My Worst Best Friend Read Free Page B

ease up on the drudge-till-you-drop routine just this once.”
    “But not today.” I gripped the handlebars. Determinedly. “Anyway, it’s my night to cook.” My dad and I took turns.
    Savanna’s face darkened with disappointment. “Oh, Gracie, please…” She clutched my arm. At least I was wearing a jacket so she couldn’t draw blood with her stiletto nails. “You and your psychotic work ethic. I mean, I, like, hardly saw you all summer because you were planting butterflies all the time.”
    She really did crack me up. “I wasn’t
planting
butterflies, Sav.” I worked on a project with the National Park over the summer doing stuff like teaching little kids about the environment and reinstating wildlife habitats. But not all of us thought that was better than sitting on the beach, self-basting. “I was planting a butterfly garden.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” Savanna didn’t share my worries about the environment – you know, that pretty soon we won’t have one that actually supports life. Savanna had an optimistic nature. Savanna said that things couldn’t be as bad as I thought, because if they
were
someone would do something about it. She figured that if things did get really bad, then science would come up with a solution. Since this
is
the twenty-first century. Whereas I figured that was like expecting a murderer to bring his victim back to life. “The point is that I didn’t get to talk to you
at all
last night.”
    I pretended to choke. “Because
you
were busy.”
    “And I haven’t had more than, like, half a second alone with you today…”
    As if it was
my
friends who always ate lunch with us.
    She gave me the Mr-Bunny’s-gone-for-good look again. “Please, I’m begging. I really need some quality Gracie time. Reallyreallyreally. Just a few measly minutes. You can’t let me down.”
    “I want to come…” I was torn. My psychotic work ethic was pulling one way and not wanting to let Savanna down was pulling the other. “But I really should—”
    “Pleasepleaseplease…” Savanna clasped her hands. If you’d thrown a shawl over her head she would’ve looked as if she was praying. “You can’t abandon me now, Gracie. You can’t let me go by myself. I have a very sensitive nature. You know how the supermarket stresses me out.”
    And I had a very pliable nature. “I don’t know…”
    “Don’t be unreasonable, Gracie. This is not like a really big deal. It’s like a drop of ant pee in the ocean. I mean, the shopping’s not going to take any time at all with the two of us doing it, is it?”
    In my heart, I knew this wasn’t true. Experience suggested that anything one of us could do by herself in an hour – like baking cookies or mowing the lawn – would take the two of us together at least half a day. Probably much longer. But all I said was, “Um…”
    “Oh, come on.” She squeezed my arm. Affectionately. “I’ll be, like, a gazillion times happier, and you’ll be maybe ten minutes later getting home than you would’ve been.”
    This last part wasn’t true either. I rolled my eyes. “Ten minutes?”
    “OK, twenty. Thirty tops.” If I’d been taller, she would have leaned her head on my shoulder. She leaned her head on my head. “Pleasepleaseplease
please
, Gracie. Who can I count on in this cold, cruel world if I can’t count on you?”
    “All right, but we’re not stopping for a drink or anything—”
    “Of course not.” Savanna threw her arms around me. “Only first we have to drop by the drugstore. It won’t take long.”

Chapter Two
One of Those Girls
    “Ohmigod, will you look at this?” Savanna flapped Zelda’s shopping list over the fruit section. “All it says on this is
oranges. Oranges!
What’s that supposed to mean? There are, like, dozens of kinds of oranges.”
    Choice does have its downside. You could see why it took Savanna hours to get dressed every morning.
    “Temple … navel … blood …” recited Savanna.