Friends till the End (18 page)

From: Bigwheels


To : MadFinn


Subject: Hey, hey we’re moving UP


Date: Wed 21 Jun 10:10 PM


One more day and we are soooo outta here. Same goes 4 u2, right? I think u said u guys had a big ceremony and party. We just get certificates @ the end of school, last period. Really no big whoop, but having an official piece of paper makes it seem cool somehow.


Did u ever get the perfect dress? I actually decided 2 wear pants and this cute top, very bohemian with beaded earrings and necklace my mom got me at the discount store. They have the coolest outfits. I know I won’t be the prettiest girl in my class, but I think I’m in the top ten. Is that totally vain of me? I’m just feeling good l8ly. Here’s the real reason why: REGGIE. Forget that other Matt guy. Reggie is back on the front burner. He brought me REAL flowers when he picked me up 4 the seventh-grade dance. They haven’t even wilted yet and it’s 2 days later. It was sooo romantic and totally off the charts.


I hope ur feeling good 2. U SHOULD! ! ! We are 8th graders now & how totally cool is that??? I’m in a TOTAL school daze. We’re that much closer 2 high school. I know we’re not supposed 2 rush it, but I can’t help but feel a teeny bit more mature now. Doncha think?


Yours till the graduation caps,
Vicki aka Bigwheels


p.s.: We finally named our pony Tony. The name was my little brother’s idea. A girl pony named Tony?!! Oh well. She’s still a beautiful animal. I love horses because they always make me think of riding off into the sunset. Bye!!!


Madison hit
SAVE
and then
REPLY
. Bigwheels had the best timing. What could Madison write back that would be just as special to read and enjoy before graduation?

From: MadFinn


To: Bigwheels


Subject: Re: Hey, hey we’re moving UP


Date: Thurs 22 Jun 7:28 AM


I’m sitting here with my laptop, about 2 get in2 this VERY COOL AND AMAZING purple dress that I bought esp. 4 2day. And BTW: I have NO probs with yr bragging. Y shouldn’t u brag? Ur a fox, right? (Cue the growl sound, pis.) LOL


I’m glad yr end-of-school dance went well. U and Reggie sound A+ 4 each other. My boy sitch is same as ever, maybe a smidge better than the same. I think that turtle camp guy will stay a friend but Hart will stay in my heart. That sounds like one of yr poems, right? I’ve decided that Hart and I are destined 4 each other. We’ve been thru all those other grades and now 7th grade and we’ll prob. graduate fm high school and college together. At least I’m thinking that. Y not?


N e way, I’ll E you again after the whole big MUD—if I don’t get too messy. LOL (for like the 10th time in this e-mail). I’m a little silly. Nerves about 2day. BLAAHHHH!


E ya l8r?


Yours till the school daze (b/c I’m in one 2),
Maddie


p.s.: I don’t think Tony the Pony is THAT bad a name. We call one of Poison Ivy’s drones Phony Joanie; and it’s a good rhyme, right? So how many animals r in yr family now? Phinnie would do a dog flip out if we got another critter. He likes being an only dog as much as I like being an only child (even tho I say I don’t like it sometimes).


After hitting
SEND
and before logging off, Madison surfed around TweenBlurt.com a little bit. Then, she noticed an unfinished note in her drafts folder. What was this? When she checked, she found the barely there e-mail that she’d started for Will the week before.

“I thought I deleted this like a hundred times,” Madison groaned to herself. But maybe this was a sign. She had to deal with it—and with Will.

Madison opened the old e-mail and rewrote the date.

From: MadFinn


To: WillPOWR


Subject: Re: Remember me?


Date: Thurs 22 Jun 7:32 AM


Sorry I didn’t write backkkkkkkkkkkkkk


Madison’s finger stuck on the
K
key. She paused and stared at the screen. What exactly should she say to this boy? She kept typing, trusting that the right words would just come.

Sorry I didn’t write back sooner. I was caught in a major storm in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle


Yeah, that was believable. Bermuda Triangle. Good one. She started again.

Sorry I didn’t write back sooner. I didn’t know what to say when I got ur e-mail. It made me happy. Actually, I was in the city the other day w/my mom and gramma and I kept looking around, wondering if I would c u on the street. LOL. N e way, I am so glad ur out there and YES I would like to stay in touch. Right now I’m getting ready for our moving-up ceremony 2 8th grade. Can we E each other over the summer?


WBS.


Madison read it over. And then she read it once more. It was simple enough. It made sense. It wasn’t too hot or cold; it was
juuuuust
right, just like Baby Bear’s porridge in
Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
So, after all the waiting and wondering, Madison had finally made up her mind. Unlike some of the songs in the musical revue, this message was pitch-perfect.

Madison stared as the screen put up the message showing that her message had been successfully sent. It was as easy—and as fast—as that. Now all she had to do was wait for Will’s next move (and message). That would probably mean another round of wondering and waiting, but that was okay. She had other important things on her mind—like Hart.

“Maddie!”

Mom called up from downstairs. Madison could hear the tension in her voice.

“Maddie, are you up there? I need your help!”

Madison had always said her middle name was Help. The same had been true at the beginning, middle, and, now, the end of seventh grade. For all the things that changed a lot, there were still some things that remained status quo.

“What is it, Mom?” Madison yelled back. Her voice echoed in the hall.

“I said I need you! Come down, now!”

Madison snapped the top of her laptop closed and shuffled out to the steps in her slippers. “What is it?” she called from the top of the stairs.

Mom stood below, yellow rubber gloves on her hands, a bucket of soapy water at her feet, and holding a red-striped rag.

“Maddie, you are trying my patience, do you know that?”

Madison bit her lip. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “What is it?”

“I just need you to help me set out some things on the dining-room table,” Mom said in a softer voice. “I’m sorry, too, I don’t mean to yell. I just—”

Madison was at the bottom of the steps by then. She reached out for Mom’s arm. “I know, Mom, you’re stressed. It’s the party. It’s the family. I know.”

Mom looked as if she were about to cry, but she didn’t. She sat down in an upholstered chair, peeled off her gloves, and just sighed. “This is your special day,” she said, wiping her brow.

“Let’s just put the stuff out and get through it,” Madison said. “It’s really no biggie, Mom.”

They went into the dining room and set out the plates, decorations, silverware, and serving dishes. It only took a few, easy minutes. Gramma and Phin helped, too, by continuing to steer clear. They stayed in the kitchen the whole time.

“You’d better go get ready now,” Mom said. “Today we need to be on time.”

Madison nodded, leaned close to give Mom a kiss, and headed back upstairs. This time, Phin barked and followed behind her, leaving Gramma and Mom to work out the details of the next cleaning task.

The purple MUD dress still fit perfectly. Madison slipped right into it without any problem, although she quickly sniffed her armpits, just to make sure she wasn’t stinky from all the nervousness. Then she slid on a pair of black flats and a chunky armful of bracelets, a secret tribute to the style of her favorite teacher, Mrs. Wing.

“You look fantabulous,” Gramma Helen said from the bedroom doorway. Madison nearly jumped out of her skin; she hadn’t known anyone was watching.

“Is ‘fantabulous’ a real word?” Madison asked. It didn’t sound like a Gramma Helen kind of word at all.

Gramma just shrugged and chuckled. “Oh, go ask a dictionary. I’m just your grandmother.”

They both laughed. Sometimes Gramma was so serious, but other times she liked to be goofy. Those times always cracked Madison up.

Channeling her inner hairdresser, Gramma helped Madison to pull her brown hair into a thick, black barrette. Then Madison put on her favorite moonstone earrings, the lucky ones Dad had given to her a year before. They matched the dress and hairdo perfectly. Her outfit was complete.

Madison looked at her reflection in the mirror. The morning sunlight was coming into her room at just the right angle, and it reflected back off the glass, making a kind of white halo around Madison’s head, except at the beveled edges of the mirror, where the bent light reflected a full spectrum of color. It was as if Madison were the science project right now, caught in refracted light, at the epicenter of a rainbow.

“You do look beautiful this morning,” Gramma said, complimenting her again. “I’m so glad I could be here to share this special day with you.”

“Thanks,” Madison turned around and grinned.

“I better go call Aim and Fiona now. I think I’m finally ready to jump in the MUD.”

Gramma Helen flashed her dentures and let out a belly laugh. “Oh, Madison! You truly are my one and only,” she said.

A
S MOM PULLED INTO
the school building parking lot with Madison, Aimee, Fiona, and Chet clustered in the back of the Finn van, the air felt electric.

The day they’d all been waiting for had arrived.

The FHJH school building stood larger than life with its wide double doors at the front entrance. Today, it wasn’t overrun with screaming kids and teachers, buses pulling in and out, or car doors slamming open and shut. There was no front-of-building security guard standing watch over the crowds. Kids wandered in as if they were heading into a movie theater or something, talking in much chattier tones than usual and greeting each other with high fives and handshakes. It was like a foreign place in some ways, and the mood was definitely set for celebrating. Madison was happy to be there, decked out in her purple dress and lucky moonstones.

“Yo!” Egg cried from across the hallway when the girls and Chet walked inside the school.

Fiona rushed over. Madison and Aimee followed. Unlike the relatively calm mood outside, the atmosphere inside was busy. There was a large table set up in the lobby. On it sat a yellow paper program for the moving-up ceremonies. The FHJH logo, a racehorse, was emblazoned across the front, along with the school motto:
TOGETHER WE BUILD SUCCESS.

“I can’t believe it’s really here,” Madison told her friends. “The end.”

“The
beginning,”
Fiona corrected her.

Aimee seemed distracted. “Have you guys seen Ben anywhere?”

Aimee’s crush had been chosen to speak on behalf of the class, and she seemed nervous.

“Bathroom,” Madhur said.

Everyone laughed.

“Don’t forget, Ivy’s giving a speech, too,” Aimee reminded Madison.

“What?” Madison cried. “Since when?”

“Since always,” Chet spoke up. “She’s the class president after all.”

“Yeah, Maddie,” Egg added. “Where have you been?”

Madison punched Egg in the arm.

“Hey,” Egg cried. “Just because you hate her doesn’t mean you have to take it out on me!”

Fiona, Aimee, and the others chuckled.

“I really do hate her,” Madison declared bitterly. She usually didn’t say things that sounded quite so harsh, but Ivy had made her madder than mad. She’d wreaked havoc on Madison’s final weeks of school. Now Madison had to listen to Ivy give some self-important class president speech? There was nothing worse.

Bit by bit, the school got more crowded. Kids headed to their homerooms to congregate, but Madison and her friends decided to stay together in the hall, searching for signs of intelligent life—namely, Madhur and Lindsay. Madison spotted Madhur first, wearing a dress made from yellow and red Indian scarves. She looked like some kind of Punjabi princess. Lindsay looked good, too, although she had on a purple dress just like Madison’s.

“Did you guys coordinate your outfits, or what?” Madhur asked.

Madison and Lindsay both laughed. “Yeah,” they joked at the same time, locking arms at the elbow. “We’re practically like twins, remember?”

Lindsay smiled. “You’re all sort of like sisters to me,” she said.

“So-o-o sappy!” Aimee cried, but she smiled at the same time.

“Like you don’t say sappy stuff,” Madhur said, nudging her.

Madison reached into her orange bag and pulled out one of the special items she’d brought just for that day: a digital camera. Dad had lent her his.

“Smile!” Madison said, raising the camera and aiming it at her pals. True to form, the four of them huddled together with arms entwined.

“Why don’t you let me take your picture with them?” someone from behind Madison said. She whirled around to see Hart standing there.

“Hey, you,” Madison said, grabbing him by the arm. She handed him the camera. “Thanks.”

“You look um…
pretty
today,” Hart whispered in Madison’s ear as he took the camera. Madison glanced around to see if anyone else had heard the compliment, but everyone was having their own conversations, and no one was paying Madison and Hart any mind.

“Well, thanks again,” Madison whispered back.

Just then, the loudspeaker boomed. Principal Bernard was announcing the countdown to the big ceremony.

“Attention, Far Hills students and families. Welcome to our school today for a tremendous celebration of another successful year. We’ll be starting the ceremonies in approximately fifteen minutes. Faculty, please lead students into the main auditorium. Guests should also turn in your tickets and take your seats. Please turn off your cell phones.”