Dad held out a hand to stop me. “What will you do if Irma wants to play a different game than you?”
“Irma and I like all the same games,” I said.
“What if her mom doesn’t cut the crusts off your sandwiches?”
“Irma says we’re having Swedish meatballs for lunch. There aren’t any crusts.”
Dad closed his eyes for a second. “I see you have this all figured out.”
“Yes. Can we go?”
Dad stood up and said, “We might as well.”
Chapter 2
Dad stopped the car in front of a purple house. Irma sat on the front steps. I leaped out of the car and ran toward her.
She gave me a big hug. “I will show you my insects.” She took me by the hand and led me around the corner.
“Lauren, wait!” Dad yelled. “You forgot something.”
I looked down at myself. I was wearing all my clothes and my shoes. “What did I forget?”
“To say goodbye.” He waved at me.
I waved back. “Goodbye.”
“I’ll see you in two hours. Remember, go with the flow.” He wiggled his hand in the air like waves rippling on water.
I wiggled mine back, then I turned and followed Irma.
She stopped and pointed to the cracked pathway beside her house. “Look at the ants!”
I dropped to my knees and peered at them. Two lines of ants marched in and out of a small crater of sand in the crack. “Where are they going?” I asked.
“I am following them this morning,” Irma said. “I’ll show you.”
“You mean you followed them this morning.”
“That is what I said.” She took my hand again and led me into her backyard.
She pointed to a candy-bar wrapper lying beside the fence. “My friend left this on the ground yesterday. The ants are eating the chocolate crumbs!”
I looked at the wrapper. The ants marched up to it, picked up a piece of chocolate, and turned around to go back the way they had come. Two of the ants were trying to pick up a chunk that was bigger than either of them.
“But I’m your friend,” I said.
“Yes,” Irma said.
“But I didn’t leave the candy-bar wrapper here.”
Irma giggled. “Of course you didn’t. My other friend, Jonas, did. He lives in the next house.” Irma pointed at the fence.
“But you can’t have another friend. I’m your friend.”
“You’re my best friend. That doesn’t mean you are my only friend.” Irma took my hand. “I have something else to show you.” She led me to the wall of the garage and pointed to the top corner. “Look!”
A bundle of twigs was wedged beside the downspout. A bird’s nest. My eyes looked at it, but my brain kept thinking, Irma has another friend. I waggled my hand in front of my face to remind myself to go with the flow.
“Listen!” Irma said.
We stood quietly for a few seconds. Irma’s head was tilted so her ear pointed up to the nest. My ears were full of my pounding heart and my brain saying, Irma has another friend.
“Baby birds,” Irma said. “Chirp, chirp, chirp. The mama comes to feed them. But not while we’re here. We should go back to the house.”
We walked to her back door. It took seven steps. Irma’s mom met us at the door. She was a very tall lady with blond hair tied in a ponytail. She wore a yellow apron with purple flowers on it. “Good morning, Lauren. It’s nice to meet you.”
I remembered my manners, even though my brain was fuzzy. “It’s nice to meet you too, Mrs. Larsson.” I shook her hand.
“Would you girls like some lunch?” she asked.
“Meatballs!” Irma said. “Just for you, Lauren.”
Irma’s mom had stuck to the plan, so I didn’t have to go with the flow. The meatballs were delicious. I knew they would be, because Irma shared them with me whenever she brought them to school for lunch.
Irma’s kitchen looked kind of like her mom. Everything was yellow and purple, and the table was made of wood that was almost the same color as her hair.
As soon as we finished eating, Irma jumped up and said, “Let’s go to my room.”
“Dishes,” Irma’s mom said.
We put our dishes in the dishwasher, and then we ran upstairs. That was something I liked about Irma. She didn’t like to sit around at the table after eating either.
Irma’s room had a bed and a small table and a bookshelf, just like mine. But she also had a window that poked out over her yard. There was a cozy seat in the space under the window. I climbed onto it and looked outside.
Irma climbed up beside me. “This is the best part of my room. I like to sit here and watch my neighbors.” She pointed to the yard on the other side of the fence. “That’s Jonas’s house.”
The yard was empty, which was a good thing, because I didn’t want to talk about Jonas the litterbug.
Seven small glass animals were lined up on the windowsill. I picked up the duck. “Ducks have waterproof feathers.”
Irma picked up the cheetah. “Cheetahs are the fastest animals on the earth.”
“But falcons are the fastest animals in the air.”
A boy with lots of curly black hair walked into the yard. He looked older than Irma and me. “That’s Jonas,” Irma said. “You should come meet him. He likes insects too.”
I picked up an elephant. “Elephants cover themselves in mud to stay cool. They live in Africa and Asia, where it is really hot.”
“Jonas is an excellent biker,” Irma said. “He’s in fifth grade at our school.”
“Crocodiles have the strongest bite of any animal in the world.”
“Let’s go downstairs,” Irma said.
I wrapped my fingers around the crocodile. “The muscles that hold their mouths shut
