Authors: Nancy Krulik

Friends for Never (3 page)

BOOK: Friends for Never

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“You don’t know
anything
about accessories,” Suzanne replied. “Someone as small as Emma S. should never wear a big silver medal around her neck.”

Katie looked at her strangely. “What are you talking about?”

“Accessories.
You know—necklaces, earrings, scarves,” Suzanne explained. “I’m an expert on accessories. We’re studying them in modeling school now.”

Katie was getting tired of hearing about modeling.

But Suzanne wasn’t finished talking about it. She looked Katie up and down, and then frowned. “You know, now that we’re not in the same class, you don’t dress as well as you used to.”

Katie looked down at her black running pants and zebra-striped sweater. She liked the way she looked. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“It’s the animal print,” Suzanne told her. “That’s so last year. This year, people are wearing different kinds of patterns. See?” She pointed to the pink, green, and yellow polka-dot shirt she was wearing.

Before Katie could reply, Jessica came walking over. “Hi, Ocean,” she greeted Suzanne. “Hi, Katie.”

“Hi, River,” Suzanne said with a smile. Then she turned back to Katie. “You see the plaid skirt River’s wearing? That’s the kind of pattern I mean.”

“Ocean helped me pick it out,” Jessica explained to Katie. “Our modeling club went on a field trip to the mall.”

“We had fun, didn’t we?” Suzanne asked Jessica. The girls giggled together.

Katie scowled. Obviously, Suzanne wasn’t going to ask her to join their club after all.

“Did you bring the orange lip gloss?” Suzanne asked Jessica.

Jessica nodded. “And your round brush, too. Now you’ll be able to fix your makeup and hair all day long.”

Suzanne sighed heavily. “It’s so much pressure being a model. I have to be gorgeous all the time.”

Ugh!
Katie couldn’t stand listening to Suzanne’s bragging anymore. She turned and walked away without even saying good-bye.

Ocean and River didn’t even seem to notice she’d gone.

Chapter 5

That afternoon, Katie and Emma W. walked home with Jeremy. As they left the school yard, Katie saw Jessica and Suzanne standing by themselves, giggling about something.

Katie frowned. “Those two are getting to be real snobs,” Katie moaned.

“Getting to be?” Jeremy said. “Katie, Suzanne’s always thought she was better than everyone else.”

Katie sighed. She guessed that was true.

“She’s
your
best friend, not mine,” Jeremy reminded her.

Katie sighed again. These days, Suzanne wasn’t acting like she was Katie’s best friend, either. “You know,” she said slowly, “we could start a club. The three of us could be the first members.”

“What kind of club?” Jeremy and Emma asked at once.

“Well, you guys know I take cooking classes on Wednesdays, right?” Katie asked.

Emma and Jeremy nodded.

“I know lots of great recipes now,” Katie continued. “We could start a cooking club. I know my mom would let us meet in my kitchen.”

“That sounds good,” Jeremy agreed.

“It sounds
delicious,”
Emma added.

“We could ask all our friends to join,” Katie said. “Especially the ones who like to eat. We could meet Saturday afternoons, right after my clarinet lesson.”

“We have to ask George, for sure,” Jeremy said. “He’ll eat anything. And Kevin will come if we’re making something with tomatoes.”

“He ate twenty-seven of those grape tomatoes at lunch today,” Emma added. “I thought he was going to be sick.”

“Not the tomato king,” Katie assured her. “Kevin’s eaten more than that before.” She thought for a minute. “We should probably ask Mandy, Zoe, and Miriam, too.”

“How about Manny?” Jeremy said.

“Sure,” Katie agreed. “And Becky . . .”

“Do we have to ask
her?”
Jeremy interrupted. “She makes me nuts.”

Katie laughed. Becky Stern had a big crush on Jeremy. She flirted with him all the time. He hated it.

“I think we should invite everyone,” Katie said. Then she looked back to where Suzanne and Jessica were huddled together, talking. “Well,
almost
everyone,” she corrected herself.

Chapter 6

“Please pass the applesauce,” Katie asked Mandy. She put a slice of cheese on top of each of her slices of bread.

It was Saturday afternoon. Katie, Mandy, George, Jeremy, Emma W., and Manny were all gathered in Katie’s kitchen. They were making applesauce recipes from the recipe Katie had gotten in her Wednesday afternoon cooking class.

“This is a great idea,” George said as he poured a heaping spoonful of cinnamon and sugar over the applesauce that he had plopped on a slice of bread. Then he put another slice of bread on top to make a sandwich and covered it with a slice of American cheese. “Here you go, Mrs. Carew.”

Katie’s mother laughed as she popped George’s cheese, applesauce, and cinnamon sugar sandwich into the oven. “That’s your
third
sandwich, George,” she remarked. “You must really like these.”

“I love when the cheese gets gooey in the oven,” he replied. “And the way the cinnamon and sugar gets all syrupy. Yum!”

“Oops!” Emma W. exclaimed. A big blob of applesauce had fallen on the floor. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Carew.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Katie assured her friend. “Our cleanup crew will get it.”

Sure enough, Pepper, Katie’s cocker spaniel, padded over and began licking the applesauce off the floor.

“That dog will eat anything, Katie Kazoo!” George exclaimed, using the super-cool nickname he’d given her.

“Look who’s talking,” Jeremy said. “George, I saw you put hot sauce on a tuna fish sandwich the other day.
Blech
!
”

“I love hot sauce,” George boasted. “The hotter the better. I’ll eat it on anything.”

“Even these applesauce and cheese sandwiches?” Manny asked.

George frowned. “Okay, well, maybe not
anything,”
he admitted.

Manny turned to Katie. “I’m going to start a database of all our recipes,” he told her. “What do you think we should call these?”

Katie thought for a minute. Her friends all seemed really happy making the sandwiches. That gave her an idea. “How about Apple-y Ever After Sandwiches?”

“Perfect,” Manny said. He took a pen from his pocket and wrote that down on the top of his hand. Manny was always writing things on his hands. That way, he never forgot anything—at least not until he took a shower.

“Katie, I can’t believe you didn’t ask Suzanne to join this club,” Mandy said between bites of her Apple-y Ever After Sandwich. “You guys always do things like this together.”

“Not anymore,” Katie replied.

“But you invited everyone else in our grade to join the club,” Manny reminded her.

“Not everyone,” Emma W. corrected him. “We didn’t ask Jessica, either.”

“They’re too busy with their dumb old modeling club to do anything with us,” Jeremy added.

“Look at me ... I’m a model,” George said. He wiggled his hips wildly, pretending to walk up and down a fashion runway.

The kids all laughed. At first, Katie felt kind of bad about the way George was making fun of Suzanne. Especially since she wasn’t there to defend herself.

But then Katie remembered
why
Suzanne wasn’t there.

“Aren’t you and Suzanne friends anymore?” Mandy asked. She took a big bite of her gooey applesauce sandwich.

Katie shrugged. “I guess not. She and Jessica, I mean
River,
do everything together now.”

“But I thought you and Suzanne were best friends forever,” Mandy continued.

Katie frowned. She was tired of hearing about Suzanne, or Ocean, or whatever her name was. “Well, now we’re FRIENDS FOR NEVER!” she exclaimed loudly.

Everyone grew quiet. Katie’s mother stared at her, surprised, but Katie knew her mom wouldn’t say anything while Katie’s friends were around.

Katie took a deep breath. She hadn’t meant to sound so angry. Now everyone seemed really uncomfortable.

Katie wanted everyone to keep on having a good time. She forced herself to smile and held up her sandwich. “Here’s another one for the oven, Mom.”

After the cooking club had left, Mrs. Carew went outside to get the mail. She returned with a big handful of letters.

“Katie, there’s one for you,” she said as she walked in the door.

Katie jumped up from her seat. She
loved
getting mail. “Who is it from?” she asked excitedly.

“Suzanne.”

“Oh,” Katie said. “You can throw it out then.”

“You don’t even know what’s in here,” Mrs. Carew told her. She opened the envelope. “Oh, look, it’s an invitation to Suzanne’s modeling show. It’s this Saturday at the mall.”

Katie folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not going to that thing.”

Mrs. Carew put her arm around Katie. “I know you’re angry at Suzanne right now,” she began gently.