Sprinkles and Secrets (13 page)

“Can I go to my room?” Hayden asks, his hands full of chocolate-covered strawberries.

Dad's soft, warm eyes don't move from my face. “Yes, please.” He waits until he's gone. “Don't you think you should talk this out with Isabel? See what she says about it? You might be surprised, Sophie.”

I shake my head. “Dad, this whole time I've been trying to figure out what made it so hard for me to tell her. And I finally know. I figured it out yesterday when we went to the cupcake shop after school. She cares about her family so much. Things with her mom haven't always been easy, but she loves her! And I'm her best friend, so of course she cares about me too. How can I tell her that I want to do the commercial, but only if she says it's okay? I'd be asking her to make an impossible choice.”

“But I don't think-”

I interrupt Mom. “Isabel is one of the nicest people I know. People at school gave her a bad time about winning the contest, and she never got mad. They thought she was buying stuff, being selfish, and what is she doing with the money? Taking
me
on a trip to Seattle. See? Nice! This is my chance to do
something nice for Isabel. Don't you understand? I need to make the choice for her.”

Dad looks at Mom. “I think it should be Sophie's decision. If she doesn't want to do it, we need to respect that.”

I standup. “Good. I'm not doing the commercial.”

Mom comes over and gives me a hug. “Okay. If that's what you want. I'll call Candace first thing in the morning, when the office is open. It's too late now.”

“Okay. Can I go back to my room, please?”

Mom nods. “I'll call you when dinner is ready. Should be about twenty minutes.”

I look at her. “Please don't. I'm not hungry.”

Dream #9 –
I dream of more chanees.
Please let there be
more chanees.

After I write in my dream journal, a gift from the nicest friend in the universe, I think about calling Isabel to apologize for what Lily said.

But I can't. Because I'm too busy crying.

Chapter 21

I
think I got thirty minutes of sleep. Maybe forty. But I am ready to tell Isabel about the audition and now, with me turning down the commercial, I can honestly tell her I did it just for the practice.

I put on my favorite jeans and my favorite black blouse, and while I put on my favorite chocolate cherry lip gloss, I give myself a pep talk in the bathroom.
“You are going to get this thing over with, Sophie Wright. Walk up to her at the locker, tell her you have something to say, and tell her. Get it all out, let her know how sorry you are for lying, but you really didn't want to upset her. Then it's over with. Along with your friendship. And your acting career.” I shake my head. “Stop it. It'll be fine.”

It'll be fine.

I keep telling myself those three words over and over as I walk to the kitchen. Mom is there, and I swear she looks like the dog has just died. In fact, it makes me wonder. “Where's Daisy?” I call for her. “Daisy? Daisy, come here!”

She comes running from the family room, carrying a rawhide bone in her mouth. I reach down and scoop her up into my arms, leaving the slimy bone on the floor.

“I have some bad news, Sophie,” Mom says.

I knew it. “What? Tell me!”

She throws the
Willow Gazette
onto the table. I look down and see a picture of me along with the headline “Local Willow Girl to Star in National Ad Campaign for Beatrice's Brownies.”

“What?” I yell so loudly it scares Daisy and she jumps out of my arms. I look at Mom. “How did this happen?”

Mom speaks slowly, like her words are tiptoeing out of her mouth. “I think Candace must have sent out a press release yesterday.”

I shake my head. “No. No, no, no, no, no! Mom, wouldn't she talk to me about it first? Make sure I wanted to do the commercial?”

“You went on the audition. I think to her that meant you wanted to do the commercial.”

I start pacing, back and forth, back and forth, my mind racing with questions and worries. I check the clock, and then realize I have to talk to Isabel before she sees it. I run to the phone and dial her number, but no one answers.

“Mom, will you drive me to school? Now?”

“Do you want to eat anything first?”

“No. I need to go!”

“Okay, but we have to take Hayden too, and he needs to eat breakfast.”

I throw my hands in the air. “Never mind. I can get there faster on my bike.”

I run to my room, grab my coat and backpack, and head to the garage. When I open the door, I see it's raining. Perfect. I put my hood up and off I go.

All I can think about the whole way to school, rain pelting my face, is that this is what I get for lying to Isabel. My mother couldn't have put together a better punishment than this if she'd tried.

When I pull up to the bike rack, Isabel is there too, putting her bike into one of the spaces.

I jump off my bike and run over to her. “Isabel, I have to talk to you.”

Even with her wet, rain-covered face, I can tell in an instant that she knows. I imagine her and her parents seeing the picture and the headline and looking at one another, stunned. Disgusted. All because of me, the person who is supposed to be Isabel's best friend in the world.

“I don't have anything to say to you,” she says, bending down to secure her lock.

“Please, Chickarita, I can explain.”

She stands up, her bottom lip quivering, because she's trying so hard not to cry. “You lied to me. You stabbed my family in the back. That pretty much
explains it all, doesn't it?” She turns and runs into the school before I can say anything else.

I turn my face to the sky and let the rain pound my face. I don't know what to do now. How can I go in there? If my best friend is mad at me, everyone else will be too. No one will want to hear my side of the story.

I start to head back home, because I feel like there's no where else to go, when Dennis comes running up, the black hood on his hoodie covering his head.

“Sophie, I saw the paper,” he says. “Congratulations. You never told me you were doing that. Wait. Why is your bike headed away from school? Where are you going?”

“Home.” And as soon as the word is out, I start crying. The warm tears blend in with the cold raindrops, and it feels funny. “I can't believe what a mess I've made.” He takes my bike and parks it. Then he walks back to me, takes my hand, and pulls me toward the front steps, which are covered. He sits down and pulls me down next to him. He lets me cry for a few minutes. Then he asks, “Isabel didn't know about the commercial?”

I shake my head. “She knew I was auditioning, but she thought it was for something else.” I look at him. I can barely see his eyes behind his wet glasses. It's like he can read my mind, because he takes them off and starts wiping them on his jeans. I never noticed Dennis's eyes before. They're green with little yellow specks around the middle. Different. Nice.

“You lied to her?” he asks.

“I know, I'm horrible.” I bite my lip to keep from crying some more. Then I take a deep breath. “I was going to tell her everything today. I swear. And I didn't want to do the commercial. I went to the audition just to see what it was like. But yesterday my mom told my agent I'd do it, even though she hadn't talked to me about it yet.”

He puts his glasses back on. “Yep. That's a mess.”

He stands and pulls me up with him.

“Where are we going?”

“You're going to lock your bike, and then we're going to science class. You can't run away, Sophie. Everything will still be here tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.”

“But—”

“Nope. You have to go in. Trust me. You may not have had friend troubles before, but I have.”

“Dennis—

He turns and faces me. “I will be with you whenever I can. Between classes. At lunch. After school. People will leave you alone if you're with me. And we'll figure out a plan to get Isabel to forgive you. I'm going to help you. I promise. Okay?”

I feel like I'm putting my life in Dennis Holt's hands. And for some strange reason, I'm okay with that.

Chapter 22

Dream #10 –
I dream of forgiveness.
Lots and lots of forgiveness.

S
omehow with Dennis's help I make it through the morning. I hear kids whispering about me, but I keep my head down and tell myself
It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
Even though it
really does. I remember how I told Isabel I could do something terrible to take the attention off of her and the baking contest. Well, looks like I succeeded.

A couple of teachers congratulate me on the commercial, and one actually hangs the newspaper article in the hallway, outside her door. Dennis asks her to take it down. She does.

Isabel doesn't even look at me in Math or English. I try passing her a note. She rips it up without even reading it.

At lunch, Dennis and Austen walk me through the lunch line. I tell Dennis I don't want anything to eat, but he doesn't listen to me. For lunch I'm having a grilled-cheese sandwich, French fries, apple slices, and a brownie. Guess he wasn't thinking when he picked the brownie for me. I'm pretty sure I'll never want to eat another brownie as long as I live.

When we sit down, I pass it to Austen. He stuffs the whole thing in his mouth and just like that, it's gone. If only I could have him do that with all of my brownie problems.

While I tear my sandwich into pieces, Dennis gives
Austen a quick rundown of what's going on between Isabel and me.

“Can we just talk about movies or something?” I ask. I look at Dennis. “Did you ask him what his favorite movie is, like you're supposed to?”

“Didn't even have to,” Dennis says. “If I said something stupid, he just laughed and said something stupid back.”

If I wasn't so upset, this would make me very happy.

“You need a plan,” Austen says, reaching for my fries because he's already eaten all of his.

“Right,” Dennis says. “Something big. Really big.”

They start talking about what their favorite super-heroes would do while I scan the cafeteria, looking for Isabel. I don't see her anywhere. I start to get up, but Dennis grabs my arm.

“Where are you going?”

“To find Isabel, so I can talk to her. She needs to hear the whole story. She only knows part of it right now.

“Sit down,” he says. “You need to give her a couple of days to cool off.”

“And don't do it here at school,” Austen says.
“One person will hear you and in five minutes, the whole school will know what you said.”

“Plus, they'll throw in things that aren't true,” Dennis says. “A five-minute conversation will morph into a thirty-minute fight out on the football field.”

I sit back down. They're right. I can't do it here. Maybe I can get her to meet me at the Blue Moon Diner after school. Ha, who am I kidding?

Dennis and Austen are still talking, and now they've turned the fight on the football field into one that includes ninjas and pirates. While they battle it out over who would win, I rack my brain trying to think of what I can do to get Isabel to realize how sorry I am.

Something big.

Something eye-catching.

Something really, really awesome.

I wish I could hire a television crew and pay for advertising. I'd put the best commercial ever on television. But that costs thousands of dollars and after spending all of my money on Christmas gifts, I don't even have five dollars in my wallet.

But I keep rolling that idea around in my head,
and it gets bigger and bigger, like a snowball rolling down a hill. Pretty soon my head is so full of this idea, I can hardly see straight.