Best Friend Next Door (15 page)

I’ve been looking forward to my first palindrome year since forever. And now it’s turning into one big zero.

My parents had said that New York City was my birthday gift, but it turns out they got me some other presents, too. They give me four headbands, three books, a gift certificate to Sports Authority, and a new volleyball. Also, Sophie sent me a card with cats singing “Happy Birthday” and a bracelet that says
Ottawa
. That’s the city she moved to in Canada. My dad makes hash browns for breakfast and Margo blends my chocolate milk so it’s frothy. I’m trying to be grateful, but I’m still feeling lousy. After breakfast, I go back up to my room.

Around nine, Emme knocks on my bedroom door.

“Happy birthday, Og Twin!” she sings. She’s taken off her boots but she’s still wearing her parka and hat. “I’m seriously freaking out about the snow! It’s just so white. I know it stinks that our trip is postponed, but it’s snowing! Want to go sledding?”

“Happy birthday, too,” I say, flopping onto my bed. “You sound so happy. Don’t you care about the trip? And it’s not postponed, at least for me. It’s canceled.”

“I was thinking we could make the best of it though,” Emme says. “My moms don’t want to take me to the ice rink because the roads are bad and they’re worried about driving in so much snow, but we could walk to a sledding hill. I’ve never been sledding. Well, duh, of course I haven’t! You know a good hill, right?”

“I don’t want to go sledding,” I say gruffly. I mean,
come on
! She’s acting like it’s any old fun snow day. “And the truth is, I can’t stand ice-skating, so I don’t feel like doing that, either.”

“Okay.” Emme bites her bottom lip. “Well … happy birthday.”

As Emme walks down the stairs, I roll over on my bed.

My zero birthday just dipped into the negative numbers. Exactly like the temperature outside.

I spend the morning in my room. I read a few chapters of a new book. I arrange the photos on my dresser—Sophie and me, Emme and me, and one of my dad, Margo, and me in the white frame that the judge gave me. I try on my headbands. I get the iPad and look up images of New York City at Christmastime.

I can hear Emme and Claire and Julia in their backyard. I think my dad’s out there with them. I feel bad I was so grumpy with Emme. She was just excited about seeing snow for the first time. And it’s her birthday, too, after all. Her trip was canceled just like mine.

I click on a picture of the ice-skating rink at Rockefeller Center and suddenly I get a crazy idea.

“Margo?” I ask, running down to the kitchen. “Can I do something?”

She’s got a few jars of peanut butter on the counter, several flavors of jam, and a loaf of bread. She spins around quickly and tosses a dish towel over the peanut butter.

“Hey, birthday girl,” she says. “Are you feeling better? And can you be more specific about what you want to do?”

“The thing is,” I say, “I was wondering if I could get out our garden hose and spray water all over the backyard to make it into an ice-skating rink.”

Margo stares at me. “You want to do that for Emme?”

“Can I?”

She rinses her hands in the sink. “I want to show you something. Put on your coat and boots and come on outside. Grab your hat and gloves, too. The temperature is dropping.”

Margo and I head out the side door. Sure enough, Emme and her moms and my dad are in her backyard. When they see me, Emme runs over. Her cheeks are bright red and her hat is covered in snow.

“Look!” she says, gesturing behind her. “We’re bringing New York City to you.”

I look into her yard and suck in my breath even though my lungs are icy from the bitter cold. They’ve built a snowman that looks like the Statue of Liberty, complete with a crown and a small orange shovel for a torch. They’ve strung white lights around a pine tree, and my dad and Julia are wrapping red and green lights around the swing set.

“That’s the Rockefeller Center tree,” Emme says, pointing at the pine tree, “and the swing set will be the Empire State Building. See how we put that stick on top for the point?”

I can’t stop smiling. I was going to make an ice rink for Emme, and she’s made New York City for me. They all have.

“I love it,” I say, hugging Emme. Her parka is so puffy she feels like a human sleeping bag.

Emme wipes at her nose with her glove. “I’m glad.”

“I’m sorry about before,” I say. “I was disappointed about the trip and—”

“We’re the Og Twins,” she says. “It’s okay. Besides, I thought of a really good palindrome. Want to hear it?
Won snow.
Isn’t that awesome?”

“Won snow,”
I say, nodding. “If there’s anything we won today, it’s definitely snow.”

I pull my fleece hat out of my pocket, tug it over my ears, and tell Emme about the ice rink idea. We get to work immediately, uncoiling the hose from the garage and spraying my yard with water. My dad says he’ll research backyard rinks, but we figure we may as well get started with the water because it’ll take a while to freeze. Actually, it’s so cold it probably won’t even take that long. It might even be frozen by tomorrow morning.

After we’ve sprayed water on a good portion of my backyard, my fingers are so cold I can hardly bend them. Margo invites everyone inside for lunch and hot cocoa. It’s a total surprise when she serves us sandwiches with peanut butter. Well, not the sandwich part. It’s the peanut butter—maple, white chocolate, and cinnamon raisin. She ordered them as a present from that peanut-butter restaurant in New York City!

As we gather around our table—me and my parents, Emme and her parents—eating sandwiches and drinking mugs of cocoa, I realize it’s becoming a great birthday.

“Thanks, you guys,” I say, “for, you know, everything.”

“Are you having a glass-half-full moment?” Emme asks, biting into her second sandwich. This one is maple peanut butter with Nutella.

I swirl my mini-marshmallows around in the hot chocolate. “More like
mug
half full.”

We both laugh. Because it is a mug-half-full day. Definitely.

Later that evening, Emme and I are stretched out in my living room watching a movie. We’ve opened the couch so it’s a bed, and piled it with pillows. We’re having a sleepover, and my parents said we can stay up late and have as much screen time as we want.

We pause the movie for a snack break and head into the kitchen. I look out the back window. It’s dark, but I can see by the yard lights that the snow is still coming down.

“Do you think it’s frozen yet?” I ask Emme.

“The rink? Maybe. It’s so cold out.”

“Want to check?”

Emme tosses back a handful of cheese popcorn. “Totally! My skates are in my garage. I’ll run over and grab them and you can get yours and we’ll meet in the backyard.”

I don’t own ice skates.
Obviously
, I don’t own ice skates. Somehow I didn’t consider the fact that making an ice rink means I have to try skating again. Duh.

“If you don’t have skates,” Emme says, “we can always take turns with mine. They might be a little small on you, but—”

“Do you think it’s completely lame if I slide around on boots?” I ask. Even the prospect of being on ice in
boots
makes me nervous, but I’ll do it for Emme. Especially after she created a backyard New York City for me. And forgave me for this morning.

Emme shrugs. “Whatever. You can always trade with me if you want.”

Five minutes later, Emme and I meet in my backyard. We both have our coats and hats and gloves on, but she’s clomping in her ice skates. She looks so much taller with her skates on, even taller than me.

Emme and I lean down and rap our knuckles against the frozen puddles of ice. From what I can see with the light from the porch, the water has frozen in various icy patches throughout the yard.

“I guess it’s not like a real ice rink,” I say to Emme.

Emme is grinning as she leans over to tighten her skates. “I’ve never been to an outdoor rink before. This is a perfect first time.”

Emme steps onto the ice and then reaches back for me. My heart is pounding and my teeth are chattering. I carefully inch forward. It’s slippery, but I don’t fall backward and smash my skull like the last time I was on the ice.

As we make our way slowly around my yard, holding hands and slipping from frozen puddle to frozen puddle, Emme says, “I know we’re not in New York City, but I still love it.”

“What do you mean we’re not in New York City?” I use my free hand to point to her backyard, to the swing set dressed in red and green lights and the lit-up pine tree and the snowman with the shovel-torch. “That’s the Empire State Building over there. And the Statue of Liberty.” I gesture all around me. “And if that’s the famous Christmas tree, then this is the Rockefeller Center ice rink.”

Emme giggles. “It’s amazing, right? We have Rockefeller Center all to ourselves.” Then she tips her face to the sky and shouts, “I love New York!”

“Me too,” I say, laughing. “I love New York!”

Emme starts singing “New York, New York,” except she doesn’t know most of the words and neither do I. But we still attempt to sing it as we slip around the backyard, the sky hazy with snow, my best friend and me.

E
mme?” Mom J says as she stands in our doorway, car keys in her hand. “You’re really okay being home alone? Remember to practice calling me from the landline. And Margo is right next door if you need anything.”