Twice As Nice (7 page)

“No problemo,” Lauren said to me. “Let's just go to your room and lay everything out on your bed.”

Before I could say anything, she headed toward the bedroom I share with Sammie. Our bedroom door was closed with a sign tacked up on it. It was in big, red letters, in Sammie's handwriting.

P
RIVATE
! it said. D
O NOT EVEN THINK ABO
UT COMING IN HERE.

Lauren looked at it and laughed, then with her usual swagger, pushed the door open.

“You can't go in there!” I shouted to her.

But it was too late.

“Hey! Didn't you see the sign?” Sammie yelled. She practically threw her body in front of Lauren to stop her from entering our room. Lauren tried to peek around Sammie, to get a glimpse of what was going on.

“What's the big secret, anyway?” she asked.

By that time, I had caught up with her. I quickly glanced into our room. I could see Sara and Alicia standing by the far wall. Sammie was doing her best to block them from our view.

“Get her out of here,” Sammie warned me. “I'm not kidding, Charlie. Now!”

“Come on,” I said, taking Lauren's arm. “Let's go.”

“It's your room, too,” she grumbled. “Sammie has no right to keep you out of it.”

Sammie stepped into the hall and closed the bedroom door behind her.

“I think you should mind your own business, Lauren. And that goes for her, too,” she snapped, pointing her finger at someone behind me.

I turned around to see Bethany.

“Sammie? Tell me what's going on,” I said.

“Alicia and Sara and I are busy. That's all you need to know. If you guys come in, I'll never forgive you.”

“Wow, that's intense,” Bethany said.

“Let's just go back into the kitchen,” I suggested, trying to lighten up the situation. “I'll ask my grandmother if we can use the counter.”

“But I don't want to get kebab juice on my hats,” Bethany said.

“We'll be really careful,” I promised. I steered Lauren and Bethany away from the door. Just before I left, I turned to Sammie and said, “Don't worry. We're going now.”

“Good,” she said. “And don't come back.”

Then she opened the door and disappeared inside.

GoGo was really nice and cleared off the whole counter for us. She put the bowls with different kebab marinades on top of the stove instead. “We've got curry, herb and garlic, and pineapple-soy,” she said. “I think your friends will have lots of tasty choices, Bethany.”

“Do I get to do a tasting before the party?” Bethany asked. GoGo seemed quite surprised at that. “When my parents had their twenty-fifth anniversary party,” Bethany went on, “they had lots of tastings until they felt the chef finally got the menu right.”

“Well, dear,” GoGo began. I knew what was coming. Whenever GoGo calls someone dear, it means she's annoyed. “When you've been married twenty-five years, perhaps you'll have lots of tastings, too. But you're only sixteen, and I think you're going to have to trust the chef on this one.”

GoGo wiped off the counter with a damp cloth to make sure it was clean.

“You girls can put your things here,” she said. “I'm going down to the beach to watch the sunset.”

As soon as GoGo left, Lily opened up the bags and started to put the hats on the counter. I wasn't paying much attention, though. I kept glancing toward my bedroom. I really wanted to know what was going on in there. Lauren noticed and smiled a mischievous smile.

“Me too,” she said, even though I hadn't said anything.

“Me too what?”

“Let's just say it. We're both dying to know what's happening. It's your room, too. You have a right to know. Let's go listen at the door and see if we can hear anything.”

“Lauren! That's so not nice,” Bethany said. “Let's do it.”

“No, you guys,” I pleaded. “Please don't.”

“I bet they snuck a boy in there,” Bethany giggled. “Who do you think it is?”

“There's no boy in there,” I told her. “I promise you that.”

“Well, what else could be so secret that if you found out, Sammie would never forgive you?” Lauren asked.

Bethany slipped off her shoes.

“Take your shoes off, too, Lauren, so we can tiptoe over there without a sound.”

This was getting out of hand.

“Okay,” I said. “I tell you what. I'll go see if they'll let me in. If it's anything interesting, I'll come back and tell you. If it isn't, we can just forget it and work on the hats.”

“You promise?” Lauren said.

I nodded and hurried off across our living room and down the tiny hall to our bedroom before they could change their minds.

“Sammie?” I whispered, knocking at the door again. “Let me in.”

“Who's with you?”

“No one. I swear.”

I heard her whispering with Alicia and Sara, then a rushing around of footsteps. After a few seconds, Sammie cracked open the door and stuck her head out.

“What do you want?”

“Just let me in.” I pushed by her and went inside, expecting to be really surprised by something I saw. I didn't think it would be a boy, but knowing Sammie, it could have been a stray dog. We had seen a lost-looking German Shepherd on the beach the other morning, and Sammie wanted to take him home. Our dad said no, even after she begged him.

I looked around our room. No dog. No boys. No nothing. Just Alicia and Sara standing around with secretive looks on their faces.

“What's going on in here?” I asked.

“Nothing,” they all said at once. They were obviously hiding something.

I saw Sammie reach behind her back and tuck something into the waistband of her jeans.

“What's in your jeans, then?”

“Just a brush. No big deal.”

I glanced at Sammie's bed and noticed that it was draped with four or five colorful scarves that belonged to our mom. One of them was clearly GoGo's, because it had pink flamingos all over it. I saw two or three of my headbands lying on the pillow next to a floppy white tennis hat that I wear on really sunny days. Our mom's hand mirror, the one that is regular on one side and magnifying on the other, was sitting on the pillow, too. And next to it was Sammie's cell phone.

“Why are you using my hair stuff?” I asked. “And GoGo's scarves?

No one answered.

“Come on, you guys,” I said. “This is my room, too, and I need to know what's going on in here.”

“We're just doing something for Sara,” Alicia said. “A project.”

“For school?” I asked.

“Kind of,” Sammie said. “You might say that.”

“Oh, so now we're playing twenty questions?” I was getting annoyed. “It really hurts my feelings that you don't trust me enough to tell me the truth.”

That got their attention. You mention the Truth (with a capital T) around these girls and the whole world stops.

“It's up to Sara whether or not to tell you,” Alicia said. “It's her decision.”

“I guess it's okay if we tell her,” Sara answered. “We're trying to come up with some different looks for me so I don't always have to wear my hair down.”

“To make her less sensitive about that issue she spoke of yesterday,” Alicia said.

“Her ears?”

“Of course her ears,” Sammie barked. “I can't believe you even have to ask that.”

“I'm trying on all kinds of scarves and headbands and hats to see what looks best,” Sara said. “I haven't been able to change my hairstyle since I started middle school because of, you know, the Dumbo thing.”

The minute she said that, big tears formed in her eyes. “And your sister and Alicia are being so sweet to me. They're even taking before and after pictures.”

I saw Sammie reach out and pick up her phone, protectively.

“Don't worry, I'm not going to peek,” I said, “unless you want to show me.”

“Maybe we could show Charlie the look I think is the cutest—the one where we wrapped your Grandma's scarf around her head, pirate-style,” Alicia said. “Just to get another opinion. What do you think, Sara?”

“Okay, you can show her.”

Sammie held out her phone and I took it. The first thing that came up on the screen was a picture of Sara with her usual poufy hair. The next shot was Sara with her hair pulled on top of her head so you could see the full ear problem. I hadn't really looked at her ears closely during Truth Tellers. It's not exactly the kind of thing you feel comfortable staring at. But now, I could see why they bothered her so much. The picture reminded me of the toy Mr. Potato Head. Sammie and I used to play with the plastic potato when we were younger. He came with these big pink plastic ears that stuck straight out from his head.

I don't mean to sound rude. Sara's ears weren't as bad as Mr. Potato Head's. But they were definitely in the same category, if you know what I mean.

The third picture showed Sara's hair all covered up with GoGo's flamingo scarf. It was wrapped around her head tightly and tied in a fancy knot at the back. The scarf held her ears back so only the very tips showed, and Sammie had put some gold hoops on them.

“You look great here,” I said to Sara, and I meant it.

“You don't think I look too much like Captain Hook?” she asked.

“Not unless you have a crocodile chasing after you.”

“I think Sara would appreciate it if you wouldn't crack jokes at a time like this,” Sammie complained. As far as she was concerned, I couldn't do anything right.

Pardon me for breathing
.

Just then, someone knocked at the door. Sammie lunged at me and grabbed the phone, turning off the screen in one swift motion.

“Charlie,” Lily called through the door. “Come on. We're all ready.”

“It's just Lily,” I told them. “Can I show the pictures to her? She's such a creative clothes designer, and she's making a ton of hats for Bethany's party. I'll bet she'd have some great suggestions for you.”

“Don't you dare,” Sammie said. “This is something we talked about in Truth Tellers. And what we say in Truth Tellers stays in Truth Tellers. That's our motto.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. I was just trying to help.”

There was another knock at the door and this time, I heard Lauren talking.

“You're holding everything up, Charlie. Come on.”

“And never breathe a word of this to her,” Sammie said. “She can't be trusted. You and I both know that, but you just won't admit it.”

There it was again. Sammie was never going to let this go. She obviously could not forgive and forget. One day, we'll probably be forty years old and she'll still be telling me about how bad a friend Lauren Wadsworth was to me.

I put my hand on the doorknob and turned it.

“Careful not to let her see in when you're going out,” Sammie warned.

I slid out of the door sideways and closed it behind me. Lily had already gone back into the kitchen, but Lauren and Bethany were standing on their tiptoes trying to see inside. “Well? What was it? Was there a guy in there? I bet it was that Devon kid. He's kind of hot for a weirdo,” Lauren said.

“What are they hiding?” Bethany asked. “Are they in trouble? Did they steal something? Was it jewelry?”

“Sorry, I can't tell you,” I answered as we walked back to the kitchen. “I'm pledged to secrecy. But it's none of those things, and it's not that interesting, anyhow.”

“You're really not going to tell us?” Lauren was amazed.

“Uh, that's what secrecy means, brainiac,” Lily said, laughing. “Now come on, Lauren, refocus. We've got creative work to do here.”

Lily held up each of our purchases and described how she was planning to use it. For instance, she was going to make pink velvet bows and put them all over the hard hat to show that girls could be construction workers, too. Then she held up this old rhinestone pin that was shaped like a cookie. She put it on the front of the Girl Scout beanie.

“I love that one,” Bethany said, taking out her phone and snapping a picture of it. “I'm going to post it on Instagram.”

“Don't show it to everyone before the party,” Lily protested. “It'll ruin the surprise.”

“I'll just do this one,” Bethany said.

By then, GoGo had returned from the beach and joined us.

“What's Instagram?” she asked. I was surprised she hadn't heard about it, because even though she's a grandma, she's pretty up on current things.

“It's a photo-sharing site,” I explained. “People take pictures and post them so everyone can see and comment on them.”

“Oh my,” GoGo said. “Isn't anything private anymore? Does the world have to see everything we're all doing every minute?”

“It's really fun,” Bethany said. “I post all the time.”

“Do you and Sammie do this Insta . . . whatever you call it?” GoGo asked me.

“We can't yet. You have to have a smartphone to have Instagram. And besides, Mom and Dad would probably never let us get it.”

Bethany smirked at me and then showed GoGo the picture she had posted of the Girl Scout hat with the cookie. There were already three comments. A girl name Jenna had said, “One year, I ate all the Thin Mints before I even sold a box.” Someone named Lizzy had written, “Dork City.” And Bethany's boyfriend had posted, “See you later, cookie.”

“See how much fun it is?” Bethany said. “You get instant feedback.”