Irma took my hand and led me to the door. “He’s nice. I promise.”
I dropped Irma’s hand. I didn’t want to meet a new friend. Especially a litterbug. Irma knew I didn’t like changing plans. Why was she doing this?
“He won’t bite you. He’s not a crocodile.” She opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Like she was going to go downstairs whether I came or not.
I did some square breathing, which is another trick I use so I don’t flip my lid. I really, really didn’t want to meet Jonas. But I really did want to make Irma happy, because she was my best friend. Irma knew all about my square breathing, so she stopped and waited while I closed my eyes and breathed in for four seconds. I could hear her breathing with me. I imagined turning a corner and walking four steps while I held my breath for four more seconds. I turned another imaginary corner and I breathed out for four seconds. Then I held my breath for another four seconds as I finished the square. When I opened my eyes, I waved my hand in front of my face.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going to go with the flow. It’s a new trick Dad taught me. We can meet Jonas now.”
Chapter 3
Irma smiled, spun around, and raced down the stairs. I followed, but I didn’t race. I was going with the flow, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. She ran outside and through a gate between their two houses. “Jonas!” she called. “Lauren is here!”
I slowly opened the gate and stepped into his yard. A red bike leaned against his fence, and Jonas was putting on a matching helmet. “You must really like red,” I said.
“Wanna ride?” Jonas asked Irma.
Irma looked at me.
I shook my head. Irma and I had not planned a bike ride as part of our perfect day. Our plan included looking at insects, making bead bracelets, eating meatballs, and playing with her hula hoop. Definitely no biking. Or playing with boys.
“Biking is fun,” Irma said to me. “Jonas puts a…a—what do you call it?”
“Obstacle course,” Jonas said.
“An ob-sta-cle course. He puts it on the road. We ride over teeter-totter ramps and go off jumps.”
I shook my head again. Irma shrugged. “Perhaps later.”
“See ya.” Jonas hopped on his bike and zoomed out of the yard.
“Can we make bead bracelets?” I asked Irma.
Irma smiled at me for the first time since she’d seen Jonas. “Yes.”
***
My dad picked me up exactly at two p.m. like we’d agreed. Irma and I had finished our bracelets and were practicing with her hula hoop in the backyard. He waved to us. “Ten-minute warning,” he said. “I’m going to talk to Irma’s mom.” I nodded. That was all part of the plan.
“It’s your turn to time me,” Irma said. She picked up the hula hoop and held it around her waist.
“Ready, set, go!” I shouted.
Irma swung the hula hoop and started swaying her hips.
“One hippopotamus, two hippopotamus, three hippopotamus, four hippopot—.” The hoop dropped to the ground. “Good job, Irma! That was almost four! My turn.”
I scooped up the hula hoop and held it out around me.
“Ready, set, go!” Irma said.
I swung the hula hoop and jiggled my hips.
“One hippoptam—. Oops,” Irma said. “Try again.”
I picked up the hula hoop and tried again, but I didn’t even make it to ‘hip’. I let the hula hoop drop to the ground. “I’ll never be able to do it,” I said.
“You will,” Irma said. “You have to practice. I’ve been trying for much longer than you.”
My dad poked his head out of the back door. “Two minutes,” he said.
I picked the hula hoop up one last time and swung it as hard as I could. It spun around my waist three times.
“That was better!” Irma said.
Dad walked down the back steps. “Time to leave.”
I picked up the hula hoop one more time.
“Lauren,” Dad said in his warning voice. “We need to go.”
I swung the hula hoop. “You need to go with the flow.”
He squished his eyebrows together. I let the hula hoop drop and stepped out of it.
“Goodbye, Irma. I’ll see you at school on Monday.”
Irma hugged me. “Will you come over next weekend?”
I looked at Dad.
“Maybe,” he said. “We’ll see.”
I followed Dad to the car, and Irma followed me. When I was buckled in, I rolled down the window. “Thank you for having me.”
“Next time you can bring your bike,” Irma said.
Dad started the car and we drove off, which was good, because I didn’t want to tell Irma that I would not be bringing my bike to her house. Ever.
Chapter 4
We ate turkey burgers for dinner. I liked mine with exactly one slice of pickle and no mustard. My baby sister, Lexi, ate hers in stages. First Mom cut up the patty and Lexi ate little turkey cubes with lots of ketchup. She smeared them around her tray and laughed before she put them in her mouth. Then Mom gave her little pieces of tomato. She threw most of those on the floor.
“When is Lexi going to learn to eat like a person?” I asked.
Mom laughed. “She’s learning right now. You were just as messy when you were this age.”
“I smeared ketchup on my tray?”
“You especially loved the feel of ketchup,” Mom said.
I did like cold things. But I didn’t like having dirty hands. “Didn’t I want to clean my hands?”
“Yup. As soon as you’d smeared it around the tray, you’d hold both hands up and yell for me to clean them.”
Dad swallowed a big bite of turkey burger. “After a while we stopped serving ketchup.”
“How was Irma’s today?” Mom asked.
“It was fun. She
