8

Sipping with the Enemy

“DO EITHER OF YOU know the answer to number thirteen?”

I was on 2Face again, doing homework with JC and Leilani. Hearing a murmur from the other person in the room, I scanned to the top of my paper and answered out loud. “Sure, JC . . . I got 148.04.”

There was a pause—a long one, where I could only see the top of JC’s head. She was probably doing the problem again and checking my answer against her own.

Sure enough, the next thing she said was “That’s not right.”

“It’s right. I multiplied it out again. I’m doing all the division problems first, and then—”

“Yeah, but Lani says it’s 148. You’re supposed to round it to the nearest tenth.”

I grimaced. “I know that. If you’d let me finish, I was going to say that I was doing all the division problems first, then going back and doing the rounding.”

“That’s not how I would do it,” Leilani’s voice sounded tinny through the speaker.

JC agreed, sounding anxious like she always did about math. “Yeah, Serena. What if you forget? Then they’re all wrong.”

I sighed. How many times did we have to do this? “I won’t forget. I have it written down as a step. That’s what Mr. Van said to do—to break up a problem and do it in steps, remember?”

“Uh-huh.” JC sounded distracted, and I swallowed a sigh. JC and I did homework on 2Face a lot even before her surgery and everything. If I couldn’t be right there with her, it was the next best thing. I didn’t know how she’d done it as a three-way call, though. That was some kind of paid service, and Fallon and I could only have the free one. Still, since JC hated math, her parents got her all the help they could get. And it helped her to talk to me AND Leilani. Even though I could barely hear Leilani’s voice, I felt upset and ignored, but I was trying my best not to be a baby about it. JC was my best friend. If doing math with both of us helped JC understand it better, I wouldn’t be a good best friend if I complained.

Right?

After a long moment, JC spoke again. “Have you done any word problems?”

“Eew, no,” I jumped in. “I wish Mr. Van wouldn’t give us so many of those. Twelve for one assignment is ridiculous.”

“I know, right? Okay, Lani says the first one is—”

“Wait, don’t tell me!” I exclaimed. “I can do it!” I didn’t need math help, especially not from Leilani Camacho, no matter how smart Mr. Van thought she was.

“Well, hurry up,” JC said. “We’re almost done, and Lani did the word problems first.”

“How are you almost done?” I complained. “I’m on fifteen, and didn’t you just ask me about thirteen?”

“Lani’s done, and I’m almost done,” JC repeated. “And I’m going to hang up pretty soon. Lani’s mom brought boba tea, and I want mine.”

I looked up from my paper. “Wait. Leilani’s at your house? Right now?”

JC’s face came back into focus, and she panned the camera around. “Look, she’s right here. I told you she was going to do math with us!”

I opened my mouth to say I wished JC had invited me over, then bit my tongue. I didn’t want to sound pathetic. “I know, I just thought . . .” I shook my head. Boba and homework help and Leilani. And here I was, at home with my water bottle, doing problems all on my own. “Um, never mind. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay, I’ll call you tonight. Ooh! There are these little crepe things you’d like, Serena! I’ll have to ask Mrs. Camacho how to make them. Oh—listen, Lani says to tell you she’ll call you later.”

She will? I said a hurried goodbye, but JC had already ended our session.

I hadn’t said anything to Leilani Camacho since the Thursday Mr. Van gave her my class ambassador job. As far as I’m concerned, we don’t need to talk to each other ever.

Leaving behind my word problems, I wandered into the living room. I found the distraction I was looking for sitting on the couch and playing a game on her phone.

“Hey, Flea? What are we doing for Halloween?”

My sister didn’t look up. She’s doing this thing where she ignores Mom and me when we use her baby name. I kind of don’t blame her, though; Mom called me “Rena-Beana” for ages.

I sighed loudly. “Fallon?”

“What?” She looked up at last.

“Halloween. It’s coming up soon. What are we doing?”

“Who’s this ‘we’?”

I rolled my eyes. Jeez, my sister was so annoying. “You know what? Never mind.”

Fallon smirked down at her phone. “Sharyn and Laine and I are going to the corn maze at Ardenwood.”

I sighed and wandered into the kitchen. Last year, Mom worked on Halloween, so Fallon went to NewPark Mall’s haunted house in her Hogwarts robe, while JC and I ordered pizza and watched a movie while we handed out candy. JC liked handing it out in our neighborhood, because unless all her little cousins came over, there weren’t enough kids in hers. That night, Fallon and her friend Sharyn crashed our party like an hour into the movie. Even though they made fun of what we were watching (The Dark Crystal is the best movie ever, and my sister has zero taste) and ruined what was supposed to be our private pizza party, Sharyn gave us facials and crazy manicures, and Fallon brought out her colored chalk and we all striped our hair. We let them eat the rest of our pizza for that.

I couldn’t help but think that Halloween this year wasn’t going to be anywhere near as fun. Not with JC stuck at home, not even getting to hand out candy. Not with Leilani hanging around.

So Leilani was supposed to call me tonight. I scowled as I rummaged in the kitchen cupboard for Mom’s tin of Godiva. If I had to chitchat with the enemy, I needed hot chocolate.