BFF Breakup Read Free Page B

ponytail she usually sported. Talk about looking grown-up.
    â€œDang,” I said. “It’s the end of sixth grade, not prom.”
    â€œIf only I had some cha-chas to hold it up,” she said, putting her hands on her chest and looking as if she were greatly disappointed in the progress her body was making.
    â€œYou look amaze, but think how cute it would be if your hair was short, like you’ve been talking about. You could cut it so it just skimmed your shoulders.”
    â€œI know,” she said. “I’m going to do it, if for no other reason than to freak Mom out. She loves my long hair. But when I do it, you have to come with me.”
    â€œWhere else would I be?”
    Madeline smiled. “Love the dress. The color is perfect for your eyes.”
    â€œWe’re so fancy,” I said. “Does this mean we have to do the air kiss thing?”
    â€œHardly,” she said, and held out her hand for me to slap, tap, then bump. Just like always.
    Miss Rachel dropped us off at school in her sleek midnight blue car with tinted windows. My mom was picking us up in our far-less glamorous, older-than-me car. We figured the entrance was more important than the exit. I straightened then fluffed my gathered skirt, hooked myarm in Madeline’s, and walked into the caf for the dance.
    Inside, the place was dark with swirling lights that raced around like a cat chasing a laser beam.
    â€œImpressive,” Madeline said.
    â€œTruly,” I agreed.
    â€œShall we?” she asked.
    â€œDisco,” I replied.
    When you’ve been friends as long as we have, you kind of develop your own lingo. We didn’t need a lot of words to communicate. We walked toward where our table would normally be and where our friends now stood, assessing the dismal boy situation.
    â€œLook at that,” Shawna Raymond said, pointing to the sparsely populated dance floor. “He’s doing the worm. That idiot is actually doing the worm.”
    We watched as Chris Meyers flopped on his belly across the floor, as if he were alone in his bedroom. No one should have been subjected to seeing that, especially in public.
    â€œPathetic,” Madeline said.
    â€œHonestly,” I said. But a part of me couldn’t help but kind of smile. Chris Meyers was mildly nerdy, but he was pretty brave for doing the worm—and then bowing, as if he were on a Broadway stage, for the applause his buddies gave him.
    â€œI warned you about him,” Shawna’s best friend,Mindy, said to her. “When he wore his Cub Scout uniform to school pictures in fifth grade, I knew right then. You just . . . no.” Mindy shook her head, the memory of Chris’s uniform too painful to complete the thought.
    â€œI should have listened to you when I had the chance,” Shawna said. “Now who’s going to tell me what boys to stay away from?”
    â€œOh!” Mindy cried, and her tear-stained cheeks glittered in the disco ball light. “I can’t believe elementary school is ending! An era . . . gone!”
    With that, Shawna and Mindy started hugging and crying and squeezing for dear life, as if their tears alone could convince the entire school district to change the zoning laws and filter us all into one junior high instead of two. Three other girls joined the hugfest, prompting Ms. Keller to walk toward us until she realized they were bawling over nothing.
    I absently patted Mindy’s back—or maybe it was Shawna’s—until Madeline tugged my wrist and said, “I can’t deal.”
    I answered, “Agreed,” and then we walked away.
    Chris Meyers and his friends were just clearing off the caf dance floor, and it looked a little like they were making way for me and Madeline. One of those in-between songs—not really fast, not really slow—was playing, soMadeline and I partnered up and began dancing. Like Chris and his worm, we didn’t care what