“Okay,” Alfie said, not looking at her teacher. “I’ll think about what you said.”
But—maybe she would, and maybe she wouldn’t, Alfie told herself, trying not to frown.
Wasn’t her life complicated enough without having to worry about him?
11 The Yips
“Watch out, everyone,” EllRay said as the Jakes family sat down for dinner that night. “Alfie’s got the yips. We should put some of those orange traffic cones around her so nobody gets hurt.”
“I don’t have the yips,” Alfie said, trying to kick him under the table.
In the Jakes family, “the yips” meant that someone was really, really nervous. It was one of several expressions they used with each other to describe different moods.
One of the Jakes might have “the sads” for some reason, for example.
Or “the mads.”
Or they might be “happy as a bean,” when things were going great.
And Alfie did have the yips, she admitted silently. But anyone would, if they were in the same pickle that she was in.
She had definitely decided not to talk to any of the girls in her class about the sleepover guest list—or about Mr. Havens’s talk with her that afternoon. It was as if there were little cartoon skulls-and-crossbones warning signs around the very idea.
At the dinner table, Alfie’s father raised an eyebrow. This was his silent way of asking a question.
Dr. Warren Jakes was tall, thin, and sometimes absent-minded. That was because he was a geology professor, Alfie guessed. He was a real brain. And that brain was often busy thinking about all the things that made up the planet Earth. Especially rocks.
That kind of thinking took time.
But tonight, Alfie had their father’s full attention. “Why do you have the yips?” he asked, instantly concerned. “What’s up, Alfie? Trouble at school?”
Alfie and EllRay’s parents took their children’s education very seriously. They were always on the alert for problems at school.
In fact, Alfie sometimes pictured her father as being a skinny stick-bug with super-long antennae always waving in the air, trying to sense danger.
“Not trouble at school,” Alfie said, fibbing a little as she crossed her fingers under the table.
Mrs. Jakes was busy serving up helpings of tuna casserole—with melted cheese and buttery breadcrumbs on top, making it edible to Alfie. But she paused, giving her daughter a searching look.
She wasn’t exactly lying to her mom and dad, Alfie told herself—because the problem was happening outside, on the playground. Not in class. So—
“Alfie?” her father was saying. “Cricket?”
“It’s nothing,” Alfie mumbled. “Everything’s okay. I don’t wanna talk about it.” She started nibbling at the cheese and breadcrumbs on top of her helping of tuna casserole.
“Those are three entirely different answers,” her father pointed out, both eyebrows rising to the middle of his forehead this time.
“Eat the whole serving, sweetie, not just the topping,” Alfie’s mom told her. “And eat some of those peas, too. You and I will have a private conversation after dinner about those pesky yips. You don’t mind if I handle this, do you, Warren?” she asked her husband.
“Not in the least,” Alfie’s dad said. He sounded relieved.
“Do we have to?” Alfie asked her mom, not looking up from her plate.
“We have to,” her mom said, in a way that let Alfie know there was no getting out of it. But Mrs. Jakes sounded calm, too—as though nothing Alfie said could ever upset her.
And for some reason, that made Alfie feel a whole lot better about everything.
12 In a State
“Okay, young lady. Speak to me,” Alfie’s mom said that night after Alfie had showered and tucked herself into bed. “Everything seemed fine on Monday morning. But now it’s Wednesday night, and you’re in a state.”
“Yeah. California,” Alfie said, trying to laugh.
She wriggled further under her covers and pulled them up to her chin. Princess cuddled next to her and started pushing her small paws back and forth against the blanket, as if she were softening it up.
“No. I mean that you’re in a bad state of mind, sweetie,” her mom explained. “I’m talking about your mood. What happened? Are you having trouble with your schoolwork? Problems with your word list?”
“Nuh-uh,” Alfie said, shaking her head. Her bedside light was on, and her mom’s face looked golden in the light.
Princess continued to purr.
She might as well tell the truth, Alfie thought with a sigh. Her mom wasn’t going anywhere, not until she knew what was going on in Mr. Havens’s class—or outside, on the playground. And it looked like she wasn’t going to freak about anything. “It’s Lulu,” Alfie said after a couple of silent moments. “Lulu Marino,” she added, as if there were several Lulus in her class, and her mom might be confused.
“Lulu Marino,” her mother repeated. “Your best friend last year. The ‘special darling’ with the long straight bangs and all the clothes.”
“Outfits,” Alfie corrected her. “That’s the one. She says her mom makes her lay out everything she’s going to wear the next day on her bed each night, to see how it looks. Like she’s a big flat paper doll or something.”
“I know a gray kitty who would make short work of that little scheme,” her mom said, laughing.
“Anyway,” Alfie said, “all us girls were friends with each other at the same time—for about one second, I guess. And I wanted things to stay that way. But then on Monday, Lulu said she was gonna have a sleepover this Saturday night. ‘Just like the big girls have,’ she kept telling us. The best sleepover ever, in fact—but she can only ask a few girls, her mom said. That’s when the whispering and the hurt feelings started,” she added, her voice fading.
“That’s a rule-breaker though, right?” Alfie’s mom said. “Talking at school about parties some kids won’t
