It's My Party and I Don't Want to Go Page 3

  “I saw them together at his soccer practice.”

  “Since when do you play soccer?”

  “Since I snuck out of my study group to go watch Danny Cohen play,” Zoe said. She smiled at my gawk-mouthed expression, then turned to the teeming mass of little kids and clapped her hands. “Okay, everybody! Listen close, because I’m not going to repeat myself!”

  She did repeat herself. Three times. But eventually she got the little kids arranged around the tables with glue sticks and paper to work on their crafts. She walked around each table, cooing over the kids’ projects when they held them up to her and answering their questions, while I wandered around the room trying to look approachable enough for Andrea not to get upset if she walked in but not approachable enough for any of the kids to actually ask me for help.

  After ten minutes or so, most of the kids were quietly absorbed in either making their crafts or peeling dried glue off their skin, so Zoe walked over to me. “I thought about your proposal,” she whispered out of the side of her mouth.

  I knew she was talking about me asking her to be my lookout for my foolproof, one-hundred-percent-perfect, no-way-it-can-fail bat mitzvah sabotage, but I couldn’t resist the obvious joke. “So are you going to marry me?”

  She frowned. “This is serious.” She sighed. It was a gusty sigh, the kind she sighed before giving in. “I’ll do it. But I’ll only be your lookout, and I’m only doing it for the animals.”

  “Woof, woof,” I replied. When she squinted at me with confusion, I translated. “Those were the dogs saying thank you.”

  A grin flashed over her face. “Mroooow. Those were the cats saying you’re welcome.” Then vanished. “And that I’d better not get my phone taken away for this.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “After all, like I said, this plan is absolutely foolproof, one-hundred-percent-perfect, no-way-it— MMPH!”

  For someone so worried about getting her phone taken away and/or going to jail, Zoe was awfully casual about attacking me in front of a room of witnesses.

  There are a lot of good things about summer, but one of the best is that my dad’s always home in the mornings. He’s a teacher at the high school, so we have all the same breaks. As Zoe and I padded into the kitchen in our pajamas, he turned to us with a big grin on his face and a spatula in his hand. “It’s about time you guys got up,” he said. “Did you get tired of sleeping?”

  I rolled my eyes as he burst out laughing. Why was it the best that my dad was home during the summer? It certainly wasn’t because of the corny dad jokes he stored up the whole school year.

  But the smell drifting over toward us from the stove? That tantalizing dance of the caramelized bananas, homemade candied pecans, and frying challah bread soaked in egg wash and sugar?

  I’d roll my eyes through a thousand dad jokes for one slice of that French toast. Zoe told me she wanted to sleep over after our first library volunteering week to celebrate, but I knew it was really about breakfast. And the fact that we got to stay up all night giggling at videos of cats sitting in chairs like people and creeping on our classmates’ social media without getting yelled at.

  “Morning,” Zoe said as we took seats at the table. “Where’s Hannah? Still sleeping?”

  “That’s what happens when you become a teenager, girls,” he said, turning around with a mock stern expression on his face. “Even French toast isn’t enough to get you out of bed.”

  As Zoe began to debate with him that she was almost a teenager and she’d still followed the scent trail of the French toast downstairs the way Dogzilla followed the scent trail of her brother’s dirty socks dropped around the house, I began to zone out. I was still kind of tired, but I wasn’t sure if that’s because I was almost a teenager or because Zoe had kept me up half the night tossing and turning and hitting me with her very sharp elbows.

  I could live with that, though. The only reason I survived our first week of library volunteering was because of her. I was basically her silent shadow as she told kids how to do crafts, read them stories, and helped them and their parents pick out books. So I owed her all the French toast she could eat.

  Speaking of Zoe’s sharp elbows, one hit me in the side right now. I jumped in my seat to find both Zoe and my dad looking curiously at me. Clearly I’d missed a question or something. “I was just asking Uncle Nat about your bat mitzvah plans,” Zoe said, her eyes going cartoonishly wide, her lips making exaggerated movements with every word.

  Maybe I didn’t want her to be my lookout after all. She was the worst liar.

  But it wasn’t like I had anyone else to ask. As it turns out, keeping to yourself and not doing any activities and not talking in front of people didn’t exactly lead to having a lot of friends at school. Or Hebrew school. At least at school I had Zoe.

  Of course, there was Hannah. But if I asked Hannah for help, I’d somehow come out of this whole thing with even more guests at my bat mitzvah than I’d started with.

  Fortunately Dad was looking at me, so he didn’t notice Zoe being ridiculous. “Are you excited, Ells?” he asked. “I know I am! I’m ready for that father-daughter dance.”

  I forced my lips to turn up at the edges, but I was positive my eyes were wild with panic.

  “But, Nat,” Zoe said, still emphasizing every single word. “Maybe you and Ellie should talk about what she wants.”

  My dad’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he piled some French toast on a plate, then drowned it in bananas, sprinkled it with nuts, and slid it over to me. I grabbed a fork. “We already talked about it at our family meeting, right? Anything you want to add, Ells?”

  His eyes were still kind, but now they bored into me. The fire jumped inside me, making sweat pop out on my forehead. He thought everything was fine, but really it wasn’t. If I did what Zoe wanted, I’d be telling him something he didn’t want to hear. Something that would make him look at me differently. My breath caught in my throat. I could just imagine those eyebrows crinkling in disappointment. Really, Ellie? After we paid all this money? You can’t even handle what Hannah did? I thought you were better than that.

  My heart beat like a rabbit’s. “Ells?” my dad prompted. I stared down at the French toast on my plate. The French toast! Hannah’s fiery cake had been my undoing, but this pastry could save me by buying me more time. Pastry redemption! I grabbed my fork and stuffed an enormous bite in my mouth.

  And promptly choked. This was it, then. This was how I would die.

  Eliana Rachel Katz, age twelve, choked to death Wednesday morning on a bite of banana-pecan French toast, with her father and best friend at her side. Her best friend cried, “I shouldn’t have forced her into an awkward conversation! Really, this is all my fault.” Her father said, “I don’t understand how this could have happened. Her older sister, Hannah, makes eating French toast look fun and easy.” Because “nobody wastes food in this house” (a quote from the deceased’s mother), witnesses wrapped up the remainder of the deceased’s French toast and stored it carefully in the fridge for tomorrow’s breakfast.

  “Ells?” My dad slid a glass of water over toward me. “Here, take a drink.”

  In between the coughs, I grabbed the glass and gulped down a few sips. The blockage in my throat slid down to my stomach in one solid, uncomfortable lump. I swallowed again to test my throat. It was sore.

  “What were you saying before you almost keeled over, Ellie?” Zoe prompted. Her eyes were boring into me, too. It was like she and my dad were having a contest to see who could drill into my skull with their eyes. They were both losing, because it was physically impossible to drill through bone with eye beams, but they were trying really, really hard.

  I swallowed again. It came easier this time. “What song did you have in mind for our dance?” I asked. Zoe huffed a sigh, but I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t. This was an impossible conversation, really. No matter what direction I went in, I’d be disappointing somebody.

  And I’d rather disappoint Zoe
than my parents.

  Dad’s eyes lit up with excitement. See? I’d done the right thing. He rattled off a bunch of songs I’d never heard of, but I nodded along, pretending like I knew them. And then he snapped his fingers. “That reminds me. Thanks for bringing your bat mitzvah up. Your invitations came in yesterday!”

  “Oh, really?” I tried to sound casual, but inside my heart was racing again. This was it, then. Part one of the plan: Get rid of the invitations and make sure nobody realizes it until it’s too late to send out more. If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound if no one’s there to hear it? And if there’s a bat mitzvah, is it really going to happen if nobody’s there to see it?

  Okay, Ellie. Sound normal. You can do this. “So, what’s the plan? With the invitations? Who’s going to mail them out and when?”

  Dad blinked. “Those are some very specific questions,” he said. I braced myself for the interrogation to follow, but he only shrugged. “I printed out some address labels for the guest list, so you’ll have to apply them. Then whoever’s around will drop them in the mailbox, I guess.”

  This was my chance. I popped up from my seat, the rest of my French toast forgotten. Which just goes to show you how big a deal this was. “Zoe and I can do the address labels now.”

  “Wow, I didn’t have to threaten you or anything,” he said lightly. “You must be really excited for your bat mitzvah!”

  I swallowed. Somehow, this time, it hurt again. “Something like that.”

  “Well, I won’t hold you back,” Dad said. “If you and Zoe want to get started, they’re all stacked together on Mom’s desk.”

  I flashed him a thumbs-up. “Got it.” I grabbed Zoe by the arm.

  “I’m not done eating!” she protested. But I gave her arm a tug, and she stuffed one last bite in her mouth, then followed after me, grumbling the whole time. “When I agreed to this stupid plan of yours, I didn’t know I’d have to sacrifice my French toast.”

  “Ssssshhh!” I hissed, looking around to make sure nobody had heard. “You can have more later.”

  “Sure, when it’s all cold and soggy and blah.”

  I tuned Zoe out as we headed toward the office, which was really just a nook on the side of the living room where Mom had a desk. I didn’t see why she needed a desk at home when she already had a perfectly good desk at work. Zoe and I passed by the squashy brown couch and the coffee table where I wasn’t allowed to leave any papers or books or anything (which seemed unfair, since Mom’s desk was covered in papers).

  Today, a stack of those papers was my invitations. A big fat stack. I grabbed them, flipping through to make sure I had the right thing. Yep, these were the pink-and-silver invitations I’d selected from the big book of choices, with Mom and Dad proudly inviting over a hundred people to celebrate the bat mitzvah of Eliana Rachel Katz.

  “Those are a lot of invitations,” Zoe observed.

  “Thanks, Captain Obvious.” I scanned the desk for the address labels, then grabbed them all, too. Not that I’d be using any of them, but Mom and Dad would be awfully suspicious if I claimed that the invitations had been sent out to Uncle Barry and his wife and Cousin Jeff and his husband if Uncle Barry’s and Cousin Jeff’s addresses were still hanging out here on the desk. “Okay, I think we’re good.”

  “Good is the exact opposite of what we are,” Zoe muttered, but I ignored her and clutched the invitations to my chest as I dragged her back to my room. I heard Hannah groan for me to be quiet across the hall just before I slammed my door extra hard.

  It was time for her to wake up anyway.

  Safe in my room, I stuffed the invitations under my mattress. “There, that was easy,” I said with satisfaction.

  Zoe rolled her eyes. “Yeah, until it comes time to mail them out.”

  I tapped the side of her head. “I’m going to tell my dad that my mom took them, and my mom that my dad took them,” I said. “Like I said. Easy.”

  I expected Zoe to grumble some more, but instead, she sighed with relief. “Good, I’m glad that’s over, then.”

  I shook my head. “Over? Oh, it’s not over.” I smiled at her. “We’re just getting started.”

  As expected, my invitations plan went off without a hitch. The invitations and the labels got dusty under my mattress as I told Dad I’d given them all to Mom to drop into the mailbox, and vice versa. They just nodded distractedly at me and said thank you.

  I told Zoe this when she came to sleep over after our second week at the library. Just like the first week, I’d spent it stuck to Zoe’s side so that I didn’t have to talk to anyone I didn’t know. I even got to spend some time shelving books. It was wonderfully peaceful. “It’s working so far, which just means we have to keep going,” I said.

  She sighed. “Fine. What’s next?”

  The invitations had been dealt with, but that didn’t mean I was safe. My parents could still realize something was up: One of their temple friends could ask if their invitation had been lost in the mail, because they’d seen my bat mitzvah date on the schedule but hadn’t received their invitation yet. Or my parents could start to wonder why they weren’t getting any RSVPs. I might have cut one bat mitzvah branch off the tree, but I had to attack this thing at the roots. Like, pour some bleach on them so that the whole tree withered and died.

  “This metaphor is going kind of far,” Zoe said, sounding worried. “We’re not actually cutting down a tree, right?”

  Anyway. If my parents realized something had gone wrong with the invitations, they could still send out a mass text or email and do their best to assemble the Old Person Squad.

  “But the Old Person Squad can’t assemble if there’s nowhere for them to go,” I said with relish. The feeling of a plan well-done actually tasted a little bit like relish in my mouth, tangy and sweet. “So we’re going to cancel the venue.”

  “Right.” Zoe groaned, flopping down on my beanbag chair. It squished out around her like it was trying to absorb her into its depths. “You’re going to hack into your mom’s email.”

  The way she said it sent a nervous flutter through my insides. “It’s not really hacking,” I said. “I know my mom’s password. It’s just hannahellie. She uses it for everything.”

  “That’s a terrible password. It doesn’t even have any numbers.”

  “I know.”

  “If you have the password, couldn’t we just log into it at my house?” Zoe asked. “Then you don’t have to worry about her catching you.”

  I shook my head grimly. “I wish,” I said. “But what if she happened to log in at the same time I was typing out the email to the venue? I’d get caught right away. No, I have to do it here, at home, while you’re keeping an eye out, so that I know we’ll be safe.”

  “Do it on your phone,” Zoe said. “Then we can just pretend we’re doing whatever, and I wouldn’t even have to be a lookout.”

  I shook my head even more grimly. “I don’t have the email app on my phone, since I don’t have an email, and my parents have a block on downloading new apps. So it has to be on my mom’s laptop.”

  “It’s like your mom is making this difficult on purpose,” Zoe mumbled.

  “Well, she kind of is,” I said. “It’s not like she wants us to do this.”

  Zoe mumbled the next thing even more quietly, so that I couldn’t quite hear, but it sounded a lot like Neither do I.

  “Woof, woof,” I barked. She glared at me. I grinned back, exposing my sharp canines. Canines as in dogs. Get it?

  She did not. She drew back. “You look like you’re going to eat me.”

  “I promise I won’t,” I said, but she didn’t look any less weirded out.

  Just then, the whine of a lawn mower drifted in from outside the window. I sat bolt upright in bed. “That would be Mom mowing the lawn,” I said. She liked doing it for some reason, something about being surrounded by the smell of freshly cut grass. And it was literally the perfect time to go into her email, because she wouldn’t stop mo
wing the lawn in the middle. If for some reason she did, we’d hear the lawn mower switch off and have time to escape before she came inside. “If we’re lucky, Dad’ll be out running errands. That means your job is just to make sure Mom doesn’t come into the office!”

  I tried to make it sound like I was telling her that her new bedtime was midnight, but she wasn’t buying it. “You’re lucky I’m such a good friend,” she informed me, and I nodded, because even though she was being all grumbly, I was lucky to have her in my life. I didn’t know what I’d do without her.

  And not just with my foolproof, one-hundred-percent-perfect, no-way-it-can-fail plan. With life in general. Like at the library, making sure I didn’t have to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with. Or at school. Sure, there were girls I sat with in the cafeteria when Zoe and I didn’t have the same lunchtime and other girls I partnered with for group projects when Zoe and I weren’t in the same class, but I didn’t really talk to them. Definitely not the way I talked to Zoe. I drew her in for a quick, tight hug, which pulled a squawwwk out of her. “Very birdlike,” I told her. She beamed, taking it as a compliment. “Now let’s go.”

  We exited my room, and walked straight into …

  … Hannah. “Good morning,” she said. Her eyes raked over me. I flushed, because I knew she was totally judging me for still wearing those patterned matching pajama tops and bottoms Nana got us for Chanukah every year instead of an old T-shirt and men’s boxers, which was what she and her friends had deemed the acceptable kind of pajamas.

  I really didn’t need her here right now. Especially not with our plan so time-sensitive and ready to go. I jutted out my chin. “Good morning. Um, going somewhere?”

  “Where would I be going?” She sounded surprised.

  Which was ridiculous, because she was literally always going somewhere. Hannah could never just be by herself. She had an ever-growing and changing list of best friends. If she wasn’t out at one of her (many) activities, she was at a friend’s house or an acquaintance’s house or, I don’t know, probably a stranger’s house. Which would usually be dangerous, but with Hannah’s laugh and charm and talkative personality, they wouldn’t be a stranger by the end of the day.