My Forever Friends Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  My special thanks to

  Sally Walstrom, advanced-practice nurse, for answering my questions about neonatal nurseries and the babies who start their stories there. And my forever thanks to my editor, Kathy Dawson; my agent, Steven Chudney; and illustrator Jana Christy.

  DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

  Published by The Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa • Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2011 by Julie Bowe

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Text set in ITC Esprit

  S.A.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bowe, Julie, date.

  My forever friends / by Julie Bowe.

  p. cm.—(Friends for keeps ; [4])

  Summary: Former best friends Brooke and Jenna are feuding, and soon all the girls

  in the fourth-grade class are split into two groups, with Ida May right in the middle

  trying to put things back the way they used to be.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-51695-9

  [1. Best friends—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.

  4. Interpersonal relations—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.B671943Mx 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010038151

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This book, including the spiders (especially the spiders!) is for my son, Eli

  Chapter 1

  I’m Ida May and I’m feeling a little squished. That’s because I’m sitting on a piano bench between Jenna Drews and Brooke Morgan. I was saving half of the bench for my best friend, Stacey Merriweather, but Jenna budged in before Stacey could. Jenna is my sometimes friend. Then Brooke budged in on the other side of me. Brooke is my sometimes-not friend.

  We’re all here, at Jenna’s house, for a shower. Not the wet kind. The party kind. Jenna’s mom is having a baby, so Brooke’s mom decided the PTA should give her a baby shower. Mrs. Drews is the PTA president. Mrs. Morgan is vice president, which means she and Mrs. Drews are supposed to get along.

  “Piano benches aren’t really made for three people, ” I say, looking at Brooke. “Maybe you could sit on the floor?” There are no empty chairs left.

  “I don’t do floors,” Brooke says, flicking back her long, shiny hair and nudging her butt another notch onto the bench.

  I sigh and pull in my shoulders.

  Jenna glances past me at Brooke. “Just floors?” She squints. “I didn’t think you could do anything. Except dance around like a horse. And act like you’re the boss of the world.”

  Brooke leans across me and squints back at Jenna. “It takes one to know one,” she says. “And it’s better to dance like a horse than to look like one.”

  “Ouch,” I say, squeezing my knees.

  Jenna shoots dagger eyes at Brooke.

  Brooke shoots dagger eyes at Jenna.

  “Hold your fire,” I say, raising my hand. I slide off the bench, onto the floor, and scoot in next to Stacey.

  “What’s the score?” Stacey asks, glancing up at Brooke and Jenna and the empty space between them.

  “Still tied,” I reply. “Zero to zero.”

  Jenna and Brooke have been best friends since kindergarten, so they’ve fought over lots of things before. Kickball scores. Bus seats. Lunch line positions. But this fight is different. No one knows what started it. I’m not even sure if Jenna and Brooke know, it’s been going on for so long.

  “Do you think they’ll ever be friends again?” Stacey whispers.

  I shrug. “Maybe. If one of them apologizes for whatever she did to make the other one mad.”

  Stacey does a snort. “Like that will ever happen.”

  I nod. When it comes to not being sorry, Jenna and Brooke are tied for first place.

  Stacey gives Jenna a sparkly smile. She’s an expert at doing them. Especially when she wants to change the mood or get her way. I’ve seen her use her sparkly smile on her mom a million times. And on our teacher, Mr. Crow. And on the boys in our class when they threaten to chase us with daddy longlegs spiders. “You’re going to need a rake to clean up after this party!” she says brightly to Jenna. Baby clothes, toys, diapers, bottles, ribbons, and crumpled-up wrapping paper branch out around Mrs. Drews’s chair.

  Jenna lifts her chin. “Not my party,” she snips. “Not my problem.”

  Even though Jenna says that, I know she doesn’t mean it. She helps out a lot around here. Cleaning. Washing dishes. Taking care of her little sister, Rachel. And not just because her mom can’t right now. Her parents have rules about pitching in. My parents have rules too, but sometimes they let them slip.

  Nothing is slippery at Jenna’s house.

  “This one next, Mommy!” Rachel picks up a big box wrapped in yellow duckie paper. She rips it open and pulls back the tissue inside. Rachel is only in kindergarten, so everyone thinks it’s cute that she’s helping her mom with the presents. I wouldn’t mind tearing open a few presents too, but when you’re in fourth grade it’s not so cute anymore.

  Rachel pulls out a quilt that’s the size of a pan of school pizza. Green and yellow with silky white trim.

  “How nice,” Mrs. Drews says, holding up the baby quilt for everyone to see.

  All the moms coo.

  Me and Stacey sigh.

  “How much longer until dessert?” Stacey whispers to me.

  I look at my watch. “I’d say another fifteen coos or so,” I whisper back.

  Brooke’s foot nudges Stacey. Stacey looks up. Brooke does a fake yawn and rolls her eyes. She’s an expert at making eye comments. And at dipping into other people’s conversations.

  Stacey does a fake yawn and rolls her eyes back. They both giggle.

  “Thank you, Francine,” Mrs. Drews says to an older woman sitting across the crowded room. “My sewing projects never turn out as lovely yours.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Eddy says, her wrinkled cheeks glowing pink, “I’ve had sixty years of practice!”

  Mrs. Drews passes the green and yellow quilt to Brooke’s mom, who takes it and rubs it against her red cheek. Fake red. I see a smudge rub off onto the silky white trim. “It’s yummy, Francine! Simply yummy! Honestly, I could just eat it up!” She laughs loudly and passes the quilt along.


  All the moms do friendly chuckles.

  Mrs. Drews zeroes in on the red smudge and makes her mouth do a smile.

  Me and Stacey do nose giggles. Partly because of the yummy and partly because of the Francine. That’s because Francine is always Mrs. Eddy to us. She used to be a real teacher at our school, Purdee Elementary, but now she’s just a substitute. I never even knew she had a first name. But I did know that she makes nice quilts, because she’s helping our class make one for the school auction in a few weeks. We’re having a carnival too. If we’re lucky, we’ll raise enough money to buy new playground equipment. Jenna keeps reminding us that her mom is in charge of the whole thing, so of course it will be perfect.

  “Pink is for girl babies and blue is for boy babies,” Stacey says as she passes the little green and yellow quilt to me. “So what are green and yellow for?”

  Brooke pokes in. “Those are the colors you choose when you don’t know what kind of baby it will be.”

  What kind of baby it will be, I think to myself. Then I do a little snort. It’s the kind of snort Randi Peterson would do if she were about to say something clever. Randi is another girl in our class. So are Meeka and Jolene. I guess their moms aren’t on the PTA, or they’d be here too.

  “Green must be for frog babies,” I say, and do the snort again.

  Jenna crinkles her eyebrows. “Of course,” she says, taking the quilt from Brooke and passing it along. “My mother is having a frog.”

  Stacey does the snort too. “And yellow is for . . . chicken babies!” She flaps her wings.

  “Or monkey babies,” I say. “Because of the bananas.”

  Me and Stacey do a snort duet.

  Jenna flicks back her blond braids and lifts her chin. “Stop making jokes about my mother and her baby.” Even though she says it to me and Stacey, she shoots a look at Brooke.

  “We’re not making jokes about them,” I say. “We’re just exercising our imaginations, like Mr. Crow is always telling us to do.” Our teacher is a big fan of imagination.

  Stacey scratches her armpits like a monkey. “Ooo-ooo-ooo!” she grunts.

  I scratch my armpits and grunt back even though Jenna is poking me with her toe.

  But I ignore her toe pokes because it feels so good to be goofing around with Stacey again.

  Lately, Stacey and Brooke have been busy practicing their dance for the spring recital. They did a duet called “The Pony Dance.” But now the recital is over, so Stacey isn’t as busy with all the other things she likes besides me.

  I hear a monkey grunt and look up. Brooke is scratching her armpits and crossing her eyes at Stacey.

  Stacey giggles and crosses her eyes back. Stacey is Brooke’s best friend too, so sometimes I have to share her.

  I try to cross my eyes, but I’m not very good at it. Besides, Brooke and Stacey have already moved on to tongue rolling, which is even harder for me.

  I’m a tiny bit glad when Mrs. Morgan sees what’s going on and shoots dagger eyes at Brooke.

  Brooke and Stacey uncurl their tongues and fold their hands.

  No more monkey business.

  When all the presents are finally unwrapped, my mom and Brooke’s mom hand out cake and ice cream and punch to everyone.

  Me and the other girls take our desserts outside. It’s the first really warm Saturday we’ve had all spring. The kind that makes you feel like summer vacation is just a block or two away.

  I help Rachel carry her punch. Jenna, Brooke, and Stacey speed walk past us to the picnic table that sits near the little woods behind Jenna’s house. Jenna gets there first and hogs up the shade. “Ha-ha,” she says, giving Brooke a smirk. “I win.”

  Brooke sets down her dessert and adjusts the sparkly headband that’s holding her hair perfectly in place. “I’m your guest,” she says to Jenna. “You’re supposed to give me the best spot.”

  Jenna scoops cake and ice cream into her mouth. She chews it slowly while Brooke waits for an answer.

  “I’m more of a guest than you are,” Jenna finally replies. “This party is for my mother. You should be in the kitchen helping your mother cut the cake.” She slips another forkful in.

  Brooke does a big huff, brushes pine needles off the bench, and plops down at the opposite end. Stacey and Rachel sit across from her. I sit between Brooke and Jenna.

  “It’s so unfair,” Stacey says, eating her cake and ice cream. “All those presents! And the baby doesn’t even know she’s getting them!”

  “Agreed,” Brooke says. “She shouldn’t get any presents until she’s old enough to appreciate them. Like me.” She does a sweet smile.

  “They’re not really for the baby,” Jenna says. “They’re for my mother. And we don’t know if it’s a girl yet, so you shouldn’t call it a she.”

  “Let’s hope it’s a girl and not some disgusting boy,” Brooke grumbles. She looks at all of us.

  “Have you seen Rusty’s fingernails lately? Ugh. I swear he’s still got third-grade dirt under them.”

  Rusty is one of the boys in our class. Quinn, Dominic, Joey, Zane, Tom, and the Dylans are the others. Most of them have dirt collections.

  “Not to mention Joey Carpenter.” Brooke shudders. “Talk about disgusting. He’s constantly licking his fingers and touching his eyeballs.” She licks frosting from her glossy lips and stabs her cake. “Now he’s got Rusty doing it too. Can you imagine? I can. It’s my life. I can’t believe Mr. Crow stuck me in a friendless circle with those two apes.”

  A few weeks ago, Mr. Crow rearranged our desks into four clusters he calls friendship circles. But Brooke calls hers a friendless circle because she got stuck with only boys—Rusty and Joey. She even made them friendless bracelets on the day we were supposed to make friendship bracelets for each other. Mr. Crow gave us embroidery thread and beads to use, but Brooke dug broken rubber bands and twisty ties and fuzzy Life Savers out of her desk and made bracelets for Rusty and Joey out of that stuff instead.

  She meant for Rusty and Joey to hate them, but instead they loved them. Or at least they pretended to. They showed the bracelets to everyone and argued over who Brooke loved more and which of them she was going to marry and how many children they would have.

  When the news got back to Brooke, she ran straight to the girls’ bathroom and splashed cold water on her face to keep from throwing up.

  Rusty and Joey wore the friendless bracelets until the twisty ties gave out. Then they ate the fuzzy Life Savers. But they still haven’t given up on Brooke.

  “My baby won’t be disgusting,” Rachel says, “even if it is a boy.” She looks at her sister. “Right, Jen?”

  Jenna huffs. “It’s not up to you, Rachel. People are disgusting whether you want them to be or not.”

  Rachel ducks her head. “I wish it would be a boy,” she mumbles, stirring her ice cream and cake into a muddy puddle. “I got enough sisters.”

  Jenna gives Rachel a squint. Then she looks up suddenly and tilts her head toward the house. “Hmm,” she says, pretending to listen. “I think I hear Mom calling for you, Rachel.”

  “Really?” Rachel says, listening too.

  Jenna cups her hand to her ear. “Something about . . . more cake.”

  Rachel’s face brightens. “Maybe the baby doesn’t want his!” She scrambles up from her bench and scampers toward the house. Then she stops and looks back at us. “You guys stay put ’til I get back!” she shouts.

  Jenna puffs her lips as we watch Rachel disappear into the house. “She’s such a boss,” she says. “But at least she fell for it. Come on. Time to go.”

  “Go where?” Stacey asks.

  “To the park,” Jenna replies.

  “Ew,” Brooke says. “Grass. Trees. Bugs. Disgusting .”

  “What about Rachel?” I ask.

  “Fourth graders only,” Jenna says. “And their dogs.”

  Jenna disappears into her garage while I pile up the paper plates and cups and toss them into a garbage can by the back door.
A moment later Jenna returns with her little dog, Biscuit, yipping and pulling on the end of his leash.

  I follow everyone down a path that goes through the woods behind Jenna’s house. I’ve walked it with Jenna a bunch of times because it’s a shortcut between our neighborhood and the Purdee Town Park.

  “Stay on the path,” Jenna reminds us. “Or this place will eat you alive.”

  Jenna is a big fan of walking around in nature, as long as nature doesn’t walk around, on, or near her. Ticks. Spiders. Poison ivy. Hungry bears. She’s always reminding us to stay on the path or suffer the consequences.

  Secretly, I think if I had a little woods behind my house I would wander around in it all the time. I would pack my sketchbook and Choco Chunks and my sock monkey, George. George could climb a tree and keep a lookout for bears while I sit underneath and draw pictures. I would just be sure to wear bug spray and long pants. And try not to smell like honey.

  Jenna’s leading the way, but halfway through the woods, Biscuit stops and sniffs at a crooked path that veers off from the main path to the park.

  “Where does that trail go?” Stacey asks.

  Brooke is about to answer when Jenna yanks Biscuit’s leash, nearly pushing Brooke over. Accidentally on purpose.

  “It goes nowhere,” Jenna snaps. “Right, Brooke?”

  Brooke catches her balance, huffs, and punches her fists into her hips. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you any manners?”

  Jenna turns back to Brooke. “My mother is too busy being president of the PTA and chairperson of the school auction and carnival to teach me anything. This will be the best fund-raiser our school has ever had because she’s in charge of it.”

  “Give it up, Jenna,” Brooke grumbles, pushing past me and pulling Stacey along. “Your mom isn’t a superhero. She can’t do everything and still sit around the house, waiting for the baby to be born.”

  Brooke and Stacey prance down the main path toward the park.

  Jenna tugs Biscuit, following after them.