Lulu Marino might even change her mind about them not being friends anymore—and invite her to the sleepover!
Arletty leaned over and gave Alfie’s shoulder a gentle poke.
“Listen up, Miss Jakes,” Mr. Havens was saying again, his unblinking eyes fixed on Alfie’s. “It’s almost time for lunch, but I want you to stay behind and help me out with a little something.”
Oh no, Alfie thought, alarmed. He was going to yell at her! And everyone knew it.
“You’re not gonna be out on the basketball court today, Coach?” Bryan almost wailed. “But you said we would work on our layups! You said!”
“Thanks a lot, Alfie,” Scooter whispered, giving her the stink-eye.
“Sometimes plans change,” Mr. Havens told them, squelching all further comments with a single look from his great height.
Alfie gulped, but she tried to catch her breath at the same time, leading to some major coughing.
Could a girl choke on nothing in class? Would Mr. Havens have to call 9-1-1?
She gripped her “Meet Your Neighbors!” worksheet as if it were the life raft that might save her. But it didn’t.
“Stay behind,” Mr. Havens said again.
10 A Pickle
“Don’t worry, I won’t keep you long,” Mr. Havens began, perching on the edge of Alfie’s table.
It was like Mr. Havens was a giant in a fairy-tale, Alfie thought, her heart pounding, and she was a tiny villager. She tried to sit up straighter, make herself taller.
“You gotta look him right in the eye,” she could almost hear EllRay saying.
“So, I want to you tell me, Alfie,” Mr. Havens said. “What’s going on around here? With the All-Star girls, I mean. I’m counting on you to communicate with me.”
Huh? “But why?” Alfie asked. “I don’t know anything.”
“You are one of the leaders in class,” Mr. Havens said, as if pointing out something obvious.
“How come you think that?” Alfie asked, amazed. “Nobody listens to me—ever!”
“Of course they do,” Mr. Havens said, laughing. “Alfie, you talk to other girls when something important comes up, don’t you? As it did this morning, it seems. And what about the time you got the kids to help pick up trash on the playground that windy day? I saw that. And didn’t you go to the trouble of showing Bella Babcock around school when she enrolled late? She was feeling shy back then.”
“I guess,” Alfie admitted. “But I was just—”
“You were just being a leader,” Mr. Havens said, finishing her sentence.
“But I’m not really the boss of the girls,” Alfie pointed out after a long, silent moment. “Hanni’s more of the leader-type, Mr. Havens. Really. Or Suzette or Lulu, if you’re talking about girls who like to tell other kids what to do.”
“Leaders aren’t always bossy,” Mr. Havens said, smiling. “And I think you’re more of a leader than you realize, Alfie. You are like a bridge between the old Oak Glen girls, who tend to stick together, and all the other girls—the new ones, the shy ones.”
She was?
And was that supposed to be a compliment, being called a bridge? Although the Golden Gate Bridge was pretty cool. Alfie’s family had visited San Francisco just last summer. She wanted to live there when she grew up.
“Um, thanks, I guess,” Alfie said, trying to keep her legs from running out of the room—along with the rest of her, of course.
“You’re welcome,” Mr. Havens said.
“I can’t tell you our private business, though,” Alfie said before she could chicken out. “It’s nothing dangerous, but it’s girl stuff. So that would be like tattling on myself and my friends.”
“I don’t mean tattling on anyone,” Mr. Havens said, holding up one big hand like a stop sign. “I’m not asking that. But look, I know something has been going on with you girls for the past couple of days. I can’t quite tune it in, but I can sense that trouble is brewing. And it concerns me.”
He was right, Alfie thought. But if she blabbed now, she told herself, nothing good would come of it. She would never get invited to the sleepover.
She imagined herself friendless and alone before school.
And during morning recess.
At lunch.
And all through afternoon recess.
And after school.
During all the really important times of a school day.
It was such a very sad thought that Alfie almost started to cry, pitying her poor, lonely, imaginary self.
She sometimes got carried away like that, her mom claimed.
“Look, Alfie,” Mr. Havens said again. “I didn’t mean to put you in such a difficult spot. I just want to know about any special concerns or problems you girls might be having, and I thought of asking you. I’m the teacher. Maybe I can help.”
That sounded “reasonable,” as Alfie’s dad might put it. But how could she tell Mr. Havens about the problems the girls were having without saying something about the sleepover? And how could she tell Mr. Havens about Lulu’s sleepover without letting him know that Lulu had already broken a school rule?
It was “a pickle,” as her mom would say.
And talking to Mr. Havens was only going to make things worse. For her, at least.
In a way, Alfie realized suddenly, that was why she wasn’t going to be able to ask her friends for advice, either—despite what she had told her brother last night. She couldn’t! Because if her friends helped Alfie get invited to Lulu’s sleepover, it would probably mean they had just crossed themselves off the guest list.
Asking a person—herself included—to goof themself up like that was never a very “reasonable” request.
“I want all my All-Stars to be happy,” Mr. Havens was saying, “and to have an excellent second grade experience.”
“Me too,” Alfie said. And she remembered that only two days ago, all she had wanted in the world was for the girls in her class to keep on having fun and to stay friends.
Freeze!
Those were the good old days—before Lulu’s sleepover ruined everything.
“Just think about
