The tower swayed under Forest’s weight. It shook and shuddered. His toes were slipping.…
The butterflies in Olive’s stomach were like a flood—no, a stampede. Forest was going to fall right onto the table of presents.
Thankfully, Forest easily crawled down the tower like a spider and ran toward Olive. Relief washed over her.
“Forest, you can’t climb on everything like you do at home…” she started.
He pulled a fistful of bright yellow tulips from behind his back and wiggled them in Olive’s face. “Present for Josie.”
“Flowers?” Olive quickly scanned the yard and spotted the big hole Forest had made in the flower patch. Uh-oh.
“Flowers as present? No, Olive.” Forest shook his head, as if giving flowers as a present was the craziest idea in the world. “Look.”
Olive looked closer and saw the fat, pink worms curled in the dirt dangling from the flowers’ roots. She took the little guys into her hands, and Forest threw the wormless flowers over his shoulder.… And they hit Mrs. Letay right in the face.
Olive burned red all the way down to her toes.
“Forest,” Mrs. Letay said through gritted teeth. Olive quickly put the worms in her pocket while Mrs. Letay bent down to get the torn-up tulips. “Did you pull these up from my flower garden?”
Forest’s face was getting red, too, like it did when he realized he had done something wrong but didn’t know what or why. Forest didn’t know that grown-ups like to keep flowers in the ground, just to look at. Olive didn’t really get it, either.
Okay—quick thinking.
“Mrs. Letay, Forest was just letting the flowers … breathe. We’ll put them back now, good as new.”
Mrs. Letay handed the tulips to Olive. She was about to say something but caught sight of the dog trying to drink from the punch bowl again. “Rex!” she called, running away.
“Forest, there you are!” Josie screamed. She was getting into the bounce house. “Come bounce!”
“Bounce with me, Forest!” another partygoer cried.
“No, bounce with me!”
No one had noticed Forest until Josie did—but that was one of the things that was special about Josie. People caught her excitement for things like it was the flu.
Forest tugged Olive’s arm, pulling her toward the bounce house, but Olive didn’t budge. She needed to put the flowers back—fix things—before doing anything else. “Go ahead, Forest. I’ll be there in a sec,” Olive said.
Forest was giving her a case of the Worries. Big time. Maybe bouncing would keep him busy for a while. She could join Forest—and Josie—as soon as she put the tulips back.
Forest darted away again, climbed up the side of the bounce house, and rolled over the top, landing with a plop and a bounce. Josie squealed with happiness. Olive gently buried the tulips back in the dirt until they were good as new. Now she could work on making friends.
Yep. It was that easy. I will go hang out with Josie.
Olive brushed the dirt off her pants and walked right to the edge of the crowd of kids around the bounce house. There were a lot of them. She shouted, “Excuse me!” and “Can I get through?” until she practically lost her voice, but Forest didn’t hear her. He kind-of-maybe saw her for a second, but then Josie pulled him into a double-spin bounce and he disappeared.
Olive suddenly felt very, very small.
Someone tapped her shoulder. Turning, she saw a boy a whole head shorter than her whose jet-black hair pointed up like a shark fin.
“Excuse me your bow is crooked,” he said in one breath.
“No, it’s not.” Olive reached up and touched the bow. It totally was. “It’s supposed to be like that.”
“Oh, okay.” The boy adjusted his glasses. “Are you Olive? I’ve heard Forest talk about you. He’s in one of my after-school groups. I’m in second grade.” The boy said everything really fast, like the words were hot and burning his tongue.
“Yeah. I’m Olive.”
“I’m Herbert.” His shark-fin hair swayed side to side. “Colton calls me Her-bot. Like robot? He says it like it’s a bad thing, but it’s really not.”
Olive made a face. The syllables of Colton’s name—COL. TON.—were like two annoying pokes in her ears. He was not very nice.
“Forest lives with you, right?” Herbert asked.
“Right.” Olive had spent a lot of time trying to explain Forest to people. “We’re best friends, but sometimes I call him my frother, because he’s like my friend and my brother, and he calls me his frister because I’m like his friend and sister. There’s not a good real word for it, so we made some up.”
“Cool.” Herbert stood there, not talking. Did he run out of words because he was saying them so fast? Am I making friends? What should I do next? Her brain was a spinning top. Before she could think of anything else, her hand shot up in the air.
“High five?” she said uncertainly.
Herbert immediately slapped her palm with his. His hand was sticky with something, but she didn’t even wipe hers on her pants. Forest wouldn’t be grossed out by sticky stuff, and neither would she.
They had high-fived the quietness away. Olive told him about the gymnastics class she and Forest took after school, and Herbert talked excitedly about knights, his favorite topic. Knights had squires. Knights went on quests. Knights had to eat bugs when they were traveling in the countryside.
Olive remembered the worms in her pocket. “I forgot about these guys.” She plucked them out of her overalls and reached out her hand to show Herbert. Except he wasn’t interested. Instead he jumped, screamed, and fell backward onto the ground.
Oh, no! Olive crouched down, cupping the worms close to her chest. Herbert’s eyes were wide with fear.
“Sorry, Herbert, I didn’t know you were afraid of worms,” she said.
“What?!” he said, his voice high. “I’m not!”
Yell-y voice. Big eyes. Crinkled forehead. All the things her brother, Ryan, did when he insisted he wasn’t afraid of frogs. But when Forest brought a frog inside the house, Ryan had run away screaming.
“I won’t get them in your face again, I promise.”
Herbert uncrinkled his forehead and sat up as Olive unfurled her hands. The worms squirmed around in her palms. “My mom would say it’s none of my business but … why do you have worms in your pocket?” he asked.
“This is Forest’s gift to Josie. He likes to dig them up because it reminds him of living in the trees. Sometimes we play a game and figure out what letters they look like.”
Herbert leaned forward and pointed. “This one kind of looks like the letter S.”
Olive tilted her head. “That one does, too.” She realized a lot of worms look like the letter S. She put them on the ground, and Herbert breathed a sigh of relief.
“Olive! Come fly!” Forest called. Olive and Herbert had to look way, way up to see him—he was jumping so high, he blotted out the sun. Kids clung to his arms like they were all monkeys in a barrel. And when Forest jumped, they jumped, too. He did a double jump. Then a double backflip. Then a triple backflip. His T-shirt billowed out like a parachute.
“Look!”
Bounce.
“Olive!”
Bounce. Bounce.
“Come!”
Bounce.
Finally, Forest could help her get in.
“Herbert, come on,” Olive called. “Let’s go bounce.”
But Herbert stayed stuck in place. “Actually, the bounce house is kind of crazy right now and I get nervous around so many people so I’m just going to hang out here for a while,” he said, digging his shoe into the dirt again. His shark fin drooped to one side, like it was sad, too.
Olive paused. She felt as though her body was a magnet being pulled in two directions. But she couldn’t leave the only friend she had made at the party. And she also didn’t want to.
“How about we play with Josie’s bunny, instead?” Olive asked.
Herbert’s face lit up. “I’m not scared of bunnies.”
“Hey, Forest!” Olive yelled. “Herbert and I are going to pet the bunny!”
Forest yelled something back, but Olive and Herbert were already running to the bunny enclosure.