I snorted. “Is he ever happy?” Mr. Sneeves was the parlor’s owner, a stuffy micromanager who constantly criticized the way Mom ran the parlor. I couldn’t stand him.
“Respect, keiki!” Mom scolded. “He stopped by earlier to remind me about the spring break crowd. He wants the parlor open for extended hours. We’ll have to triple our ice cream stock.”
I squeezed her hand. “We can handle it. You’re the ice cream queen!”
When we’d moved here, the idea of my mom managing an ice cream parlor seemed like a dream come true. I had visions of sundaes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But working at the parlor was not easy. And once I fell in love with ballet, things like schoolwork, chores, and especially Once upon a Scoop—they all conspired to keep me from dancing as much as I wanted. So even though it was still kind of fun to come to an ice cream parlor every day, a lot of the appeal was lost.
A knock sounded on the parlor’s front door, and I turned around. My best friend, Tilisha, stood outside with her boyfriend, Andres. Behind them, scribbling in a notebook, stood my boyfriend (it still felt funny to think that word), Ethan.
“Help! Let us in!” Tilly was hollering.
“Before it’s too late!” Andres cried. “Before he infects us!”
I laughed. Mom rolled her eyes and waved at me to let my wacky friends inside.
My friends were regulars at Once upon a Scoop. On weekdays they stopped by after school, between extracurriculars. Saturdays, though, were special. They showed up at 11:30 a.m. like clockwork, for what Tilly had dubbed their “VIP access.” This meant they got first dibs on the fresh ice cream before the parlor opened at noon. Then they’d hang out for a while, playing Heads Up! on their phones while I helped my mom. I might not love the parlor like I did when I was little, but I loved that my friends had adopted it as a regular meeting spot.
I unlocked the door, and Tilly and Andres burst through it. Tilly hugged me, her dark brown braids tickling my cheek.
“Please rein in your boy, Mal,” she told me, nodding toward Ethan. “He’s been zombified. Next he’ll harvest our brains in the name of science.”
“Only if you keep trying to toss my invention log into the ocean.” Ethan walked into the parlor, shaking sand from the pages of his notebook. His sea-green eyes caught mine, and his serious expression morphed into a smile. “Hey, you.”
“Hey yourself,” I said, reaching for his hand.
It had been six months since Tilly had officially deemed Ethan and me a “couple.” Ethan and I had been friends since kindergarten, forming a tight foursome with Tilly and Andres. When Tilly and Andres started dating over the summer, it seemed expected that Ethan and I would accompany them on their movie dates. One day, while Tilly and Andres were holding hands, Ethan took my hand, too. It just felt like the natural next step. And then, in front of my locker at school, Ethan gave me my first-ever kiss—a quick peck on the lips. And that was that. Tilly pronounced us boyfriend and girlfriend, and the four of us settled into an easy routine.
Mom had always insisted that boyfriends should be reserved for high school, or even college. But since Mom had known Ethan and his family forever, and since Ethan and I always hung out in a group, she’d warmed up to the idea.
Now, holding hands with Ethan felt as familiar to me as a plié. I barely thought about it anymore, except to appreciate the cozy comfort of his palm resting against mine.
“Yes!” Andres shouted, making a beeline to the display freezer. “Goldichocs and the Butterfinger Bears. My fave!” Andres loved to eat, but you wouldn’t know it from how beanpole-skinny he was. He opened the tub and tried to dip a finger straight inside, but Mom caught his hand.
“Andres! Where are your manners?” she demanded.
“Please, Makuahine,” Andres said. “One bite? I have baseball practice this afternoon. I need stamina!” Makuahine was my friends’ pet name for Mom. It meant mother in Hawaiian, and calling her that, Andres knew, was the way to her heart.
Mom shook her head, but she grabbed a cup and scooped him up a hefty helping. She didn’t mind dishing ice cream for my friends, but she always made a show of being strict about it first.
Tilly gazed out the window. One of the town’s landscapers was pruning a palm tree on the other side of Ocean Lane. “Why are they tossing those fronds in the Dumpster?” she asked, horrified. “They can repurpose those as mulch!”
I shrugged, but Tilly was already out the door. No wonder my best friend was the president of the Environmental Conservation Club at school. I watched as she chatted with the surprised landscaper and I wondered if “101 Uses for Palm Fronds” would be the next feature in her popular It’s Easy Being Green blog.
While Tilly worked her recycling magic and Mom finished scooping Andres’s ice cream, Ethan and I sat down at our table by the window. I recognized the look of intense concentration on his face. He got it whenever he worked on a tough problem, which, considering that he took advanced science courses at school, was pretty much all the time.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’m stuck on the wiring for the surfboard propeller,” he said. “It has to be waterproof but also equipped with sensors to detect signs of distress.” Ethan had an idea for a lifesaving surfboard that could pull a surfer to shore safely. “But if I use rubber instead of plastic …” He was gone, whispering to himself and scribbling notes in his log.
I looked at Andres and Tilly (who’d just returned, grinning victoriously). They shook their heads in unison.
“He gets like this every spring,” Andres said forlornly. “And we become obsolete.”
“Poor baby,” Tilly told him. “Suffering
