The Sleepover (20 page)

Veronica's grin grows even wider. “Don't mention it. That's just what sisters do, AM.”

I can practically hear Anna Marie's teeth grind at both the nickname and the word
sisters
, but to her credit she just shrugs and makes a helpless gesture with her hands. I catch her eye and smile. I know Anna Marie, and I'm betting it
won't be that long before she comes around to Veronica.

Jake says, “There are still two things I don't understand. When we first came in, Anna Marie knew Meghan had shaved her eyebrow. And she knew about the ducklings in the tub. But she didn't hear the trigger words, so why isn't she still hypnotized? And why does she remember everything that happened?”

“Huh?” Anna Marie asks, but the rest of us nod along with Jake. He's right. It doesn't make any sense at all.

“There were trigger words to make us snap out of the hypnosis.
New York.
We all heard them when we woke up to ‘American Boy' playing, but you weren't home then. So why aren't you still hypnotized?”

Anna Marie's forehead crinkles. She stares off into the distance, and then she snaps her fingers. “The news. When I got into the car, I couldn't stop giggling. My dad said I was acting superweird, so he told me to sit back and try to catch some sleep. He switched on the news, but then I started laughing even harder because there was a story about this teenager who tried to break into his own home by climbing down the chimney and then he got stuck. This was in—”

“New York!” I interrupt. That story was on TV when we were eavesdropping outside the kitchen this morning, trying to find Anna Marie.

“Yup.” She grins.

“Okay, but—” Jake begins, and then I interrupt him, too.

“When we woke up, even though we weren't hypnotized anymore, we couldn't remember anything that happened. And then we found out Max had edited this video he took of Madame Mesmer last night to make us forget everything until we heard trigger words. When we saw his YouTube video and heard the trigger, then we did remember. But before that—all morning, actually—we couldn't have told you anything that had happened at the sleepover.”

Anna Marie's eyes go all wide again. “Oh wow. Do you think it's because I never went to sleep? Or no, that's not true because I totally crashed out in the car the whole drive home. My dad had to shake me awake. Wait, what was the trigger word?”

“Wordsssss, actually,” Jake says. “
Las Vegas
.”

“Not exactly something that comes up in everyday conversation,” I add.

Anna Marie lets out this surprised bark kind of sound. “Omigosh! They don't unless you have a dad who tells you in the first five minutes of the hike how glad he is that you called because he was so upset to see how his upcoming marriage was affecting his relationship with me that he and his fiancée decided to elope in Las Vegas to save everyone the awkwardness of a wedding.”

Veronica jumps up and down. “Oh, oh! Can we go too?
I wanna see Elvis! You know he's still alive, right?”

Anna Marie smiles. “I don't think they're going through with it anymore. Not after this morning.”

“Rats.” Veronica looks seriously bummed.

“Well, I guess that's all the mysteries solved,” Jake says.

“Not quite,” says Paige. “There's one more thing we need to figure out.”

Everyone turns to face her as she punches a fist into her palm. “The mystery of what our revenge on Max is going to look like.”

We all laugh, but before we have time to entertain delicious scenarios, the doorbell rings. I gasp and look at the clock: 11:55.

My mother is precisely five minutes early to everything. It drives me batty. The doorbell rings again, and from the kitchen upstairs Mrs. Guerrero yells, “Could someone get that please?”

Anna Marie races up the steps and flings open the door. “Hi, Mrs. Alcott.”

I swallow. Now that my best friend is safe and sound, I don't want the sleepover to end. I want to sit with everyone and tell Anna Marie about everything that happened while she was off hiking. About Veronica pretending to be a stuffed animal in her room, and about riding the dirt bike and holding hands with Jake. Especially about holding hands with Jake.

I sigh and rise from the floor, brushing off the backs of my legs and butt. “I guess it's time to go.” I don't know why I suddenly feel so sad. Anna Marie is home and unharmed, I had
a definite moment with Jake, and my parents don't need to find out about any of it. I should be ecstatic. Except I'm anything but. Last night and this morning have been crazy, but they've also been kind of . . . well, fun. Really fun, actually. And now it's over. Just like that.

“I'll get my stuff,” I say, looking at the spot in the corner where we'd all neatly stacked our sleeping bags and backpacks and, in one case, cot and camping table.

“I'll grab it,” Jake offers.

“I'll help,” Veronica says, but Paige yanks on her sleeve. “Um, V, why don't we head upstairs, and you can help me ice the cinnamon rolls? We'll put one in a napkin for Megs to take with her.”

Paige is a very, very good friend.

I trail Jake over to my stuff. He picks up my sleeping bag and hands it to me.

I reach for it, but then I remember something. “Oh. Wait. Your sweatshirt.” I unzip his hoodie and shrug it off my shoulders, but Jake is shaking his head.

“Oh, uh, that's okay. You can give it back to me next time we hang out. Or keep it. I mean, um, if you want.”

Next time we hang out. We're gonna have a “next time.” I smile and drop my eyes. “Um, sure. Okay.”

Jake stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Okay, so, um, well, this was . . . different.”

I can't stop my grin. “You can say that again.”

Jake smiles back and moves toward the basement door. “So, I'll see you later?”

“Later,” I agree. He slips out the door, and I push his sweatshirt up on my shoulders and hug it tightly around me before clomping up the steps.

When I set foot in the hallway, my mother is chatting with Mrs. Guerrero. She turns in my direction, but before I can take a step, someone grabs my sleeping bag from behind, pulling me up short.

“Not so fast,” Anna Marie whispers in my ear. When I spin to face her, Anna Marie pushes a baseball cap onto my head and tugs the brim down low. “This should hide your eyebrow from your mom. For now, at least.”

Paige peeks out from behind Anna Marie, holding a napkin oozing delicious, warm, gooey smells, and hands it over. “Sustenance.”

I smile. I love that my friends have my back.

They follow me to the front hall, where Mrs. Guerrero is exclaiming, “I really can't believe what angels they were. Usually I have to go downstairs at least five times at these sleepovers to tell everyone to quiet down, but the girls were perfect. I didn't hear a peep out of them all night.”

I force myself to stare at the floor to keep from laughing.

“W
ell, I'm glad to hear they didn't give you any trouble,” my mom says. “And I'm glad I didn't get any late-night calls. Proud of you, Meghan.” She pauses and gives me a quick smile. “Now we've got to get going. Paige, would you like a ride?”

“No, thanks. My mom's coming. She's kind of on her own schedule, but at least she's pretty reliable about being unreliable.”

Mrs. Guerrero laughs. “You're welcome to stay as long as you like, Paige. Veronica, I already talked to your mother and told her we'd love to have you at Anna Marie's family party tonight, if you'd like to hang here until then.”

Veronica beams but then gets all serious. “If Anna Marie's okay with it,” she mumbles.

Anna Marie exchanges looks with Paige and me, and we both nod extra hard. She looks at Veronica. “Sure. That'd be cool.”

My mom grabs the sleeping bag out of my hands. “Okay,
missy. Let's get going. You have handbell practice, and I don't want to get you there late.”

I hug my friends good-bye, including Veronica, and thank Mrs. Guerrero for having me. I turn to follow my mom out the door, but after two steps, I remember something and run back to Anna Marie.

“Happy birthday!” I say, digging the wrapped journal out of my duffel and handing it over. “Something tells me I know exactly what the first entry will be!” I give her another quick hug and, as I do, I whisper in her ear, “I'm glad you're safe.”

Anna Marie hugs me back hard.

I join up with Mom and settle myself into the passenger seat. Sitting feels good. Really, really good. I suddenly realize how very little sleep I got the night before, which immediately makes me yawn. We have a ten-minute drive to the church. Maybe I can just catch a second or two of sleep. I let my eyes flutter closed.

My mom always insists on letting the car warm up forever, and today is no exception. She turns to me. “I hope you had fun, because when you get home, your dad and I are going to have a talk with you about why you weren't answering your Ladybug cell this morning. I called you twice, and you didn't answer.”

I shrug and put my most innocent expression on my face. “Huh. That's really weird. I didn't even hear it ring on this end.”

Not technically a lie.

My mom sighs. “Maybe I dialed wrong. I guess it's time to admit I need to wear my reading glasses. Do you know earlier today I was convinced I saw you at the drive-through of the Dunkin' Donuts? Holding on to some boy on a bike. Is that the craziest thing ever?”

I smile at the memory. “The craziest,” I agree.

Also not a lie.

The thought of Jake makes my eyes fly open as my mom puts the car in drive. We'll be passing his house, and what if he's outside and— Yes! He is outside. He's helping his mom roll trash cans to the curb. He catches my eye through the window as our car moves down Anna Marie's driveway and turns onto the street. I give him my best
I like you
smile, and I'm pretty positive his smile says the exact same thing.

“Meghan!”

I jump in my seat. “Um, yeah?”

“I was saying you're going to need to take that hat off when we get to church. It's rude to wear hats inside churches. And didn't you pack any of your own clothes to change into this morning? Why on earth does Anna Marie buy her sweatshirts two sizes too big? And with skulls on them. She seems like such a sweet girl. I can't picture her wearing that. I really can't.”

“Actually, Mom, I kind of love this sweatshirt, and it was given to me as a gift, so I think I'm probably gonna wear it a lot from now on.”

Whoa. I did not just stand up to my mom like that. I'm a go-along-to-get-along kind of person, just like my dad, especially where my mom is concerned.

But I like Brave Meghan, and I don't want her to go away. Plus, I learned this morning that some things are worth fighting for.

I expect Mom to have something to say on the matter, but she doesn't. Wow. Has she been hypnotized into an understanding parent? Let's just hope this mellow version of Mom is still around when my hat comes off and my unibrow is revealed. I drift off for a minute, imagining how that's all gonna play out.

“Meghan? Meghan!”

“Hmm?”

“I asked how last night was,” Mom says.

A series of images flashes through my head: Silly String and “American Boy” and I Never and Paige thinking she was talking to Taylor Swift on the phone and locked schools and ducklings and Japanese janitors and blood that was really paint and band kids and rolling hedgehog floats and YouTube videos and porch swings and porch swings and porch swings. (I prefer that image most of all, so I keep it on a loop in my head.) I swing back to the window and crane my neck to watch the last glimpse of Jake before we turn the corner. He gives me a tiny wave, and I sigh happily.

“Epic, Mom. Last night was epic.”

We may be the un-der-dogs,

but we're gonna tromp these mean hedgehogs!

We've got pep and we've got bite!

West Oak's here to fight, fight, fight!

Goooooooo, Warriors!

The eighth-grade cheerleaders are getting the already manic crowd even more fired up as halftime approaches and the score reads: West Oak Warriors: 38, Hillside Heights Havocking Hedgehogs: 36. Our teams are playing again, this time in the state championship.

I put my thumb and pointer finger between my lips and practice the wolf whistle Veronica taught me last week when I tagged along with Anna Marie to the bridal shower for Veronica's mom. It comes out not so much earsplitting as pathetic-sounding, but next to me, Anna Marie just laughs. It's
been three weeks since the Great Anna Marie Disappearance That Wasn't, but I still get a burst of gratitude when I hear her laugh.

On my other side, Jake bumps my knee against his and says, “You're getting better. By the end of the game, I'll bet you have it down!”

My stomach feels like warm, twinkling fireflies are bumping around inside it. I brush my bangs out of my eyes, something I'm still getting used to.

True, my mom fuh-reaked out when she spotted my missing eyebrow, but luckily, it happened at handbell rehearsal and we were in church. I knew my mom would never murder me in front of God. Afterward I was able to convince her that Paige had tried to teach me how to pluck eyebrows, and a little more plus a little more plus a little more had ended up in something so awful, we'd just shaved the whole thing off in the end. It wasn't the best story ever, and I'm not particularly proud of lying to my mom, but under the circumstances, what was I supposed to say?

I do feel extra guilty about the fact that I love my new bangs so much, when I would never have had them if it weren't for the eyebrow incident. At least my mom wasn't as mad as I thought she'd be; she even confessed she'd overplucked her eyebrows into a thin line once when she wasn't much older than I am. Which was . . . whoa.