Read Online What Are Friends For? by Rachel Vail - Free Book Online Page B

rush?”
    She grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me toward the cafeteria. “Don’t you hate walking in there late, feeling like everybody is watching you?”
    “I never thought about it,” I admitted. “Why would they watch us?”
    “Judging,” she answered.
    As we crossed the cafeteria, I peeked around to see who might be judging us. Lou smiled at me from his table near the front and started to stand up. “I thought of another thing we could add to the code!”
    I looked away. Out of my peripheral vision I saw him sink back down in his seat.
    Everybody else seemed too engrossed in their own lunches and conversations to take any notice of us. I looked for Dex. There were a few eighth-grade girls leaning on a table with their backs to me and their hips shifted sideways. Dex was probably sitting opposite them.
    Zoe Grandon smiled at us and waved, then pointed at a space next to her that was vacant. CJ wasn’t with her. I looked around quickly for CJ, surprised to see her unattached from Zoe. She’d been Zoe’s shadow all week. It occurred to me that maybe Zoe was angry at CJ over the Lou incident. It was sort of hard to picture Zoe angry. She waved again, a little more frantically.
    Morgan smiled at her, let go of my elbow, and walked quickly over to the spot Zoe had been pointing to. “Where’s CJ?” Morgan asked Zoe.
    “I don’t know,” Zoe said, tucking her long blond hair behind her ears.
    Morgan smiled her electric white smile at Zoe and rested her chin in her palms. I sat down opposite them and took my sandwich and pretzels and soda out of my bag. I tried to think of something to say about our homework or current events, anything but what I was thinking, which was, Morgan is MY best friend, so quit smiling at each other like that!
    I told myself to quit focusing on insipid social issues and think of a world event or political conflict to bring up as a topic instead, but I couldn’t think of any. I started insulting myself about that and then remembered how much Morgan and Zoe seem to like it when somebody insults herself so I said, “I just realized, I’m so stupid I haven’t read the paper all week!” They looked at me blankly for a minute and then they both got hysterical, thumping the table, laughing. I smiled, unsure if they were laughing at me or with me.
    They kept laughing, and I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable, so I glanced around and was startled to see CJ was standing beside me, pulling a soccer shirt out of her bag. She held it up against her body as if it belonged to her. It was number five, the number she wore last year when she only had two ballet classes a week, instead of five. This year she can’t play. She had made it up to performance level, a very exciting achievement for which she’d been working incredibly hard; our two families had gone out to dinner at the swim club the night she found out, to celebrate. CJ’s mother, whom I call Aunt Corey even though she’s not my blood aunt, was so proud of CJ that she kept squeezing CJ’s arm until CJ had to excuse herself from the table and go to the ladies’ room. CJ was proud, too, and so excited her cheeks were a little rosy. When I found her in the ladies’ room that night, she was staring at herself in the mirror, and she told me it was the first day she’d ever allowed herself to think all her mother’s dreams for her had a chance of coming true. I hugged her and told her how happy I was for her, and how confident I was about her future. She really is gifted and dedicated. She deserves her success.
    So I wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that she was holding a soccer jersey. She smiled nervously, and nodded slightly.
    “But . . .” I said.
    “You . . .” said Morgan.
    She climbed onto the bench and sat down next to me. I moved my lunch over a little to make room for hers. My tuna fish was sticking to the roof of my mouth. I put it down on top of the lunch bag, and when I saw Morgan staring at it, I