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Authors: Julie Bowe

My Forever Friends (14 page)

BOOK: My Forever Friends
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Brooke smirks, drumming her fingers against the handle of a broom. “Relax, Goldilocks,” she says. “It's just me.” She flicks her wrist toward the tree house. “Welcome to my humble home.”
“This is yours?” I say, standing up and brushing twigs off my shirt.
“Technically? Mine and the FBF's. Former Best Friend? As in Jenna Drews. We found it last fall before she ditched me. Which, thankfully, she did, because I see she can't keep a promise.”
“What promise?” I ask.
“To keep this place a secret.” Brooke leans the broom against the windowsill and crosses her arms. “
Our
secret,” she adds. “But here you are, so there you go. Jenna Drews is a big fat blabber.”
“No she's not,” I say. “Not a big fat one. She only told
me
that there was something in her woods.”
Brooke snorts and spins her hands like pinwheels. “See? This is what I mean. Everyone says
I
talk behind people's backs, when it's
Jenna
who can't keep her mouth shut.”
“Your back is the only one Jenna talked behind,” I tell Brooke. “And she only did it because she thought your promise was worn out.”
Brooke breaks a stick off the tree and throws it out the window.
I duck.
“Promises
never
wear out,” she snaps, “even if friendships do.”
I stand still and hope I won't have to dodge a broom.
“I'm just saying,” Brooke continues, “people shouldn't automatically think you're one thing and nothing else.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, keeping an eye on the broom. “Makes sense.”
Brooke smoothes back her hair and takes a deep breath, like she just swam up to the surface.
Then she gives me the once-over.
“Well, as long as you're here,” she says, “you might as well come up.”
 
 
The inside of the tree house is a lot like the outside, only no green paint. Just plain wooden boards for walls. Same for the floor and the ceiling. It's mostly empty except for a paper plate seed collage tacked to a wall and the broom Brooke was using. A pink plastic chair is shoved in one corner. Something is lying on the floor next to it.
“I love what you've done with the place,” I say, turning in a circle.
Brooke squints. “Ha-ha. If I had my way, it would be totally
smooth
.” She turns in a circle too, arms stretched out so her hands make a little frame she can look through. “Posters on the walls. Beads in the windows. Bright pink rugs on the floor. A beanbag chair or two.”
“So how come it's not, you know,
smooth
?” I ask.
“Because of the big fat fight.” Brooke plops down on the plastic chair.
I sit on the floor, crisscross applesauce, in front of her. “What fight?”
“The one that happened after Jenna and I found this place. We were taking Biscuit for a walk.”
I blink. “In the woods? You? And Jenna?” “Not
in
the woods,” Brooke says. “Down her path to the park. Only, Biscuit got away from us. We chased him around in circles for
ev
er until his leash got caught on something
right
underneath the tree house. Weird, huh?”
I nod. “I've got goose bumps. Go on.”
“We decided to make this place our secret hideout. So we ditched Biscuit at Jenna's house and planned a whole ceremony to make it official. We came back the next day to do it. I even brought friendship necklaces for each of us.”
Brooke pulls a necklace chain from under her shirt collar. Half of a broken heart hangs from it. Two words are written on it:
ENDS
EVER
I frown. “Ends ever? That doesn't sound very friendly.”
“Jenna's half said
FRI FOR,
” Brooke explains. “When we fit the halves together it spelled
FRIENDS FOREVER
. Get it?”
I nod. “So how come you're still wearing your half if you and Jenna aren't friends anymore?”
“Duh, Ida,” Brooke says. “It has a real
diamond
chip.” She holds the half heart closer to me. A tiny dot sparkles on the tip.
“Point zero five karats,” Brooke says, tapping the diamond. “It said so right on the wrapper. Jenna's half had one too.”
“Wow,” I say. “The only carrots I've ever owned are the crunchy kind.”
Brooke sits back, twirling her chain. “Diamonds last forever, so we swore an oath over them to be
friends
forever
.
And to keep the tree house a
secret
forever too.”
“So far so good,” I say. “When do you fight?”
“I'm getting to that,” Brooke says. She leans in. “After we said the oath, we sealed it with
blood
.”
I gulp. “Whose blood?”
“Ours, silly,” Brooke says. “Jenna brought along a needle and a photo of the two of us. We pricked our fingers and pressed the blood onto the picture. I practically fainted, but I did it. Jenna too. Then we hung the picture right over there.”
Brooke points to the wall where the seed collage is hanging. An empty noodle frame is lying on the floor beneath it.
I pick up the noodle frame. “So where's the picture now?” I ask.
Brooke flicks back her hair. “We finished the ceremony and then started making plans for the tree house. Well,
I
started making plans. But Jenna just pooh-poohed every decorating idea I had. She said bead curtains and movie posters and neon rugs would damage the
natural integrity
of the place.”
Brooke does invisible quote marks with her fingers when she says that last part. “What
ev
er. Jenna made a rule that we could only decorate with things we made ourselves, or that came from nature. Sticks. Seeds. Flowers. Ugh. I swear, she'd only allow a rug in here if we wove it out of grass and mud.”
“But you like making stuff just as much as Jenna does. Remember?” I wiggle the noodle frame in front of Brooke. “You taught her how to make these.”
“Noodles are different,” Brooke replies. “They come from the store, not off the ground. Rhinestones . . . sequins . . . beads, fine. But sticks and seeds and mud? No thank you.”
“So what did you do?”
“I, very logically, said that we should put it to a vote.”
“A vote? But there were only two of you, so—”
“And since I was
older,
” Brooke cuts in, “I should get two votes.”
“And then?”
“And then Jenna basically had a fit. She said if I got two votes, then she got
three
because the woods belonged to her
family
.”
Brooke fiddles with her necklace. “So I said, ‘
What
family? Your parents
hate
each other and Rachel hates
you
.'”
My eyes go wide. “You said that?”
Brooke does a quick nod. “I know it came out sounding mean, but sometimes the truth hurts.” She glances away. “I hear my mom and her friends talking about Jenna's family all the time. They call Jenna's dad
driftwood
because he's always looking for work and her mom
Herr Drews
.”
“
Hair
Drews?”
Brooke shrugs. “Probably because of her long braids. But it's more the
way
they say it. Like the Drewses are a big fat joke, you know? So I told Jenna the whole town is laughing at her family.”
“What did Jenna say?”
Brooke snorts. “She didn't say anything. She
shoved
me into the wall—
that
wall.” Brooke points to the only wall that doesn't have a window on it. “I slammed against it so hard I practically broke my back. But that wasn't the worst of it. The wall was covered with spiderwebs.
Millions
of them. And every sticky strand was
gobbed
with ancient spider eggs. My shirt, my hands, my
hair
—my entire body was covered with them.”
Brooke shudders. “Jenna knows how I feel about spiders. She shoved me into them on purpose. I saw it in her eyes.”
“What did you do?”
“What do you think?” Brooke replies. “I shoved her back. We kept shoving each other back and forth until I
accidentally
grabbed her diamond chip necklace. The chain broke. The half heart flew.”
I glance around the tree house. I don't see Jenna's half heart anywhere.
“Jenna accused me of breaking it on purpose. So I called a five-minute truce to prove I hadn't. We looked everywhere—inside, outside—but it had completely disappeared.”
Brooke glances at the empty noodle frame in my hand. “That's when Jenna yanked our picture off the wall and tore it up. She threw all the pieces out the window. Then she told me that
I
was the joke of our whole school. That kids call me
tinsel brain
behind my back. Because of all my pageant crowns. I stormed out of here and ran all the way home. That's the
last
time I came to this place.”
“But you're here today,” I point out.
Brooke tucks her necklace back under her shirt. “Only because of what your parents said at the Purdee Good last night. About Jenna's baby brother and how nobody knows for sure if he's even going to . . . you know . . . live.”
I nod.
Brooke sighs. “It just made things like diamond necklaces and pink rugs and getting your own way not seem so important anymore. Plus, when we got home from the Purdee Good my mom started calling everyone she knew. The school carnival committee. The PTA. She even called Mr. Crow and our principal. She told them what was going on with the Drewses and that something had to be done.”
Brooke leans in. “But remember? My mom thinks Mrs. Drews is a joke. She always complains when they have to work together on a committee. So I finally just blurted out, ‘What's the point of helping someone you hate?'”
Brooke sits back. Her chair creaks. “You should have seen the look on my mom's face after I said that.”
“Bad?” I ask.
Brooke nods. “Scary bad. She grabbed my shoulders and said, ‘I don't
hate
Mrs. Drews. We just disagree sometimes. Helping people is
what we do
in this life. No matter how we feel about them.'”
Brooke studies the floor. “So . . . I don't know . . . I felt . . . bad. For the mean things I'd said to Jenna. For fighting with her. For not telling her I was sorry a long time ago. I thought maybe if I came here . . .” Brooke's voice trails off as she looks around the tree house.
“Maybe you could think of a way to help her too?”
Brooke looks at me and nods. “So this morning, I dragged a broom up here to de-spider the place. And my old time-out chair because no way was I going to sit on this disgusting floor.” She kicks at an acorn. “Then, just as I was getting ready to think things through, you showed up.”
“Should I leave?” I ask.
Brooke blinks at me. She shakes her head. “No. Stay. Maybe we can think of something together.”
I think about all the mean things Brooke has said and done to Jenna lately. Teasing her about Tom right in front of him. Telling her the school carnival will be a lot better now that Mrs. Drews isn't in charge. Splitting up our group instead of doing Jenna's playground good-byes.
What could Brooke do that would make up for all of that?
“Any ideas?” Brooke asks, fiddling with her necklace again.
“We could find Jenna's half heart and you could give it back,” I offer. “That might help.”
“I thought of that already,” Brooke replies. “I searched again this morning, but it's no use. Some squirrel probably carried it off.” She looks out the window.
I nod. “A girl squirrel who likes sparkly things.”
Brooke turns back to me, her eyes bright with an idea. “I could give Jenna one of my tiaras,” she says. “My biggest, sparkly-est one!”
“Um . . .” I say. “I don't think Jenna is much into tiaras. She's more of a tagboard and glue kind of girl.”
Brooke slumps and sighs. “There's nothing I can give her that will make up for my meanness. Even saying ‘I'm sorry' might not make us friends again.”
“It might not,” I reply. “But if you say it, at least you won't be enemies anymore.”
Brooke thinks this through.
And nods.
Chapter 15
Mrs. Eddy is in our classroom when I get to school on Monday morning.
But Jenna isn't.
And I know why.
Mr. Drews called to say that Tyler was having trouble breathing, so the doctors hooked him to a machine called a ventilator. Everyone—Mr. and Mrs. Drews, Jenna, Rachel, their grandma—is sticking close to the hospital until he can breathe by himself again.
Mrs. Eddy passes around our handprint squares for the quilt and explains how we're going to stitch around the fingers for decoration. Later, we'll write friendship words on them with fabric markers.
Everyone starts sewing and talking about good friendship words.
Silly. Smile. Honest. Pal
. But I'm mostly thinking about other words. The kind that are too big to fit on a fourth grader's handprint.
Ventilator.
Incubator.
Neonatal.
Intensive care
.
I don't think Jenna should get stuck with such big words. Rachel either. Things are scary enough without all those letters.
“Keep working hard to finish your handprints,” Mrs. Eddy says when it's time to clean up. “I'll be back on Wednesday to collect them. That will give me time to sew them onto the quilt before the auction next weekend.”
BOOK: My Forever Friends
3.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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