“SO WHERE’S THE NEXT PART?” Sarah demanded, pouncing on me the second I sat down at the lunch table the next day, nearly upsetting my tray. “Tell me you brought a new part.”
Uh-oh. I bit my lower lip. I knew there was something I forgot to do. After the babysitting gig yesterday and then having Brody come over to play PlayStation and then doing my homework, I’d forgotten all about the Collin Prince chapter I’d promised her.
Okay, fine. I hadn’t completely forgotten. It was just that hanging around Brody had made me want to work on my other story—the one I was going to enter in the Comicpalooza contest. I needed that story to be especially good, seeing as it would be read and judged by actual editors, versus just my Collin Prince–crazy friends, who would pretty much love garbage so long as Collin Prince was the garbage man. Which meant it was going to take a lot longer to write.
I had planned to wake up early this morning to bang out a quick chapter to bring to school—to get Sarah off my back. But I’d been so exhausted from the babysitting adventure, I’d hit snooze three times on my alarm. And it wasn’t until now that I remembered why I’d set it for so early in the first place.
Should I confess about having Brody come over? She’d freak out if I did. After all, I wasn’t the type of girl who normally invited real-life boys over to my house. And boy crazy Sarah might decide to make more of it than it actually was. Like a real date. Me having a new boyfriend. (Or any boyfriend for that matter.)
And what if she told someone about it and it ended up getting back to Brody? And what if Brody didn’t actually like me in that way—and just thought of me as a fellow gamer—a cool friend, nothing more? At that point, I would pretty much have to die of humiliation.
Clearly it was better to keep the whole Brody thing on the down low for now. . . .
I realized Sarah was still waiting for an answer.
“Sorry. I didn’t have time to work on it,” I told her apologetically. “I had that babysitting job, remember? You’re welcome to keep going on your end, though, if you want. I’ll catch up wherever you leave off.”
She frowned. “Hailey, I’ve done three chapters in a row now, and you haven’t done any,” she whined. “I can’t write the whole thing myself.”
“You mean like I was doing before you decided to jump in?” I shot back before I could stop myself.
She looked hurt, and I immediately felt bad. After all, I had been the one to invite her to contribute to the story in the first place. And she’d done a great job, too.
That said, I didn’t like the idea that now something I had once done for fun was starting to feel like more homework, complete with unreasonable deadlines.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I’m behind. I promise I’ll write the next chapter tonight. And I’ll upload it right away so you won’t have to wait.”
“Wait for what?” Madison asked, thankfully showing up with her mountainous tray of food before Sarah could open her mouth to argue further. She plopped down beside me. “ ’Cause I really don’t want to wait to hear how it went yesterday at the Mitchells’. Did they love your dress? Did the little girl think you were a real princess? Did she like your magic show?”
“Wait, wait! I want to hear too!” Kalani cried, rushing to her seat, late as per usual. “Tell us everything!”
I looked around the table at my friends. Their eager faces. “Well,” I said. “There were some good things—and some not-so-good things. But mostly good in the end.”
They listened without interrupting as I proceeded to give them the play-by-play for the afternoon from beginning to end. When I finished, they were all wide-eyed.
“Seriously?” Kalani cried. “They locked you in a closet?”
“And you had to babysit four kids for the price of one?” Madison added.
“Who was this cute pirate boy again?” demanded Sarah, even though I hadn’t even remotely implied he was cute.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, not exactly, and his name’s Brody,” I said, answering them all at once. Then I went on to explain my little babysitter blackmail scheme and the fact that Bella’s father had given me a 100 percent tip. All of which I would deposit into our Comicpalooza savings account.
“That is awesome,” Madison declared. “I cannot believe they thought they could just take advantage of you like that. You totally deserved that extra money.”
“Yeah, and now the kids they were babysitting are going to go home and ask for us next time instead!” Kalani crowed. “Those girls, like, literally gave us their customer base.”
“Hold on. I still want to know more about this Brody guy,” Sarah broke in, waving her hands in my direction. The girl could be like a pit bull with a bone when it came to boy talk.
I sighed, knowing there was no way I was going to be allowed to leave the lunchroom until I gave her the scoop on my new friend. And so I went through the story, explaining how I’d first met him while hanging up the flyers and how he’d gone and recommended us to the Mitchells, giving us our first job. I ended by telling them how he’d overheard my desperate pirate talk from next door and had decided to come to my aid.
“Wow,” said Madison when I had finished. “That’s awesome.”
“He’s like your knight in shining armor,” declared Kalani.
“This would be great for the next chapter of our story!” Sarah exclaimed. “A brave, valiant hero—saving his favorite damsel in distress! But, of course,” she added, perhaps unnecessarily, “in this case the hero would be Collin Prince. And I’d be the one in distress.” She mock-swooned, and Madison rolled her eyes.
“For the record, I wasn’t that distressed,” I protested. But then—because who was I kidding?—I allowed myself a small dreamy smile. “Though I have to admit, he did have pretty great timing. And the whole treasure thing was a brilliant idea. The kids totally freaked.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. “Too bad you can’t use him every time,” Madison remarked. “Sounds like the two of you made a good team.”
I nodded slowly. “You know, maybe we should consider something like that. . . .”
“Having cute boys rescue us?” Sarah asked eagerly. “Absolutely. Where do I sign up?”
I laughed. “I meant the teamwork thing,” I clarified. “After all, if I’ve learned anything from this whole adventure, it’s that it’s tough to babysit solo. Especially when wearing a fancy dress.” I snorted, remembering. “But if there were two of us at every job, we’d always have each other as backup if things started going bad. Or even if they didn’t, it would give us a lot more opportunities to put on a show like Brody and I did. Like, we’re kind of boring by ourselves,” I said. “But together . . . we could be amazing.”
“Yeah. But who’s going to pay for two babysitters?” asked Madison.
“No one,” I assured her. “We’ll still charge the same. It’ll be like another bonus of hiring us over the others in the neighborhood. Two babysitters for the price of one.”
“Which means only half the money,” Kalani protested.
“At first, maybe. But we’ll be able to do a better job. And more moms will want to hire us. Which will lead to more money in the end.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’d probably be a lot more fun, too. We did start this company together, after all.”
“Well, I think it’s a great idea,” Sarah declared. “I was kind of dreading doing it by myself anyway, to be honest. I’ve never really been around a lot of kids. . . .” She paused, then added, “Maybe you could ask Brody to join us from time to time too. I mean, not officially or anything. My parents would flip out if they knew I was alone in some house with a boy. But he could be, like, behind the scenes. Planting treasure, making maps, staging fight scenes—whatever.”
“I don’t know,” I hedged. “He did ask if he could join. I just thought you guys wouldn’t want to share the profits a fifth way.”
Madison waved me off. “Like you said, the better we perform, the more profit we’ll get. And if this Brody guy can help, well, then let’s get him on board.”
“If you’re sure,” I said, giving in. Because, of course I wanted Brody to join us. I just didn’t want them to think I was choosing a boy over my besties. But if it was their idea, who was I to complain?
It was then that I remembered the whole Comicpalooza thing. Brody thought I was going for the writing contest. If my friends started talking about Collin Prince in front of him . . .
I swallowed hard. “Okay, I’ll ask him,” I said. “On one condition.”
“When he’s around, we don’t talk about Collin Prince.”
My friends exchanged looks. “Why not?” Kalani demanded.
I could feel my face flush. “It’s just . . . I don’t know . . .”
“I do!” Sarah crowed. She turned to Madison and Kalani, giving them a conspiratorial look. “She likes Brody.”
Oh man. Now I was positive I was bright purple. “That’s not why!” I protested.
My friends giggled. “Mm-hm,” Madison said. “Sure it isn’t.”
“He’s just a friend!”
“For now,” Kalani teased. “But once you start babysitting with him . . .”
“Seriously. One more word and I will strangle all of you at once.”
Sarah laughed. “Don’t worry!” she cooed. “We won’t say a word about Collin to Brody.” She winked at me. “As long as I get that next chapter, that is . . .”