Twice As Nice (14 page)

“I guess on the list of things you're forgetting, one of them is to look where you're going,” I said, in a friendly kind of way. She didn't laugh. “Listen, Sams,” I said. “I'm really sorry I've been ignoring you. I've been a lousy sister. But I'll be better. I want things to be okay with us again.”

“Easy for you to say,” she said. “You weren't the one who got ditched. We had a tradition, Charlie, and you blew it off for something that was more important to you.”

“I'm so sorry,” I said. “Can't we forgive and forget? Like GoGo says.”

“I don't know,” she said. “I'll have to work on the forgiving part. The forgetting part is coming easy, though. My head has stopped working completely.”

“Just because you forgot where you put your retainer?”

“That's not all. I just went to text dad and it took me forever to find my phone. Turns out I put it in the left zipper pocket this morning. I never do that. Maybe I need to eat more fish. They say it's brain food.”

“You've got a great brain, Sams.”

“Don't butter me up,” she said. “It won't work.”

The bell rang, and we both ducked into class. As we slid into our seats, Ms. Carew wrote the quote of the day on the board.

There comes a point in life when you realize who really matters, who never did, and who always will
, she wrote. I looked over at Sammie, who was busily putting her phone back where it belonged.

After school, Sammie and I walked home together. As we headed down the California Incline, the hill that leads from the Palisades down to the beach, she turned to me and said, “I might as well tell you now. We've decided to go to the game tonight. “

“We who?”

“Alicia, Sara, Etta, Bernard, and me. Will wanted to go, too, but his parents won't let him, so it'll be the five of us.”

That was a surprise. Ever since she's been part of Truth Tellers, Sammie hasn't been interested in supporting school sports. Going to games isn't the kind of thing their group does.

“How come you decided that?” I asked her.

“We talked about it at lunch yesterday, and we all agreed that we really haven't given going to games a fair chance,” she explained. “It's easy for us to say
that is so
stupid
or
those kids are only into sports
. But then we'd be acting snotty and prejudiced like the SF2s, no offense.”

I decided in the interest of making peace, I'd ignore her jab.

“Besides, Sara says she's drummed up the courage to break out one of her new looks tonight,” she went on. “She's coming over before the game, and Alicia and I are going to put together her pirate look with GoGo's scarf and gold hoop earrings.”

“Wow. She mentioned she was building up her courage, but it takes a whole lot of guts to take a chance like that at a football game.”

“We told her to go for it.”

“I'll look for her there,” I said. “Maybe I can give her a little moral support.”

“Careful,” Sammie said. “You don't want to damage your precious reputation with the popular kids.”

“Sammie,” I said, trying to be really calm and patient “just because I choose to have different friends than you doesn't mean I'm a horrible person. I like Sara, and I'd like to be helpful to her. She's my friend, too.”

As I said those words, I felt my stomach flip over on itself. How could I call myself a friend, when I had done the one thing she asked me not to do? That guilty feeling, the one I had been trying to squash all day came creeping back. It just wasn't going to go away.

“I love Friday nights,” my dad said as he picked up his car keys. “Nothing more fun than a high-school football game.”

“You're not going, are you, Dad?” I asked, panic in my voice.

“Don't worry, Noodle. I'm going to keep him very busy right here,” GoGo said. “He promised to help me skewer the kebabs for Bethany's party tomorrow night. Didn't you, Rick?”

“Let's see,” my dad said. “Football game or kebab skewering. What should I do?”

“It's not even close, Dad,” Ryan said. “Those kebabs need you.”

My dad actually laughed. Everyone in our house was in a pretty good mood, even Sammie. She and Alicia were busy getting Sara all fixed up.

Six of us—Sammie, Alicia, Sara, Ryan, his friend Winston Chin, and me—piled into my dad's minivan to drive to Pacific High School. When we got there, my dad tried to pull into the overflowing parking lot but he got stuck in a total traffic jam and couldn't go any farther.

We got out and went our separate ways. Sammie and her friends went to buy tickets in the general seating section. Ryan and Winston found some other guys from the volleyball team and went off with them.

I made sure my jacket was zipped up, and headed off to the snack stand. My friends were all there. We couldn't stop hugging and giggling. We were just so excited. Everyone gathered in a circle and Lauren counted to ten. At nine, we unzipped our jackets, and at ten, we took them off. Then we cheered.

A bunch of high-school kids, who were buying nachos and popcorn, turned to look at us.

“What do we have here?” a guy with bleached-blond hair asked.

“We're the Junior Waves.” Lauren smiled proudly. She's awesomely pretty to begin with, but that smile kicked everything up a big notch.

“Sweeettt,” he said. “You girls connected to Bethany's group?”

“Absolutely,” Lauren beamed. You could tell that answer impressed him.

“Sweeettt,” he repeated. “Welcome to Pacific High.”

He walked away with his friends, who all turned around to give us a good-bye wave.

“How awesome was that?” Lauren squealed when they were far enough away not to hear us.

We all agreed that it couldn't have gone better. Just then, a girl wearing a Waves T-shirt ran by us. Lauren waved to her and called out, “Hi, Lizzy.”

“What's up with those shirts?” she asked, looking us up and down, not in the nicest way.

“We're Junior Waves,” Jillian answered. “We're hanging out with you guys at the game.”

“Wow, I didn't know this was our night to babysit,” Lizzy said. “Okay, follow me, kidlets.”

We followed her into the stadium. She didn't get any nicer, but at least she didn't get any meaner.

“There they are!” Lauren said, pointing to a few rows of girls wearing The Waves signature turquoise-blue shirts with pink lettering. “I see Bethany.”

“Wow,” Brooke said. “Check out their seats.”

The Waves were sitting right at the fifty-yard line, about ten rows back. The best seats in the stadium. The best place not only to watch the game, but to also see and be seen. There was a half-empty row behind them.

“Omigosh,” Brooke said. “Are those for us? They saved us incredible seats.”

“Of course they did,” Lauren said. “Bethany's taken care of everything.” Then under her breath, she whispered to me, “What'd I tell you?”

We climbed up the bleachers and took our seats behind The Waves. Their club had about twenty girls, each one prettier than the next. Everyone except for Lizzy was nice, too.

“Hey, Juniors,” some of the girls called to us. “Over here. Have a seat. Join the party!”

They were all snapping pictures of each other with their phones. When we reached our row, Bethany got out her phone and took a picture of all five of us with our arms around each other. She showed it to us, and we looked great, if I do say so myself.

“I'm going to post this on Instagram,” she said. “What should I say?”

“Junior Waves rock,” Lauren said.

“You got it,” Bethany answered with a nod, and posted the picture without a moment's hesitation.

“Now we're famous,” Jillian said. “Like TV stars.”

“Pretty close,” Bethany told her. “I've got a ton of followers. Everyone's going to see your picture, that's for sure.”

Just then, Spencer Ballard, Ben Feldman, and the General, entered the stadium. My heart skipped a beat.

“We're over here,” Brooke shouted at the top of her lungs. The boys looked up and waved, then headed up the steps to our row.

“Brooks, you can't shout like that,” Lauren said. “We have to act like high-schoolers.”

“Don't they shout, Lauren?”

“During the game, yes. They cheer. But not before the game.”

What did Lauren do, read a book on high school etiquette? But as I looked around the stadium, I saw that she was right. Everyone was talking to their friends, sipping drinks, or checking their phones. I wondered if a lot of them were looking at the picture of us on Instagram that very moment. The thought made me giggle.

The guys filed into our row and took their seats. Spencer had to talk Ben Feldman into trading seats with him so he could sit next to me, but he did it.

“How's my favorite Junior Wave?” he said as he wedged in next to me.

If I had one word to describe how I was feeling at that very moment, it would have been “sweeettt!” Everything felt good, nothing annoyed me, not even Bethany who was busy being the queen bee, waving at all the guys who walked past and standing up a lot to make sure everyone could see how beautiful she was.

Her friend Lizzy seemed to be doing the same thing—standing, pointing, waving, hollering, doing everything she could to attract attention. She was right in front of me, so I could hardly miss it when suddenly she screamed, “Who or
what
is that?” She burst out laughing. “I think it's Captain Hook, I'm not kidding. She looks like a pirate.”

I looked down to see Sammie and her friends making their way up to the bleachers. Of course, the person Lizzy was referring to was Sara.

“Why do you think she's got that thing on her head?” Lizzy went on.

“Who can say why middle-schoolers do the things they do,” the girl next to her said. “Maybe someone dared her to do it.”

“It'd have to be a double dare for me to go out of the house looking like that,” Lizzy said. “Or double double dare times a hundred. It's totally ridiculous.”

I felt the blood rush to my face. I was furious. Why couldn't she just leave Sara alone? What should it matter to her if Sara looked like Captain Hook or Captain Crunch? It was none of her business.

“I think that girl looks very unique,” I said to Lizzy. All she did was laugh and sing, “
Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me
.”

“Cut it out!” I snapped. “She happens to be an extremely nice and interesting person.”

Lauren put her arm on mine. “Calm down,” she whispered. “What are you so worked up about? You'll ruin the whole night. They're just goofing around. Let it be.”

Spencer could see how agitated I was.

“I like Sara, too,” he said. “They shouldn't talk about her like that.”

“Don't worry about it, you two,” Lauren said. “It's almost kickoff.”

I was worried. Worried of course for Sara and that people were going to say mean things to her face. That would hurt her so much. The thing about words is that once they're out there, you can't take them back. Mean words stay with you forever.

“Hey, Charlie,” I heard Alicia call. I looked over and Sammie and her friends were standing in the aisle right near us. “Nice seats.”

“Hi, Charlie,” Sara said. She was smiling, and seemed really happy with herself. It killed me to know what Lizzy was saying behind her back. I shot her a thumbs-up and she gave me one back.

“Oh, I am so taking a picture of this,” Lizzy said, snapping a picture of Sara with her cell phone.

“Why do you need a picture of her?” I asked.

“Just for fun,” she said. “You have to admit, that's not an outfit you see every day.”

“Well I think you should delete it,” I said.

“Okay, okay,” she said. “It's a stupid picture, anyway.”

She did something with her phone, and then turned off the screen and put it away.