The alley is a mess. The maintenance man who usually takes care of anything dumped there is getting old, and the trash has been piling up. You will clean the alley for him. Link through, clean the alley, talk about doing it later tonight when a regular monitor is on duty, and I’ll take the report and spin it up to good-deed status.
It’s important that you do a very thorough job, since the Council will judge you on the end result. It’ll probably take you a combined four to six hours of hard work. Sorry about that, but we need it to look convincing.
Maggie, Murray says you like spotting problems and asking lots of questions, so you’re probably wondering how we’ve linked the alley to your fort and what the cover story is. The ‘how’ is we took a postcard from your shoe box and tucked it under the sofa cushions. The cover story is you threw the card away and it got blown out of the recycling truck and ended up in the alley. Talking about that in your fort once the regular monitor is back on duty would be helpful. You could even say that maybe a rat found the postcard and carried it into the sofa to make a nest.
I don’t think there are any rats in the alley, but there might be. Sorry about that, too.
Sincerely,
Noriko, Head of the Council of NAFAFA, Chancellor of the Forts of the Eastern Seaboard
“Really?” I said, staring down at the letter. “More cleaning? Good thing that’s not happening!”
“What?” said Abby. “I think it sounds fine. We can get a start now, come back home for lunch, then finish up tonight. We get accepted tomorrow, Noriko fixes things with our families, and bam, all our problems are solved! She made it pretty convenient.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Hang on,” I said. “Are you saying you want to do this?”
“Obviously,” said Abby. “Wait. Are you saying you don’t?”
“Of course!”
Abby frowned. “Um, okay. Why not?”
Why were we even having this conversation? I held up three fingers. “I don’t want to clean up an old, dirty alley; I don’t want to get into NAFAFA using someone else’s ‘maybe technically cheating’ plan; and I don’t want to do what Noriko says just because she tells us to.”
“Oh. Huh,” said Abby. She held up three fingers of her own. “Well, I want Noriko to fix things with my dad; I don’t mind hard work when it’s helping someone; and I don’t want to miss out and spend the rest of the summer wondering about all the adventures we could be having if we just went with the flow and got into this NAFAFA club when we had the chance. Besides, Noriko’s only doing what’s best for her network, Mags. There’s no reason to take any of this personally.”
I felt like my brain had missed a step. “But—but what about back in the collecting room? That nod, when we agreed not to do this because we could do it ourselves?”
“What are you talking about?” said Abby. “I was nodding yes, all right, let’s do this. I was agreeing with Noriko.”
My insides flipped over. Once again, New Abby had come along and yanked the rug right out from under me.
“Huh, okay,” I said. Time for a deep, slow breath. “But don’t you think it would be better if we brainstormed more good deeds and passed the NAFAFA test on our own? We can do it—we’re Camp Pillow Fort!”
“There’s not enough time, Mags,” Abby said, shaking her head. “Like Noriko told us, this is our only option.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Not.”
“Is!”
“Not!”
We glared at each other.
“Just so I know, are you speaking in code right now?” I asked.
“No. And why do you keep thinking that?”
“Because you sound different.” I heard a tremor in my voice. “Something happened to you this summer.”
“Yeah,” declared Abby. “It did. I had a great time at Camp Cantaloupe. And I want to keep that going now that I’m home. And that means getting into NAFAFA, and this is how we’re doing it. Look”—she crossed her arms—“do you have even one new good-deed idea? One that’s ready to go right now?”
I had to shake my head.
“See? Sorry if it bugs you, Mags, but we’re cleaning up the alley, and that’s final.”
“No, we’re not,” I said, indignation flaring up inside me. First Noriko, now my own best friend telling me what to do? No way. “I’m head of our network, and I say we’re not doing it.”
“Oh, so I automatically have to follow your orders?” Abby fired back. “Uh-uh. My cat’s technically in charge, in case you forgot. And you may be vice director, but you don’t order me around.”
I spluttered. “What?! You’re ordering me around!”
“No, you are!” said Abby. “You’re saying I have to do what you say or you won’t play with me!”
My stomach twisted painfully. This was all going wrong. “I’m not saying that,” I said slowly. “All I’m saying is I want us to come up with our own plan instead of taking Noriko’s. Like we always used to.”
“Fine, then I’ll do Noriko’s good deed without you,” said Abby, shrugging.
“You can’t,” I insisted. “You can’t just decide to split up the group and go with her plan over mine.”
“Mags, you just said you don’t have a plan,” said Abby. “And stop trying to make me your sidekick in all this. Believe it or not, I can have adventures on my own!”
“So, what? You’re just going to go off and leave me behind like before?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
There was a thunderously uncomfortable silence.
Abby put a hand
