. But then sometimes
it feels like he likes me, too.”

“Right—I mean, how do you explain the fact that every time I leave my science class, he’s there by your locker, waiting for you to come out of math? Hmm?” Kelly pried.

“He’s just being nice,” Macy insisted. She continued. “What do you think I should do? I mean, my parents probably wouldn’t let me date anyway, so I guess it’s all for the best.”

“Here’s what we’ll do.” Sam jumped in with an idea. “I’ll ask his cousin Stephanie, whose brother, Kenny, is Tyler’s best friend, if he likes you. But I won’t tell her who wants to know.”

Kelly and Lindsay loved the idea, but Macy was hesitant. “Oh, I don’t know.…”

“Oh, you should totally do that. It’s perfect,” Kelly insisted.

“Okay,” Macy agreed. “As long as he doesn’t find out that you asked for me.”

“Deal!” Sam assured her, and the girls high-fived each other.

They heard the garage door start to open. With a little squeal, they hurriedly put away the last item and rushed out of the kitchen, turning off the lights on their way out. Trying to avoid
the parents, the girls rushed downstairs to the basement, where they planned to sleep all night. Sam’s mom popped her head downstairs for a quick second just to let the girls know they were home and then headed upstairs to bed.

As soon as they heard the bedroom door close upstairs, Sam got a glimmer in her eye and began to look at the girls, one at a time, teasing them until they remembered.

“Oh!” Macy exclaimed, catching on. “Let’s play Sam’s secret game.”

“We can do that. But only if you’re sure you’re ready …,” Sam teased mysteriously. “There are some rules.”

“We’re ready,” everyone agreed a bit hesitantly, wondering what Sam had cooked up for them this time.

Chapter 4

“So?” Lindsay started. “Let’s have it, Sam. What is this game you’ve kept such a secret all week?”