My eyes went wide when I saw the food that Jessi was pulling out of her lunch bag the next day in the cafeteria. A container of perfectly shaped tiny globes of cantaloupe and honeydew melon. A green salad with artfully rolled-up salami and cheese, and radishes cut to look like flowers. A tiny container of dressing.
“Fancy,” Frida said. “Did Emma’s mom pack your lunch?”
Jessi shook her head. “No. Mom’s been feeling all guilty because I’m going to feel ignored when the new baby comes, so she stayed up late last night making this. There’s even a tiny ice pack in here to keep it all fresh.”
“Wow!” I said, peeling the lid off my yogurt cup.
“And there’s a note,” Jessi said. She pulled out a piece of pale purple paper. “Mom wrote me a poem, like those poems we learned how to write in English. Where you take a word, and each letter in the word begins a line of the poem.”
The name for that popped into my head. “An acrostic,” I said.
Jessi nodded. “Yup.” She read the poem and started shaking her head. “Oh gosh. She’s gone off the deep end. ‘J is for the joy you bring me. E is for every day you’ve been in my life.’ ”
“That’s so sweet!” Frida said.
“I guess,” Jessi replied. “She’s just so emotional lately! Dad says it’s the pregnancy hormones. I guess maybe I’ll be glad when this baby finally comes.”
She took a bite of her salad. “Mmm. This is almost as good as what Emma’s mom would pack,” she said, and then she looked around. “Where is Emma, anyway?”
I glanced around the crowded cafeteria and saw Emma sitting with her friends from the Tree Huggers.
“Tree hugging,” I replied. “Well, not literally, but you know what I mean.”
“I guess it’s just the three of us, then,” Frida said. “Have the fabulous five broken up?”
“First of all, when did we ever call ourselves the fabulous five?” Jessi asked. “Secondly, nobody’s breaking up. Look, here comes Zoe.”
Zoe walked over to our table carrying a lunch tray. I noticed that she had a blue streak in her blond hair.
“Hey,” she said, sitting down as though she hadn’t stopped sitting with us for the last week.
“Zoe, your hair looks amazing!” Frida said.
“Kicks blue!” I added.
Zoe shrugged. “Yvette did it for me last night,” she said. “It is so boring being grounded. But I can thank Emma for that.”
Jessi and I looked at each other. It sounded like Zoe was about to get into it.
“So, your mom was pretty mad at you, huh?” Jessi asked. “For going to that concert?”
“She never would have known about it if Emma hadn’t called her,” Zoe said.
I couldn’t keep my thoughts to myself any longer. “But it’s not like Emma called your mom on purpose. She honestly thought you were supposed to be at the Brady McCoy concert with her, and she was worried about you.”
Zoe’s blue eyes flashed. “I tried to tell Emma a million times that I wasn’t going to that dumb concert! But she wouldn’t listen!”
Frida nodded. “That’s true.”
“See? Frida’s taking my side,” Zoe said.
“Well, actually—” Frida began, but Zoe interrupted her.
“What about you, Devin and Jessi?” Zoe asked. “Whose side are you on? Because it seems like you’re on Emma’s side in all of this.”
“Listen, it’s not fair to ask us to take sides,” Jessi said bluntly. “Emma should have listened to you. But it’s your own fault that you went to that concert without telling your mom.”
“Because I couldn’t tell my mom. Don’t you get it?” Zoe shot back. “She’s getting all freaked out about me hanging out with Jasmine and Arthur. She says they’re a bad influence, which is so dumb. Just because their parents let them go to all-ages clubs and take the bus by themselves to places where interesting things happen.”
I thought about my own mom, who I knew wouldn’t let me go to all-ages clubs or take the bus with my friends either. Then I remembered something. “Jasmine has a pink streak in her hair, right? Did your mom let you put the blue in?”
Zoe grimaced. “I didn’t ask her. She grounded me for an extra week.”
“That stinks,” Jessi said. “I’m sorry.”
“Then you get it,” Zoe said. “So that means you’re definitely on my side, right?”
“Zoe, we can’t choose between the two of you,” I said. “Like Jessi said, it’s just not fair. We love you both.”
“This is not about love,” Zoe said firmly. “It’s about what’s right and what’s wrong.”
“How Shakespearean!” Frida chimed in.
“Can’t you and Emma just talk it out?” I suggested, remembering Kara’s advice. “You guys have been friends forever.”
“Well, things change,” Zoe said darkly. “People change.”
Then she got up and walked over to Jasmine and Arthur and sat with them.
“Well, that certainly was a dramatic exit,” Frida remarked.
“This has to stop,” Jessi said. “Like, now.”
“Yeah, but what can we do?” I asked. “Maybe we should wait and let them work it out.”
“Or maybe we should help them,” Jessi said. “Because as my mom’s poem states, ‘S is for your seriousness about your friends and family.’ ”
“Wow, she’s a pretty bad poet,” Frida said.
“Definitely,” Jessi said. “But she’s right. I am very serious about my friends. If Zoe and Emma won’t work this out, we’ll make them work it out.”
I had no idea what Jessi had in mind, but I was glad that she was taking charge of the situation. I just hoped that she could make her plan happen before things got out of control!