Free The Baby-Sitters Club Friends Forever #3: Mary Anne’s Big Break-up by Whitney Shimmell Page A

question. “Where is your mom?”
    “She’s here. She’s in bed.”
    “Well, where does she think we are?”
    Jil glanced at Sunny, who had finished puking and had sunk down on the
    porch steps. “She thinks you’re here too. Asleep. I left a not for her that she found when she came home. It said we were tired and had gone to bed early. I had to
    lie to her for you.”
    With that, Jill opened the door the rest of the way and silently held it open
    for us. We slipped inside and she locked it behind us. Then without a word she
    tiptoed through the dark house and upstairs to her room. We followed her. She
    was wearing pajamas with feet in them.
    “Don’t you want to know what happened to us?” Maggie asked her.
    “Not real y.” Jill turned on her light. It was the big overhead light.
    “Oh. Oh, man. That is so bright,” said Sunny moaning. She crawled onto
    the bed and put Jill’s pil ow over her head.
    Jil grabbed it off. “You have been barfing!” she cried. “I don’t want your
    face all over my pillow!”
    Sunny was too miserable to argue. She pul ed off her sweatshirt and put
    that over her head instead.
    “Look, Jil , I know you’re mad – “ I started to say.
    “Of course I’m mad!” she cried. “I hate lying, especial y to my mom. I don’t
    know why I bothered anyway. I should have told her the truth. Why did I even
    cover for you?”
    “We appreciate it,” said Sunny in a small voice from under her sweatshirt.
    “We real y do.”
    That seemed to make a difference to Jil . “You do?” she said.
    “Of course we do,” Maggie and I said together.
    “We real y did try to get home on time,” I added, which wasn’t exactly true.
    “But then things got a little out of control at the party.”
    “Yeah, they older kids started throwing people in the pool,” said Maggie.
    “So then we were, um, trying to dry off so that we, um, wouldn’t be quite such a
    mess when your mom came home.”
    “But it was getting later and later,” I went on. “And then, just when we were
    ready to leave, the police showed up.”
    “The police!” exclaimed Jil , managing to look both amazed and
    disapproving. “Whoa.”
    “Yeah, we don’t know why,” said Maggie.
    “The party was too noisy,” mumbled Sunny.
    “Well, anyway, we didn’t want to get caught, so we just ran out of the yard
    – it was an outdoor party,” I said, “and into the woods, but we didn’t know where
    to go, so we sort of got lost, and even when we finally came to a road, we didn’t
    know where we were. Luckily, Ducky – Ducky McCrae, he’s a sophomore – drove
    by then and gave us a ride over here. And that’s why we’re late.”
    “Boy,” said Jil , now looking almost sympathetic.
    “And I lost my wallet,” said Sunny, briefly lifting up the shirt.
    “What?” said Jill.
    “I lost my wallet. At the party. I think Ducky is – “
    “You lost it at the party?” Jil interrupted her. “Oh, that’s just great. That is
    wonderful. When the police discover it, they’ll cal your house and in two seconds everyone will find out where you al really were tonight, and my mom will know I
    lied to her.”
    “Jil , this is so not about you,” exclaimed Sunny as loudly as she could.
    ”This is about me. How did you manage to turn the conversation around to you?
    Huh?”
    “How did I?” Jill repeated. “Because it is too about me. I’m the one you
    guys ditched tonight. I’m the one who had to cover for you, to tel lies for you. I’m the one-“
    Maggie jumped to her feet. “Okay, okay!” she said. “You know what?
    Everyone is mad. Everyone is tired. It’s really late. I think we should go to sleep now and talk about this in the morning when we’re feeling better.”
    Tuesday 10/7, in study hall
    Feeling better? Ha. What a joke. When we woke up on Sunday morning,
    we were al exhausted, even Jill, since she’d been up later than usual the night
    before. And even Sunny, despite the fact that she had PASSED