3 ½. WHY I WANT TO BEAT AMANDA ANDERSON

I KNOW AMANDA ANDERSON.

I know all the things Amanda loves, even:

1. Smelly lotion. (Blech!)

2. Bows and ribbons. (Who needs ’em?)

3. Princess stories. (No thanks!)

4. Brownly bananas. (Yellow, thank you.)

Yes, I know EVERYTHING about Amanda Anderson. I used to be Amanda’s next door neighbor AND her best friend. I spent the night at Amanda Anderson’s house forty-four and one-half times. The one-half was because of the night we ate chicken teriyaki and I threw it up. I had to go home. The other forty-four times worked out great.

She had a house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms; same as us, but with different wallpaper. Even when me and Amanda were babies, we were best friends. We had a secret Peanut Butter and Jelly handshake. We said, “Ooga booga! Ooga! Booga!” when we wanted to get wild.

Then the Andersons moved! They moved to a house on Windy Hill Drive with six bathrooms. We stayed in our good ol’ house on Cherry Tree Lane. We’ve got one extra room for grandparents and Mom’s sewing machine, and nothing else extra. We’re squeezed in like sardines, but Dad says we like to be cozy. Now we just have a sewing machine in that extra room, ’cause Granny and Grampy went home.

I went over for a play date at the Andersons’ new house. If you yelled in the kitchen, you could hear your voice all over again. You could roll an orange down the counter island for ten whole seconds. I wondered, could toilet paper in one bathroom stretch to the other bathrooms? It could, just barely.

But Amanda didn’t think it was funny.

“You messed up my new house,” Amanda said when her mom drove me home.

“It’s not a house,” I told her. “My mom says it’s a Mick Mansion.”

After that, Mom didn’t have any play dates with Mrs. Anderson, either.

But Mom didn’t even notice. She’s too busy sewing dresses, or sometimes she gets on the train. Dad makes dinner. She’s got to keep meeting with the people at Macy’s, because you never know.