Always, Abigail (6 page)

Dear Abby,

Pom-poms? Yeah, I could see that. You're the pom-pom type.

Obviously
, you are my letter partner, and
obviously
, we are both in sixth grade. You're right. I do have an older brother. His name is Pete, but I call him Paul because he's a tree climber. Get it? Paul Bunyan, the lumberjack from the tall tale. Pizza is my favorite food too, but I only like chocolate cake if it has nuts in it. As for
Ella Enchanted
, it was okay, but you've got to be kidding about
Hatchet
. My dad and I
loved
that book. As for mushrooms, I'm no dummy. I wouldn't eat them if my life depended on it. They could be poisonous. And pumpkin pie? I can take it or leave it.

Looking forward to your next letter.

Your friendly letter friend,

Gabby

Dear Gabby,

For your information, my name is “Abigail,” not “Abby”!

Second of all, I'm not surprised you like the book
Hatchet
. You seem like the
Hatchet
“type.” And why would your dad even read it? Sounds a little weird to me.

But most importantly, the reason you can see me as a pom-pom girl is because I was born to be one.

And by the way, calling your brother “Paul” when his name is “Pete” sounds pretty stupid to me, even if he is a tree climber, whatever that is.

Your “Assigned” Letter Partner,

Abigail

(But for Gabby, Making No Sense Made Perfect Sense, So I Guess for Her It Actually Made Sense)

Dear Gabby,

It's bad enough we have to write these letters, now Old Hawk has us making mailboxes out of shoeboxes? I mean, didn't we all make enough Valentine mailboxes when we were in grade school? Doesn't Old Hawk realize we're almost teenagers?

Speaking of teenagers, how old is your brother? I think he might be in the same grade as my brother, Ben. Ben's a senior and is the captain of the baseball team. He's really good. When I was little, he tried to teach me to play. All I remember about it is he kept saying, “You throw like a girl!” What a stupid thing to say. I AM a girl!

You said your brother's a tree climber. Is that a new extreme sport? I've never heard of it.

Sincerely,

Abigail (NOT Abby!)

P.S. Obviously, I ignored the sarcastic way you used “obviously.” But I CANNOT ignore you calling me Abby. My name is ABIGAIL!

We got into World War III with Alli's brother, Brian.

We call Brian “The Brain,” because all he ever does is study. And as usual, he was upstairs studying while we were trying to practice poms.

“Turn down that music, you little ‘pom freaks'!” he yelled from his bedroom.

Alli's mom wasn't home, so he knew he couldn't get in trouble for yelling at us. Alli's mom would've stuck up for us because she had been a pom-pom girl in high school. She knew how important practicing was.

“Leave us alone!” Alli yelled.

That's when the war started.

First, The Brain threw a pair of balled-up sweat socks down the stairs at us. We cracked up because he missed us by a mile. (The Brain was
really
smart but not athletic
at all
.)

Then Alli threw a bunch of little pillows from the couch. Every pillow she threw hit The Brain. One nailed him right on the forehead.

He threw a few more pairs of socks, which barely made it to the family room, and then he threw a pillow from his bed. The pillow was way too big to throw, so it didn't even make it down the stairs.

Cami and I fell on the floor laughing while Alli grabbed a couple more things to throw. She whipped one of their dog's tennis balls and hit The Brain right in the thigh.

“Ouch!” he yelled and slammed his door.

That's when Alli's dad walked in. He was home early. Cami and I got up from the floor, and Alli dropped the rest of her ammunition, mostly dog toys.

“Oh, hi, Dad!” Alli said, a little out of breath. “We were just going out to the garage to practice. We don't want our music to disturb Brian.”

Cami and I followed Alli out into the garage, where the three of us fell on top of each other laughing.

That's when Alli got her brainstorm. A perfect way to get back at The Brain for being such a pain.

In the garage, there was a recycling bin overflowing with newspaper. Instead of practicing poms, we spent the next hour crinkling up newspaper and stuffing it into The Brain's Volkswagen. When we were finished, you couldn't even see inside the car anymore.

Then Alli yelled into the house, “Dad, could you tell Brian it's time for him to drive Cami and Abigail home!”

And the only thing funnier than the look on The Brain's face when he saw his car was the fact that he actually had a red mark on his leg where the tennis ball had hit him.

Abigail,

At lunch we heard that last year's poms are going to Chitchat after school. It's our chance to get in good with the pom crowd. We HAVE to go!

We'll get off at Cami's stop and walk from there.

Write back!

SPF,

AlliCam

P.S. Jackie and McKenzie are meeting us there.

1.
How much trouble I'd get into for going to Chitchat without permission. (My mom thought I was going to Cami's house to practice after school. The rule was no changing after-school plans during the school day because my mom didn't want me calling her at work all the time asking if I could go here or there.)

2.
How supernervous I was! This was really it! Hanging out with
real
pom-pom girls.

3.
Jackie and McKenzie? I worried about homeroom inside jokes. Was I going to spend the whole afternoon feeling left out?

1.
Would Jackie and McKenzie like me?

2.
Would the other pom girls like me?

3.
Would I be able to think of anything to say?

4.
Would there be any boys there?

5.
Were Alli and Cami as nervous as I was?

Chitchat with the poms, really? I'm in! See you on the bus!

SPF,

Abigail

AlliCam and I took turns brushing each other's hair. We wanted to make sure we looked perfect when we got there. The problem was, AlliCam's hair already looked good before we even started, and mine didn't look much better when we were finished.

Thankfully, Alli had a great idea. She put one little braid on each side of my hair and used a hair clip to pull them together in the back. I checked it out in the mirror that Cami kept in her backpack, and it looked sort of like a style you'd see in a magazine.

By the time we got there, AlliCam looked like they belonged on the pom squad, and I hoped I did too.

1.
As soon as we saw Jackie and McKenzie in the parking lot, they both yelled, “Hello, daaaaarlings!” And AlliCam both yelled the same thing to them,
exactly
the same way. It must've been a homeroom thing. I cringed. Feeling left out with AlliCam was bad enough, but with AlliCam and J&M it was going to be unbearable.

2.
Inside, we ordered at the counter, and while we waited for our food, we saw the seventh- and eighth-grade poms sitting in the corner booth. One of the poms recognized Jackie and Alli from the pom practice session last summer, so they called us over. I wondered why they didn't recognize me. Maybe Cami and McKenzie were wondering the same thing.

3.
The other girls invited us to sit down with them, but there was only room for four more in their booth. AlliCam and J&M got those four spots, so guess who had to pull up a chair? This wouldn't have been so bad except the booth was higher than the tables, so my chair was too low. I felt like I was a little kid sitting at the adults' table.

4.
I tried to make the best of it, but it's hard to join in the conversation when your chin is almost resting on the table. Besides that, I couldn't think of anything interesting to say. AlliCam and J&M were all, “I love that eye shadow,” and “How do you get your hair so shiny?” Blah, blah, blah. The older girls were loving all the attention and compliments.

5.
The worst and the best parts happened when the boys showed up. They came over and crowded around our booth. All I could smell was cologne. It made me woozy, so I couldn't concentrate on the conversation. It made it impossible to think of anything to say, let alone something interesting, funny, or smart.

Since I was sitting on the end of the booth, the boys crowded around me.

This should've been a good thing; but somehow, maybe because of that stupid low chair, not one guy even noticed I was there. I felt like a bug that could've easily been swatted away, or worse yet, squashed to smithereens.