And then Lulu went to Maine with her family all last summer, a summer that had felt to Alfie as though it lasted an entire year.
But even before that, she and Lulu had stopped hanging out as much as before, Alfie had to admit.
Things changed, her mom often remarked.
“Look at them,” Phoebe whispered as they approached the circle of logs. “Nobody looks very happy, except for Lulu and Suzette.”
It was true, Alfie saw. Instead of laughing, or even smiling, the girls looked miffed, hurt, irked, and, in Hanni Sobel’s case, furious.
And Hanni was one of Lulu’s two best friends at school this year!
“Maybe this means Hanni’s not getting invited to the sleepover,” Phoebe whispered, sounding excited—as if she was happy that another vacancy might have opened up on Lulu’s guest list.
“That’s messed-up, Pheeb,” Alfie said, surprised. Phoebe was usually so sweet!
Were her second grade classmates really going to turn on each other now?
Alfie walked over to where Hanni was sulking on a log. She whispered, “Are you okay, Hanni? What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know,” Hanni mumbled, her green eyes narrowing as she looked away.
She didn’t know! And Hanni Sobel, “the world’s oldest seven-year-old,” according to Alfie’s mom, was kind of a know-it-all, Alfie had to admit. Even EllRay said so. It was rare for Hanni to say “I don’t know” about anything.
“Only I’m not giving Lulu my dessert at lunch, no matter what she says,” Hanni blurted out. “My mom made chocolate chip cookies last night, and I’m eating mine.”
Well, that group of three was gonna change, Alfie thought, surprised.
“Listen to me!” Lulu’s voice suddenly soared over all the other log circle sounds: over the chittering of cranky squirrels, and over the squawks of blue and gray California scrub jays who were yelling at each other like kindergarteners.
Over the laughter of little kids on both the straight and curly slides.
Over the angry whispers of second grade girls perched on logs.
Suzette, now unhappy, glared at Phoebe with suspicion.
Hanni was kicking at the log she sat on with the heel of her shoe.
Even Arletty—who would probably be busy doing church stuff with her family the night of the sleepover—had folded her arms across her chest as if someone was about to give her a shove. She looked really upset.
Huh, Alfie thought, starting to get mad. Lulu was ruining everything!
“Listen to me,” Lulu said again to the gloomy assortment of second grade girls. “I’m not saying yes to anybody yet about the sleepover, and I’m not saying no, either. Except to that new girl, Bella. I’m saying that I’m still deciding, that’s all. And I have two more days to make up my mind,” she added. “I’ll tell you for sure who’s coming on Friday afternoon. But until then, I’m—”
“Stop it,” Alfie said, surprising even herself.
She glanced behind her to see who had just spoken.
“What?” Lulu said, snapping her head around so fast that her perfect straight bangs swayed like a short, dark curtain above her angry eyes. “What did you just say to me, Alfie Jakes?”
“I said stop it,” Alfie told her. Her heart thudded as the other girls began melting away from the log circle, eager to escape. They would be heading back to class early, for once. “I have to talk to you now, Lulu,” Alfie added. “In private,” she added to show how serious she was.
Lulu looked at her wrist as if checking the time.
“You’re not wearing a watch,” Alfie said. “And we have time. It’s important,” she added, trying for a smile. “Come on, Upside-Down Head,” she added, hoping Lulu would remember their silly old game.
“Hmmph,” Lulu snorted. “I guess I have time. So, okay.”
“Okay, then,” Alfie echoed, waiting for the last straggler to leave.
8 Uh-Oh
“So, what do you want?” Lulu asked Alfie after an awkward moment or two. “You know the buzzer is about to go off. I have a perfect record so far for being prompt, and I am not gonna let you mess that up.”
Alfie had a perfect record, too, or almost. But she didn’t waste time pointing that out. She was trying to think of what to say. And then inspiration struck. “I think you should invite every girl in our class to your sleepover, that’s what,” she said, stealing EllRay’s idea from the the night before. “Because everything was so perfect for the first four weeks of school, Lulu! But ever since Monday, things have been terrible around here. And you made Bella cry,” she added.
“Liar,” Lulu snapped. “You’d better not tell anyone about that, either. And things haven’t been terrible for me,” she added, thinking about it. “Also, I know five other girls who will be happy on Friday when they get their invitations. By the way, Alfie, you were gonna be one of them,” she said, shaking her head in pity. “But too bad, because you just made me look dumb in front of everyone.”
Lulu was doing that all by herself, Alfie thought, pressing her lips together so that more words wouldn’t spill out and make things worse.
Because—uh-oh! Lulu was really mad at her.
“I only said I wanted to talk to you,” Alfie tried to explain. “Why did that make you look dumb?”
“Anyway,” Lulu said, ignoring the question, “I already told you. Mama said I could invite five other girls. Not eleven or twelve. That’s almost twice as many as five.”
Okay, Alfie thought—she wasn’t gonna touch that arithmetic mistake. “But I’m sure some girls wouldn’t be able to come,” she told Lulu, trying to back up her suggestion. “And everyone could bring her own sleeping bag and sleep on the floor. You could squeeze them all in, Lulu! Your house is huge. They could bring their own food, too, so your mom wouldn’t have to—”
“It’s not ‘everyone’s’ sleepover, Alfie,” Lulu interrupted in a pretend-patient voice. “It’s mine. And Mama made the rules about how many girls
