Best Friend Next Door (17 page)

“If Hannah is going to the winter camp,” I say, “then I’ll go, too.”

“Excellent!” Mom J says. “It sounds amazing.”

As I clear the table, Mom J gets on the phone with Margo and they firm up plans. I think they all feel bad that our trip to New York City was canceled and they’re hoping this will make up for it.

That afternoon, Hannah comes over to hang out.

“Can you believe we’re going to Deepwoods Winter Camp?” she asks, sinking next to me on the beanbag chair. We used to have the beanbag on our porch in Captiva, but now I keep it in my room.

“I never even knew they had winter camps,” I say. “My moms said there will be sledding and tubing and ice fishing.”

Not that I have any idea what ice fishing is, but it sounds fun.

“I was thinking we could decorate our bunk,” Hannah said. “Like with glittery snowflakes and—”

“And pictures of pandas!” I say, squealing.

“Can you believe Sophie is coming, too?” Hannah asks.

I stare at Hannah. “Sophie?”

“Sophie,” Hannah says, gesturing to the smiley face on my wall, “who used to live here. Her parents agreed to fly her down from Canada so she could join us for camp.”

“Your best friend,” I say quietly.

“My
other
best friend,” Hannah says.

Suddenly, I start worrying all over again. What if we get to Deepwoods and Hannah and Sophie are so happy to see each other that they leave me out and—

“Emme,” Hannah says, tapping my arm, “you’re doing it.”

“Doing what?” I ask. I have no idea what she’s talking about.

“You’re worrying. You’ve been worrying like crazy recently.”

“How did you know?”

Hannah laughs. “I’m the queen of worrying. It takes one to know one. Listen. You will love Sophie. She will love you. I promise. Three is better than two.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Sure I’m sure.”

“So what about your toenails? Have you stopped multicolor painting them?”

Hannah rolls off her socks. “Orange and yellow,” she says, grinning. “I did it this morning.”

I have to admit that makes me feel better.

Hannah grabs my glitter wand off my desk. She’s always playing with it when she’s in my room. “Let me be the worrier, okay? I worry enough for both of us.”

“You’d do that for me?”

Hannah taps the wand in the center of my forehead. “Your wish is my command.”

A few minutes later, I’m sketching on the floor and Hannah is flipping through some of my books. “You know how I’m supposed to pick the baby’s middle name?” she asks. “I’m thinking Levi because you can rearrange the letters and spell
evil
.”

I have to laugh. “Maybe keep that brilliant idea to yourself. By the way, those letters can also spell
live
.”

Hannah snorts. “I like
evil
more.”

S
ophie and I have been talking on the phone a lot recently, planning for our long weekend at Deepwoods Winter Camp. She’s flying in on Friday evening and my parents are driving us to the camp on Saturday. I can’t believe she’s taking an airplane by herself. She said that a flight attendant will be chaperoning her, but it still seems so grown up. Sophie’s extra excited because she gets to miss school on Monday and Tuesday. I hadn’t thought about that before, but they don’t have the same Presidents’ Day vacation in Canada. They also don’t have Fourth of July or our Thanksgiving, either.

Two days before Sophie arrives, she tells me, “Oh, I have a pink streak in my hair now. Lots of girls in Ottawa do.”

It’s hard to picture Sophie with a streak in her hair. And
pink
, of all colors! She’s Korean and has incredibly long black hair that she’s only trimmed four times in her life.

“And it’s short,” she says. “I got my hair cut to my shoulders with a slope from back to front.”

“Really?” I ask. I pictured Sophie exactly the same as the day we said good-bye last August. “Mine is long now.”

“No! I totally can’t picture you with long hair.”

“Yeah. I can even wear it in a ponytail.”

The day before the trip, Sophie says on the phone, “I’ve been reading about the camp and I can’t wait to try ice fishing. And everyone in Ottawa ice-skates. It sounds like you can skate to the fishing site at the camp. I might even bring my own skates.”

Ugh.

For one, I wouldn’t consider fishing even in the
summer
. It freaks me out to see a fish’s mouth punctured with a hook, its glassy eyes staring out from either side of its head. For two, fishing AND ice-skating? No, thanks. Put me on a sled and push me down a steep hill, please. Oh, and for three, Sophie is
not
the outdoorsy type. I was surprised she said yes to Deepwoods. My dad’s friend’s son went and it sounds like a lot of clomping around in boots, building campfires. Sophie’s more of a stay-inside-and-do-makeovers kind of girl.

I swallow hard and then ask, “You like skating now?”

I’m lying on the floor of the former guest room. When my parents aren’t home I come in here and turn on the giraffe mobile and watch it wobble in circles. Usually I find it soothing. But other times I think about the baby actually arriving. Then my throat gets tight like I can’t breathe and I have to leave the nursery immediately.

“Yeah, I love ice-skating now,” Sophie says, laughing. “I
know
! I’ve become more adventuresome, if that’s what you’re wondering. Everyone in—”

“Everyone in Ottawa is adventuresome?” I ask.

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

The next afternoon, my dad and I meet Sophie at the airport. Margo is tired from being a million months pregnant, so she stays home to nap. As Sophie walks through the gate, holding a pillow in one hand and a patchwork duffel bag in the other, I break into a huge smile.

“Soph!” I shout, waving and running toward her.

“Han!” she calls back to me.

We hug and then we pull back and check each other out. Something feels different about her. Her hair is short, just like she said, with a pink streak in the front. When she said
pink
she was playing it down. It’s more like electric fuchsia. She’s wearing eye shadow and lip gloss, which isn’t new for Sophie. She’s always experimented with makeup. So it’s not her hair or makeup that surprises me. It’s something else, something I can’t put my finger on.

“I love your long hair,” Sophie says. “You’d look awesome with a streak in it like mine. Maybe lime green? We could even do it tonight before—”

“Not so fast,” my dad says, laughing. “I can’t have you and Hannah both looking like teenagers on me.”

Sophie and I roll our eyes. Okay, so maybe things will feel normal between us after all.

On the car ride back to my house, Sophie keeps pointing out the window—at the mall, the bookstore, the YMCA, Greeley Elementary.

“They’re all still here!” she says over and over.

“Yep, still here,” I keep answering.

My dad slows at a light and turns the radio to a music station.

“It’s weird being back,” Sophie says.

“Like how?”

“Like it’s all familiar, but then it’s not. Almost like I’ve never been here before. I know that sounds strange.”

Of course that sounds strange! Sophie lived next door to me in Greeley for almost ten years. How can she feel like she’s never been here?

Finally I ask, “How was the flight?” Boring question. But it’s the best I could come up with.

“Fine,” Sophie says. “You know.”

“What did they give you for snacks?”

Sophie shrugs. “I think pretzels. Or maybe snack mix. I wasn’t hungry.”

We’re quiet for a while. There’s a commercial on the radio and then a song comes on. It’s a pop song and, of course, Sophie knows all the words. At least that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.

On the drive up to Deepwoods the next day, I get carsick. That hasn’t happened since I was five or six. But we’re in the mountains and the roads are curvy and Sophie and I were flipping through a magazine. Suddenly my stomach lurches like I’m going to puke.

“Can you pull over?” I whimper to my dad. He’s driving because Margo’s belly is so giant she can’t fit behind the steering wheel. “I’m going to be sick.”

My dad steers onto the shoulder and Margo jumps out with me, holding my hair back while I hunch over the snowdrift. It’s bitter cold out here. I dry heave a little, but don’t actually throw up.

Once I’m back in the car, I can’t stop shivering. I rest my head against the door and sip water from my bottle. Sophie offers me a piece of gum, but I don’t want anything in my mouth. For a while everyone is quiet, but then Margo lets out a yelp.

“What is it?” my dad asks.

“The baby kicked, Drew,” she says. “A big one.”

“Are you sure it’s just one baby in there, Mrs. Strafel?” Sophie asks. “Are you sure it’s not twins?”

“No!” I say, lifting my head up.

“Or triplets?” Sophie asks. She grins devilishly and touches the pink streak in her hair. “Or maybe even quadruplets!”

I whimper and flop back in my seat.

“Did you forget to call me Margo?” Margo says to Sophie. “Not
Mrs. Strafel
. And yes, he’s definitely just one. They do ultrasounds to figure that out.”

Ultrasounds. Alien baby. Not my favorite topic.

“Speaking of twins,” my dad says, “people call Hannah and Emme the
Og Twins
. Sophie, you’re going to love Emme.”

“Og Twins?” Sophie asks, wrinkling her nose. “What does that even mean?”

“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head. I don’t feel like getting into the whole story about how we used to write on our legs at swim meets. I’m worried if I talk too much I’ll have to puke. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Am I going to like Emme?” Sophie asks me. “I feel jealous that she lives in my house.”

Emme and her moms were visiting friends in Boston for the past few days, so she and Sophie haven’t met each other yet. Emme’s moms are dropping her off at Deepwoods on their way back to Greeley. She might even be at the camp already.

“Emme is wonderful,” my dad says.

“And don’t start the jealousy thing,” Margo says. “You girls will all get along great.”

Sophie shrugs like she’s not so sure. I close my eyes. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.