I’m once again in the backseat of the car, with Hunter once again at the wheel and Mom once again losing her marbles as she sits next to him. We’re making a quick run to the grocery store. I agreed to go because Kylee and Brianna are sleeping over tonight (Isabelle is going to a high school football game with another friend) and I want to pick out exactly which snacks we’re having. I could have sent Mom with a list, but sometimes inspiration strikes when I wander the aisles at the store.
So apparently I value spectacular sleepover snacks more than I value my life.
I have to admit Hunter is getting better at driving. There’s no lurching now as he steps on the gas. It’s almost like being in the car with a normal driver. He stays in his lane just fine with no close calls with parked cars or oncoming traffic.
He drives too fast, though, and doesn’t leave enough distance between us and the car ahead of him.
“So what’s that rule?” I ask. “The one about how far you’re supposed to be behind the other car?”
“Trap,” Hunter tells me. He’s now said “Shut thy trap” to me so often that he abbreviates it for convenience.
“Hunter, slow down,” Mom says. My question had the desired effect. “You’re supposed to be two seconds—one one-thousand, two one-thousand—behind that Suburban.”
“I am,” Hunter says, which is completely false. I’m not sure exactly how the two-second thing is measured, but I’m sure that if the Suburban were to slam on its brakes, we wouldn’t have time to stop without rear-ending it.
I guess that wouldn’t kill us all.
But it wouldn’t be good either.
Hunter gains on the SUV. I can see Mom’s neck jerk as she brakes hard. The only problem is she doesn’t have a brake.
“Mom!” Hunter barks at her. “You’re doing it again! Enough with the imaginary brake!”
“It’s a reflex,” Mom says. “It’s an automatic response.” She sounds like she’s apologizing, which is ridiculous. He should be apologizing to us.
Hunter turns around to glare at me, as if it’s my fault he was driving too close to the SUV in front of us. Even though I said he was getting better at driving, he’s not good enough to drive without looking at the road. Few drivers are. Driving-while-giving-your-sister-dirty-looks is just as dangerous as driving-while-texting. Maybe worse.
The car swerves.
Mom shrieks.
She grabs the steering wheel just as we cross the lane into the path of a FedEx delivery truck. I stifle my own yelp of terror.
All I can say is, these snacks had better be worth it. They had better be the best sleepover snacks in the history of the world.
* * *
The snacks aren’t amazing, but they’re good. I’ve discovered Nutella—this scrumptious chocolate-hazelnut spread—so I bought a jar of it, plus crackers and fruit to spread it on, and vanilla ice cream, because Nutella is the best ice cream topping ever. Also tortilla chips and stuff to make Mom’s seven-layer dip (memo to braces-wearing self: don’t have any). And cookie dough for these chocolate cookies that have a melted fudgy center.
Kylee and Brianna arrive together after dinner; Brianna had a dinner thing she had to go to with her grandparents. So it’s eight-thirty by the time we spread our sleeping bags on the family room floor and open the Nutella jar.
Thank goodness Hunter is sleeping over at Moonbeam’s house.
Brianna glances up from her phone, where she is busy texting somebody—Isabelle?—to let her eyes roam around the kitchen and family room. “Where’s Hunter?” she asks, as if it would be normal for him to be at home on Friday night to welcome his sister’s friends.
“He’s out all night, hooray, hooray.”
Brianna makes a pouty face.
“No,” I tell her. “No. No. No. You are not going to say what I think you’re going to say.”
“He’s cute, that’s all,” Brianna tells me.
This from the girl who doesn’t think a single boy in our grade is cute.
I might just throw up Nutella-covered crackers, which would be a tragedy, because once you’ve thrown up something, you end up hating the taste of it for a long time afterward. I’ll never forgive Brianna if she ruins Nutella for me.
“Try having him for a brother, and then tell me how cute you think he is.”
“That thing he does with his eyebrows?” Brianna says. “Where it’s like he’s teasing you but only because he likes you? And those curls? I’ve always liked guys with curls. You know, the tousled look. And he’s a drummer. In a band.”
I should change the subject, but I can’t let those comments go unchallenged. I just can’t.
“Well, when he does the stupid eyebrow thing, it’s not because he likes me, it’s because he hates me. And his hair would look better if he occasionally washed it. And I wouldn’t call him a drummer in a band. I’d call him a ‘drummer’ in a ‘band.’” I make big air quotes with my fingers in case she needs help getting the punctuation marks.
“No one ever thinks their own brother is cute,” Brianna says. “Kylee, you’re over here all the time. Do you think Hunter is cute?”
“Not really,” Kylee says loyally. But she’s too darned nice to disagree with Brianna outright. “I mean, I can see how someone would think he’s cute, but he’s not my type.”
I’m relieved Kylee and I can still be friends. Brianna-as-friend may be on the way out.
“This Nutella is awesome!” Brianna says then, through a big mouthful of Nutella-and-cracker.
I thaw toward her a tiny bit. Even if she has this weird thing for my brother and is obsessed with her stupid phone, at least she loves the same snacks I do.
“Movie time?” I ask. “Something scary or something funny?” I have a row of DVDs lined up on the coffee table next to the snacks.
“Do you know what I heard?” Brianna asks, ignoring my question. Whatever she’s going to say is important enough that she actually puts down her phone. “At the student council meeting before school today, we were talking about plans for the dance, and someone suggested having Hunter’s band play.”
“Who?” I demand.
“Some eighth grader who’s friends with your big crush, Cameron, though what you see in him I don’t know—those bangs falling over his face look soooo lame.” Brianna knows I like Cameron, but I’d never, ever tell her about my poems. “Anyway, Cameron’s brother is in the band, too, right? And this kid said they’re really good.”
I can’t decide if I’m irritated that Hunter’s band might be getting a real gig, or proud of him.
One good thing I can think of is that if they play at the dance, Cameron might come in solidarity with them. And if he comes, and if the band plays his ballad again, and if I’m standing right near him, he might ask me to dance. And it might end up being the best night of my life. If. If. If. If.
“Scary or funny?” I ask again, trying to get the sleepover back on track. “Who votes for scary?”
Brianna raises her hand.
“Who votes for funny?”
I put up my own hand this time.
“Kylee, you need to vote to break the tie,” I tell her.
“Um—both?” she says. “Scary first, then funny, so we’re not too scared to sleep.”
“Sounds good to me,” Brianna says.
So that’s what we do, and I eat my way through the Nutella jar, cracker by cracker.