You’re Invited Too Read Free Page A

located just across the hall. It’s totally a sign that this year is going to be the best ever. If I believed in signs, that is. Which I don’t. Mostly.
    No one’s inside yet, not even the teacher. I grab a seat and pull out my phone. Technically, we can carry phones in school, but they’re supposed to be kept off and in our bags. But no one really follows those rules. Plus, my day planner is on my phone, so I don’t know how anyone expects me to keep track of homework and my life if I don’t pull it out now and then.
    Under the watchful poster eyes of Winston Churchill, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Ms. Purvis’s other favorite historical figures, I click my phone on and check out my schedule for the rest of the week.
    Monday, August 31
    3:00 It’s All Academic team organizational meeting
    4:30 Bunco with Bubby and friends
    7:00 Meet S, B, and V at PPE to talk wedding
    8:00 Make Zach show me a computer game, but not one of those gross war ones (maybe while doing homework because how hard can a computer game be?)
    Tuesday, September 1
    3:00 Tutoring
    5:00 SAT prep class
    7:00 Create wedding budget
    8:00 Watch TV (maybe while doing homework)
    It all pretty much looks the same for the rest of the week. I skip down to the weekend, hoping that maybe things let up a little.
    Friday, September 4
    3:00 Founder’s Day dance committee meeting with Becca at Chamber of Commerce (volunteer for ticket sales)
    4:30–8:00 Work at marina
    8:15 Have V, B, and S over for something fun
    Saturday, September 5
    10:00 RSVP meeting
    12:00–5:00 Work at marina
    7:00 Simmons family game night (ugh—try to do homework between rounds of Uno)
    Okay. I can do all of this. No problem. I mastered balancing work and fun this summer. I’m a total pro.
    â€œDid you really schedule ‘watch TV’?” Vi’s standing over my shoulder. Apparently, while I was memorizing my schedule, the room started to fill up.
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œYou’re really going whole hog with this having-fun thing, aren’t you? But doesn’t writing it in your planner kind of defeat the point of loosening up?” Vi plops herself into the desk next to mine.
    â€œIt’ll still be fun.” Maybe she’s right, though. Maybe I’m not having fun the right way. But if I don’t write it down, I’ll end up doing pre-algebra instead. Which is fun to me, actually, but my whole new motto after this summer is Live it up! (Bubby’s words, not mine. At least she didn’t say Totes live it up, girlfriend! or something else equally embarrassing for a grandmother to say.)
    â€œOoookay.” Vi looks as if she doesn’t believe me.
    I slide my phone into my backpack. “Did your dad drive you?”
    Vi sinks a little into her seat. “Yeah.” The whole dad-as-school-janitor thing is still kind of a touchy subject with Vi.
    â€œHey.” I poke her ribs with my finger. “At least now Linney’ll have to use a solid navy fabric instead of orange traffic-cone stripes when she makes you a new moss dress.” Linney is like Vi’s evil archnemesis—if an archnemesis can come with a French manicure and perfectly highlighted hair. She asked us to plan her Project Runway –themed party this summer, but what she really wanted was a chance to embarrass Vi. She ended up making this awful orange-and-white-striped dress (a total jab at Vi’s dad’s construction job) covered in Spanish moss.
    I missed the whole thing since I was home studying, but Vi told me that Linney had insisted she’d hurt her ankle and that Vi was the only one who could do the dress justice by modeling it down the runway. She pouted and whined until Sadie caved. Becca offered to do Vi’s hair and makeup, and then Vi found herself wearing the moss dress in front of half the seventh grade. But it turned out that everyone thought she looked fabulous and Linney’s whole plan