You're Invited (22 page)

When everything's set up (and after I sneak a taste of the dip), I plop onto a chair in the corner to memorize vocab words while we wait for the guests to show up.

“What are Anna and McKenna doing here?” Sadie asks as I'm committing to memory the definition of “collaborate” (to cooperate or work together).

I shrug. “Maybe they're visiting their grandparents and got lost.” I wave at Anna, who's on the It's All Academic team with me at school.

Sadie stops rearranging chairs that were perfect the first time. “They're dressed up.”

Sure enough, Anna's got on a tartan skirt and McKenna looks like she's borrowed a huge plaid shirt from her dad. I put my flash cards down as they make their way over to us.

“This is the party, right?” Anna asks.

Sadie blinks at her. “Yeeesss . . .”

“See, I told you we'd be too early. Hey, there's food! I'm starving.” McKenna zooms toward Vi and the food table.

“So . . . did your grandparents invite you?” It's the
only logical conclusion I can come to. Why else would two girls from our class show up at a senior's going-away party?

Anna laughs. “No, silly. Bubsters3000 invited us on Twitter. Who is she, anyway? Wait, are y'all throwing this party?” She tilts her head and studies me as if she's never seen me before. “Are
you
Bubsters3000?”

“No,”
I say with as much emphasis as possible.

“RSVP's doing the party,” Sadie adds. “And I saw that invite from Bubsters3000, but I didn't pay attention to it since it was for the same day as this party. I didn't realize that it
was
this party. But how . . .”

“I'm pretty sure I know who Bubsters3000 is.” I leave Sadie with Anna and march toward Bubby, who's talking with two older ladies who have just arrived.

“Maybe if I gave him a locket with a picture of me inside?” she's saying to her friends. “No, too old-school. How about a cell phone with an album full of my pictures?”

“Excuse me,” I say. “Bubby, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Of course, my Lo. See you gals later.” Bubby waves at them with just the tips of her fingers, like she's a pageant queen. Or Becca in the golf cart.

When we're
out of earshot, I leap right in. “Bubsters3000?”

Bubby giggles. “That's my Tweeter name. Aren't you following me?”

Is it horrible if you don't follow your own grandmother on Twitter? It's not like I really have time to check my feed. “It's Twitter, not Tweeter. And why are there girls from my class here?” And just as I ask that, I spot a group of guys near the door. I squint and realize they're Zach's friends. Becca's already welcoming them with extra tams. What in the world?

“Oh, them!” Bubby says with a wave of her hand. “I sent a Tweeter note to everyone I could find who had Sandpiper Beach in their profile.” She puts her hands on her hips. “You'd know that if you followed me.”

“But . . .” I gesture sort of uselessly at another bunch of kids coming through the door. “Why? I thought this was Mr. Vernon's party?”

“He's moving to be with his grandkids. I thought he'd appreciate having more than a bunch of oldsters at this hullabaloo. I need to go welcome them.” Bubby gives me a grin and makes her way toward the closest group of girls. “Hey, yo, girlfriends!”

“Lauren?” Sadie grabs me by the arm. “What's going on? We're
not ready for this many people!”

“There's not enough food, that's for sure,” Vi adds from behind Sadie.

Before I can answer, Becca jogs over to join us. “Lance said he got a Twitter invitation from someone named Bubsters3000. Everyone's saying that. Wait, how come
I
didn't get an invitation?” Her lower lip juts out like she's super sad about my grandmother not inviting her to a kilt-wearing old-people party.

“Lance is here?” Vi's face goes a little pale.

“It's Bubby,” I tell them. “She went a little crazy and invited the whole town. On Twitter.”

“Bubby's on Twitter, and I didn't know?” Becca says, like that's the most important thing I just said.

Sadie looks as if she's about to hyperventilate. Vi keeps throwing these worried glances at the food table. And Becca's practically bouncing on her toes, trying to see who else has arrived.

And what can we do? Nothing, that's what. Bubby wanted a giant party, and now she's got one. And all the seniors seem to be rolling with it. The two ladies Bubby was talking to earlier are chattering away with Anna and McKenna. But some of the kids don't look too sure. Zach's friends are grouped in a corner, and
some sixth-grade girls are standing with their arms crossed and frowning like they just walked into math class instead of a party.

“We need to start, fast,” I tell my friends. “Or Bubby's going to lose half her party.”

“They've pretty much demolished the food,” Becca says.

“Okay, let me think.” Sadie presses her hands to either side of her face and surveys the crowd.

We're all quiet for a minute, until Vi pipes up.

“There's a kitchen here, right?” she asks.

“On the other side of the dining room.” I point to the doors that lead from the party to the dining room.

“You're going to make something!” Becca claps her hands.

Vi turns red. “No, and there's not enough time anyway. I'm going to see if they have any snacks we can buy. Chips and salsa, that kind of thing. I know that isn't Scottish, Sades, but we need more food.”

Vi runs off toward the kitchen and Sadie shoves some note cards into my hands. “Lauren, can you do the welcome? Becca, you try to gather everyone toward Lauren, and I'll go see if we have any music that isn't so . . . bagpipey.”

“Wait . . .” I
call after Sadie, but she's disappeared into the crowd with Becca. “Okay, well . . .” I climb up onto a chair and look at the note cards. “Excuse me?”

Everyone just keeps on talking. Where's Vi and her whistle when I need her? Luckily, Bubby spies me from across the room. She cups her hands to her mouth and yells, “Hey, my peeps! Hush up and listen to Lolo, already!”

The room goes silent, and everyone's staring at me.

Okay, this is uncomfortable. I check the first note card. “Welcome, everyone, to Mr. Vernon's going-away party!”

The seniors clap politely, and the kids just . . . look at me. I clear my throat and smile. “Och, ye ken Mr. Vernon is movin' to auld Scotland to be with his son and daughter-in-law and their wee bairns.” Seriously? Who wrote this stuff? Why didn't Sadie give the cards to Becca, the actress-in-training? I can barely even read this. “Aye, so tonight we lads and lassies are goin' to have a belter of a good time!”

Someone hoots from the back of the room—one of Zach's friends, I think—and all the seniors join in.

I squint at the note card. What Sadie's written next doesn't even look like English. I shove the cards into
my pocket and say in my normal voice, “Now Mr. V's friends can share their favorite memories.”

The seniors move toward the chairs, and just in time, Vi arrives with a cartload of food. The kids head straight for the Jell-O cups and kosher dill pickles. That'll keep them busy for a little while, but we'll have to think of something else—soon. Sadie goes to rescue Vi, and Becca guides an elderly woman to a seat near Mr. Vernon.

I turn my attention to the seniors. Bubby nearly leaps out of her seat when I ask who wants to start.

“Oh, Mr. V,” she says, fluttering her eyelashes. “I'll never forget when you came to the Moonlight Mix-It-Up and asked me to dance. Maybe we can reenact that tonight, hmm? I know all the latest moves.”

Mr. Vernon coughs a little and squirms in his seat.

“Ohhhh . . . ,” I hear Becca say just under her breath, right next to me.

“So, um, thanks, Bubby. Who's next?” I ask, really quickly before Bubby can say anything else.

A tall, thin man with barely any hair stands up. “Charlie, you remember when we were on that fishing excursion? You swore you'd catch the biggest mackerel, but hoooo boy, you couldn't catch much of nothing
over three inches.” The whole group, Mr. V. included, bursts into laughter.

“And then Ginny lost her lunch over the side, remember that?” one of the women says.

Becca grabs one of the photo collages off the table and hands it to Mr. Vernon. He starts laughing so hard, he can barely catch his breath. “Who took this picture?”

I peek over his shoulder and see the one in the middle of the collage. It's Mr. Vernon, proudly holding up the world's tiniest mackerel while a round little old woman leans over the side of the boat behind him. Another person—not in the shot—is giving him bunny ears. It reminds me of all the silly pictures I have of my friends.

“Thank you all for this,” he says. “I'll never forget such a great group of folks.”

As they continue to tell stories, I look around at my friends. Becca's laughing along with the seniors. Vi's making sure all the kids have something to eat. And Sadie catches my eye and gives me a thumbs-up.

I can't imagine moving to another country and leaving them behind. Who would listen to me complain about my brothers the way Sadie does? Without Vi, I'd have to collect shells by myself and eat store-bought pita
chips. And Becca's always the one making me try new things.

But one day, I will move away. Not for a few years, and probably not to Scotland, but still. When that time comes, I won't have my best friends around to hang out in a dirty old yacht or light candles on the beach.

I get what Bubby was talking about now. And it makes me want to keep this moment going for as long as I can.

“Sadie couldn't find anything that wasn't Scottish,” Becca says as we watch Sadie mute the movie on the Visitor's Center TV. “And it's not like this place has any kind of dock to play music from our phones.”

“Bagpipes are better than nothing, I guess.” The food's pretty much gone, and the kids are standing around like they're waiting for something to happen.

Some kind of jig blasts from the stereo. Becca and I push the chairs out of the way, and a group of the seniors, Bubby right in front, pulls Mr. Vernon to his feet. They jump right into dancing, laughing and talking the whole time.

But none of the kids move at all. Zach's friends are headed toward the door again. This isn't good. Not only would Bubby be upset that her party is a bust, but RSVP's reputation won't be so
great if everyone checks out early.

“What can we do?” Becca asks.

I'm racking my brains when the last person I expected to see at this party walks through the door.

Zach.

Great. Like I really want my brother here to witness this disaster of a party. I only have one idea, and it'll either save the whole thing or make me the laughingstock of Sandpiper Beach Middle School. I don't have time to lay out the pros and cons. I just have to do it—for Bubby, for my friends and RSVP, and for myself.

I yank the note cards from my pocket and toss them onto my backpack in the corner. “Let's dance!” I yell to Becca as I race through the jig-dancing seniors to grab Sadie and Vi.

“What are you doing? I don't know how to dance!” Vi gets this panicked look on her face.

“Neither do I! Who cares? Let's just have fun! And maybe save this party.” I try to follow what the seniors are doing but end up stepping on Sadie's heels.

“Lauren, you are officially the worst bagpipe dancer ever!” Sadie says over the music.

“I know!” With
that, I grab her hands and start spinning in a big circle. Everyone backs out of the way, clapping in time to the music. A lot of the kids have joined the group now, some of them clapping and others sort of staring at me. Which makes sense, since I'm not exactly the dance-in-the-middle-of-a-crowd kind of girl. But I think about Mr. Vernon moving away and about Bubby and Alma, and I don't care. Right now, I just want to have fun with my best friends.

“Go, Lo! Go, Sadie!” Becca yells.

We spin and spin and spin until we're laughing so hard and my pom-pom hat flies off and we're so dizzy that we fall in a heap on the floor.

“Lauren?” Zach's standing over me, holding out a hand. “What . . . what are you doing?”

I scramble up and do a little jig kind of move. Or what I think is a jig kind of move, since I've never really done one before. “Dancing! Come on!”

He blinks at me.

“Look, if I'm dancing, so can you. This is Bubby's party, so we owe it to her to make it good. If you dance, then maybe everyone else will too.” My breath comes out all huffy, since I'm not really used to this much exercise.

Zach glances at his friends, and then he laughs. But he's
not laughing at me. “All right. But not to this . . . music. I've got a dock in my car.”

I want to hug him, but that would be weird. So instead I tell him thanks. When he comes back and plugs in some normal music, the party really starts. I dance and dance and dance with my friends until it feels like my feet will fall off.

A little later, while Becca's having a heart-to-heart with Bubby (who's all distraught about Mr. V. leaving and how he hasn't gone for her Moonlight Mix-It-Up reenactment), I'm eating chip crumbs with Vi and Sadie when I feel someone over my shoulder. The seniors loved Vi's dip and have been coming up asking for the recipe all night. I pull out the pen for her to write it down again when the person speaks.

But it's not one of the seniors. Instead, it's a staff member from Sandpiper Active Senior Living. “Hi, girls. I was wondering if you had a card or anything? You see, my daughter wants this crazy birthday party and it's going to require a lot of energy and, well, you certainly seem to have that. And you look like you're having so much fun. Would you be interested in maybe planning her party?”