Authors: Julie Bowe

My Forever Friends (16 page)

BOOK: My Forever Friends

2.49Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

I smile back. “Okay.”

“You shouldn't tease her like that,” Jenna says as Rachel skip-hops to the living room. “She really believes those stupid seeds will grow.”

“I'm not teasing her,” I say. “I
did
see a leaf poking through the sand.”

Jenna huffs. “Dead leaf on a deader flower.”

I think about the pot of flowers in my bedroom. The ones my class is giving to Jenna. Me and Stacey took them to Jenna's house after school yesterday, but no one was home, so I offered to babysit them here. We couldn't carry the giant card too, so it's still at school.

“That reminds me,” I say. “I have something for you. From school.”

“Homework?” Jenna asks, picking up Rachel's hoodie and tossing it onto her bag. “Too late. My grandma already got it. Even my handprint for the quilt.” She gives me a frown. “Who stuck me with
Unique
?
Q
is my worst letter.”

“Tom thought of it,” I say. “He said it described you perfectly.”

Jenna's cheeks go red. “Oh,” she says.

“And I don't have homework for you. I have a present.”

Jenna squints. “A
present
?”

I nod. “From our whole class.”

Jenna hangs her fleecy on our coat tree. “I can hardly wait to see it.”

“There're fifteen all together,” I say, showing her the bright red flowers in the big brown pot. “One from each of us. Plus Mr. Crow. He said you should probably transplant some of them because we really had to squish them together so they'd all fit.”

I wait for Jenna to say something back. Something sassy like
I love how they droop
or
What a pleasant stink
.

But she doesn't say anything.

She just stares at all the red petals and green leaves and brown dirt like she's from another planet. Someplace where flowers don't grow.

“Transplant,”
I say again, louder and slower. “It means take some out of here”âI give the pot a patâ“and plant them somewhere else. In case you didn't know.”

Jenna blinks fast like she's waking up from a deep dream. “I know what transplant means,” she says, looking at me.

“There's something else too. A card. It's still at school.”

Jenna gives me a suspicious squint.

“Really,” I say. “You'll see.” I look at the flowers again. “Do you like them?”

Jenna studies the flowers. “Yes,” she says. “It's the first thing that was just for me and not for Rachel and Tyler.”

I smile. “The pot weighs a ton, so I'll help you carry it home. Plus, I can help with the transplanting too. There's an extra pot and some dirt in our shed that my dad said we can have. I mean, if you want it.”

Jenna just stands there, staring again like she's back in her deep dream.

“Unless there's somewhere else you want to plant them,” I continue. “You know, somewhere in your yard . . . or . . . maybe
in your woods
?”

I say that last part in a sneaky way because I'm secretly thinking about the tree house. Maybe Jenna is thinking about planting her flowers there too.

“Yes,” she says, blinking fast again. “I mean, no.” She looks up suddenly. “I mean
yes,
I know where I want to plant them. Only
no,
not in my yard. Or in my woods. At least not yet.”

I give her a puzzled look.

“Quick,” she says, fumbling for her watch. “What time is it?”

I glance at the clock on my desk. “Fifteen minutes past sixteen hundred hours,” I reply. “Why?”

“Four fifteen,” Jenna says, biting her lip nervously. “That doesn't give us much time.”

“For what?” I ask.

Jenna doesn't answer. She just bolts for my bedroom door and leans out into the hallway, listening.

So do I.

But all I hear is Rachel plunking on the piano downstairs. “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

Jenna rushes back into my room and tries to pick up the flowerpot. “Help me!” she snaps. Then she looks at me and makes her face go soft. “Please?”

“What are we doing?” I ask as we lug the flowerpot downstairs.

“Shhh!” Jenna whispers. “We're sneaking to the sandbox.
STAT!
”

“Flowers! Flowers everywhere!” The kitchen door slams open and Rachel bursts in from outside.

Me and Jenna look up from the pictures we're drawing and do surprised faces.

“Come and see!” Rachel shouts, pulling on Jenna's arm. A marker rolls off the table and I stoop to pick it up. But before I can toss it back into the bucket, Rachel grabs my arm too and drags both of us out the door and across my backyard to the sandbox.

“See, Jenna?” Rachel says, pointing to the five red flowers that poke up from the sand. “I
told
you the seeds would grow!”

Jenna's mouth does a twitch. “It was just luck,” she says, glancing at me. “Right?”

I nod. “Luck and rain,” I say. “Sometimes that's all it takes.”

Jenna clears her throat and fiddles with her braid. “But they won't grow for long in all that sand, Rachel. We'll have to move them to a better place.”

“Where?” Rachel asks.

“A garden,” Jenna says. “A real one.”

“We got a real garden?” Rachel asks.

“We will,” Jenna says. “In a minute.” She gives me another glance.

We run to the shed and bring back the extra flowerpot.

“Oh, look what we found,” Jenna says, doing a surprised face again. “A flowerpot already filled with dirt.”

“Magic!” Rachel says.

We help her plant the flowers in it. They look happy to finally be home.

“Five flowers,” Rachel says, standing up and brushing dirt off her hands. “One for me, one for Mommy . . .” She points to each bloom in the pot. “One for Daddy, one for Jenna, and . . . one for
Tiger
too!”

She slants a grin at Jenna. “Right, Jen?”

“One for each of us,” Jenna says. “Tiger too.”

Chapter 17

Jenna comes to school the next day and the first thing we do is give her the giant card.

We all crowd around while she looks it over.

Even the boys.

Jenna blinks at the pictures we drew on the front for a long time. Then she opens the card slowly, like she's afraid the whole thing might crumble in her hands.

“Did Mr. Crow make you do this?” she asks, reading everything we wrote inside.

I shake my head. “I thought of giving you the flowers. Brooke thought of the card. Stacey thought of drawing stuff you like. The boys thought of tarantulas and robotic dragonflies.”

All the boys grin.

I see a smile skim across Jenna's face.

She glances at Brooke. “It's nice,” she says. “Thanks for thinking of it.”

Brooke does a quick nod. “I'm always coming up with good ideas. You know that.”

Jenna does a little snort. “Like the time you had the idea to shake up a bottle of soda before we opened it? Root beer city.”

Brooke snorts back. “That wasn't as bad as the time you had the idea to put regular dish soap in your dishwasher. Remember?
Suds
city.”

They do a snort duet.

Stacey laughs. “You
both
know how to come up with good ideas. You're just the same.”

“Yep,” I say. “Only different.”

Brooke reaches into her pocket and pulls something out. She holds a taped-up lump of pink tissue paper in the palm of her hand. “Here,” she says to Jenna. “This is for you too.”

“Careful,” Randi says, stepping back. “Could be explosive.”

Jenna does that suspicious look she's so good at. Then she takes the lump and unwraps the paper.

A silver chain slithers out.

A sparkly letter
J
dangles from it.

“It's not as good as a half heart,” Brooke says. “And the diamonds aren't real. But fake diamonds are better than no diamonds at all.”

Jenna looks up from the necklace. “But I told you before,” she says to Brooke. “I don't want it.”

“I know you don't want it,” Brooke replies. “But I think you
need
it.” She glances away and back again. “And I need to say . . . I'm sorry. For fighting. And for saying all those mean things about your family. And for teasing you about liking Tom . . .” She leans in closer to Jenna and whispers, “. . . even though I know it's true.” She straightens up. “I wish we could be friends again.”

We all look at Jenna. No one says a word even though our mouths are hanging open.

Jenna studies the necklace for a moment.

Then she looks at Brooke.

“I'm sorry too,” she says. “For fighting back. And for always wanting to get my way.”

She puts the necklace on and smiles. “Friends again?”

Brooke smiles back. “Duh,” she replies.

Randi does a big sigh. “Finally.”

Rusty nods. “Yeah, I thought you guys would fight forever.”

“Same here,” Quinn adds.

“Forever, plus two days for me,” Joey puts in.

Brooke rolls her eyes.

Jenna lifts her chin. “That just proves how much boys
don't
know,” she says.

All the girls nod.

“There's
one
thing we know,” Tom says.

“What?” Jenna replies.

Tom twists up a grin. “We know you've got a secret tree house in your woods.”

All the boys nod.

Jenna shoots a look at Brooke. “You told them?”

Brooke shakes her head. “I swear I didn't. I only told Stacey.”

“And I only told Randi,” Stacey chimes in.

“Don't look at me,” Randi says. “I only told Meeka. And . . . possibly . . . Dominic.”

Dominic grins.

“It doesn't matter who told who what,” I say. “All that matters is that everyone is friends again. Right?”

Everyone nods.

By Thursday, we have the tree house mostly de-spidered. We decided to ask Jenna to help us fix it up instead of surprising her. I think that surprised her most of all.

By Friday, Mrs. Eddy has finished sewing all of our handprints to the branches on the tree quilt. She also used her sewing machine to make lots of loops and swirls on the background.

Only, some of the loops and swirls are actually
letters
that spell out our names in fancy cursive. At first, you don't even know they're there. But the more you look, the more you see your friends blowing around in the breeze.

And even though, technically, it's a friendship quilt, not a crazy quilt, Mrs. Eddy sewed a silvery web on one of the tree branches and stitched a spider to it.

For good luck.

And it worked too, because on Saturday we sold the quilt at our school auction.

Guess who bought it?

Mr. Crow.

Guess how much he paid?

Two hundred dollars
.

Can you believe it? I never knew teachers were so rich.

Mr. Crow says he's going to hang the quilt in our classroom. He's even going to leave it up after we're too smart for fourth grade.

We got enough money from the auction and the carnival to finish paying for our new playground equipment. And enough money from the PTA bake sale that Brooke's mom organized to make Jenna's mom cry.

Not a sad cry.

A happy one.

I know because I saw her hug Brooke's mom when she gave her the money at the end of the day.

Five hundred two dollars and sixty-seven cents.

That last part was from me and Stacey. We put some of our spending money in the donation jar and split a giant cookie.

Sunday afternoon, weâme, Jenna, Stacey, Brooke, Randi, Meeka, and Joleneâmeet at the tree house to finish the quilting bee we started at my house. The one that got interrupted because of Tyler being born.

The tree house really isn't big enough for all of us, so we have to squish together.

No one seems to mind.

We dig our sewing stuff out of our backpacks.

Also, cheese puffs.

And cherry whips.

Cans of soda.

And Choco Chunks.

“I've got big plans for this place,” Brooke says, munching cheese puffs and looking around while we sew.

“Just remember,” Randi says, “we agreed to go natural on the decorations.” She beats her fist against her chest. “Cavemen don't wear tiaras.”

BOOK: My Forever Friends

2.49Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book