“Hey, look, it’s Diana Ross!” Nia said to me as she walked into my house and handed me a small box on Christmas Eve.

“Very funny,” I said, annoyed by her mocking of my newfound interest—but, also, not gonna lie, I did like being compared to one of the greatest superstars of all time.

Olive handed me a small red gift bag. “Happy holidays,” she said.

“Thanks, friends!” I replied with a hug. We’d met up to make some holiday cookies and exchange gifts before Christmas Day. The girls followed me toward the kitchen, where Luisa, our housekeeper, was at the sink washing dishes, and we took out the cookie dough and baking sheets.

“These are for you,” I said as I handed them their gifts. I’d bought them both peppermint hand lotion and mini manicure kits, figuring they could use them after we got our hands dirty making the cookies.

“How’s prepping for the play?” Olive asked.

“It’s a lot of work already and we haven’t even officially started rehearsals! I have a lot of lines to memorize,” I explained. “But it’s really exciting. And the seventh and eighth graders have been really nice to me so far—they’ve sent me a couple of emails and Instagram DMs congratulating me.”

“That’s nice,” Nia said. “So there’s no jealousy among the cast, like from older kids who might have thought they should have gotten the part above you?” she asked. She raised her eyebrow. Was she trying to tell me something?

I felt myself getting defensive. “Well, there’s no jealousy on this ensemble.” Which was true…at least so far.

“Good,” Nia said, and I swore she rolled her eyes as she turned away. “Well, you missed out on a lot of things going on with us.”

“Like what? What have I missed?” Had they been hanging out without me again?! Had they been talking behind my back while they hung out? Had Nia been trash-talking my acting abilities to Olive? I blinked repeatedly, frustrated.

“Well, you know, lots been going on with us, like…you know, stuff…”

“You haven’t missed a thing, June, I don’t know what Nia’s talking about,” Olive chimed in with a smile and a shrug. “It’s holiday break, nothing’s going on.” Then why had Nia made it sound like I was missing out on all this amazing stuff? Like they had been bouncing from mall to mall and ice-skating and rocking around the Christmas tree without me? We had a group text that basically tracked all of our whereabouts because we were always in touch, so I liked to think I knew exactly where they’d been—home, maybe the grocery store, and maybe one trip to the mall. Was Nia just trying to annoy me? Was this what happened when actors finally got their big break—their friends that weren’t so big got jealous?

“Great, so let’s make some stuff happen tonight!” I joked and forced a huge laugh.

Nia opened the cookie dough package and mixed in extra chocolate chips. She started spooning small balls onto the baking sheet.

“How’s Alvin so far?” she asked. “He’s gonna be the Scarecrow, right? Can he really sing?”

“Yeah!” I said. “He came over the other day and we rehearsed.” My voice got higher in pitch and I found myself speaking twice as fast. “He sounds just like Michael Jackson did in the movie. I was so surprised. His voice! And there was this one scene where we have to dance down the yellow brick road and he can really dance, too. And he said I made a great Dorothy.”

“Riiiiight,” Nia said. “Alvin’s got you very excited, June.”

“What? No!” I said. Suddenly I felt an itch in my nose. Was I excited? “I’m just saying he’s a good actor.”

“We got it, girl,” Nia said, smiling. “Alvin is your Scarecrow. You and Alvin, following that yellow brick road, wink wink.” She scooped the final cookie dough ball onto the sheet. Luisa helped us put it in the oven.

“Anyway, what’s up with Lee?” Nia said, quickly changing the subject. “Is he, like, building stuff?”

Oh no, the dreaded Lee topic. No matter how slowly we got to me admitting the truth, it was for sure going to end uncomfortably, and I couldn’t put it off any longer. It was going to have to happen soon—if not now. I paused and took a breath. “He’s helping build the set, yes,” I said.

“Like, what part of the set?”

“Like, you know how the Scarecrow is on the farm, so he’s building farm stuff, and the yellow brick road, and Oz! I haven’t seen him much since the break started.”

I felt warm. Maybe it was because the oven was on? Or because I knew I should admit to Nia that Lee wants to hang out with her. I needed to just say it. The longer I held it in, the more uncomfortable I felt. It was making me feel sick to hold in the truth in front of Nia.

“June’s always had a thing for Lee, but she just won’t admit it,” Nia said to Olive, and smiled with one corner of her mouth.

I stammered and started to sweat. It felt like my throat was swelling up. I certainly didn’t want to release the deep yet super top-secret feelings I had for my friend that made me blush and fidget. But I had to tell the truth. I was sweating—why was it so hot in here? Did Luisa turn the oven temperature up? Victoria! Dang it! Okay. Here goes.

“Well…um…well, no that’s not…,” I said. I felt a rush of words coming up to my throat. I had to get out the truth. At least telling the truth about Lee wanting to hang out with Nia would help me keep quiet about my secret crush on Lee. To protect my feelings, I could tell Nia about Lee’s real feelings. I was still telling the truth either way—and maybe Victoria would acknowledge it and release me out of this spell! “Anyway, I’m like hyperfocused on this play now, and…I think…you know…Lee, may, like, might be feeling you now.”

“What do you mean? Did he say something about me?” Nia said eagerly, leaning forward over the counter with a spoon in hand.

“Well, he said he wanted to hang out with you,” I said.

“He did? When? Hang out with me when? Where? Tell me!”

I shoved a dozen loose chocolate chips in my mouth, then a half dozen more, hoping that if I kept my mouth full of chocolate, I wouldn’t be able to spill all the details about the bike ride and Lee’s confession weeks ago. But now that I had broken the news, I had to tell the entire story.

I felt a sneeze coming on. Of course Victoria wouldn’t let this moment pass without forcing me to give a true confessional. I tried to fight the urge to sneeze, but the itching increased, like I’d just inhaled a super-fuzzy cat up my nose, and all of a sudden my face crinkled and I let out a huge aaaachhoooooo!!!…along with a mouthful of chocolate chips, which came shooting out of my mouth across the kitchen, almost hitting Olive.

“Girl, be careful!” Nia said. “Are you taking anything for those allergies?”

“No…Like I said, Lee told me that he wanted to hang out with you the last time we took a bike ride.” I took a breath and continued. “Before Thanksgiving.”

Nia looked at me, surprised. “That was, like, weeks ago. And you didn’t say anything?”

“I was waiting until you came over on Black Friday.”

“But you didn’t tell me then,” Nia said. She looked confused.

“I—I didn’t know how to bring it up,” I stammered.

“But it’s been like a month!” Nia said. “Why haven’t you told me this? We could have made plans to hang out over winter break! We could have all gone shopping together or gone ice-skating in the town square!”

“I…um…yes…we could have…. And we still can! Lee would like that,” I said.

Nia’s eyes narrowed. She jerked her head back as if she’d just figured out the solution to a complex math problem. “Oh, I know what this is. I know what this is.”

I started to blink hard. “What, it’s not anything! I just didn’t know how to bring it up. It was a few weeks ago and I, um, didn’t think about it much since then,” I said.

Aaachhoooo! Aaaaaachhoooo! I sneezed. That was a lie. I had thought about how to talk about this pretty much every moment I wasn’t thinking about The Wiz.

Nia’s face turned cold as she slowly backed away from the counter. “Lee is your best guy friend. You’ve known each other basically since birth, and you know you’ve had a crush on him for a long time now, even though you’re too shy to admit it. You of all people would know if he had feelings for some other girl. And now he finally admits to you that he wants to hang out with me and you get scared. So you just don’t tell me. Because you’re jealous!”

“That’s not true!” I said, panicking. But I knew it was. My stomach started to gurgle. The itch in my nose felt like sandpaper on my sinuses by now. “I just…I just didn’t think…I didn’t…”

I knew Victoria was going to come out of nowhere somehow and smack me with fairy dust and make me sneeze like a hyena with hay fever and totally embarrass me in front of Nia and Olive any minute now. I tried to hedge my bets with her and jump in with some kind of truth.

“Okay!” I admitted. “I guess I knew about it and thought about it, but I figured I should stay out of it. I figured he would eventually bring it up to you himself.”

Nia stared at me blankly. She pushed into the swinging door, walking out of the kitchen and toward the front door. Her feet made hard stomping sounds with each step, loud enough to wake the dead. I knew this was not going to end well. I followed her down the front hall, desperate to stop her from leaving—if she left, who knew if we could fix it?

“Girl, I cannot believe you,” Nia said as she stomped. “You just wanted Lee to yourself, so you didn’t even tell me he asked about me. You’re supposed to be my BFF! That’s so not cool, June.”

Nothing I said at this point, especially if I confessed the full truth, was going to change Nia’s mind about how this had gone down. I tried to push words out of my mouth, but nothing would come out.

She grabbed her coat and put on her shoes. “You of all people should’ve known to tell me the truth,” Nia said coldly. “I know you can’t lie, because of that spell or whatever that fairy lady put on you in that fun house. All I know is you must have been working extra hard to keep this from me because of it. I’m out. And don’t bother texting or calling.”

CONFESSION #89:

I hid the truth from my two best friends. Yes, it was a bad thing to do. No, it won’t help me get Victoria’s spell canceled. But I…don’t know. Lee and I have known each other since, like, forever. We spend every summer together. Nia doesn’t even know what his favorite food is (cheese). I’m the one who’s already met Chadwick! Yes, I should’ve told them. I would want her to tell me if somebody had a crush on me.

This is bad. Awful. Now Nia is going to talk to Lee and tell him what I did and I’m going to look like the worst friend ever—the worst PERSON ever! Now I’m going to be the third wheel and they’ll start hanging out and riding bikes together and getting ice cream and he’ll never come over for Sunday dinner or jump on my trampoline ever again. And Nia will only want to hang out with Lee and never have any time for me. And I will be alone. Forever. Just me and my laptop and my dolls.

Unless Alvin wants to hang out…