Free A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass Page B

there for me.”
    “That’s an apology?” Jenna asks. She crosses her arms in front of her.
    I tug at my ponytail for lack of anything better to do while I think of a response. “It’s half an apology. The other half has to come from you.”
    “You’re the one who kept the secret,” she says pointedly.
    I take a deep breath. “Listen, Jenna, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just couldn’t talk about it. But now I need to talk about it. With
you.
Unless you’ve got a new best friend I should know about. Like the person who gave you that backpack.”
    “This stupid thing? A friend of my father’s gave it to me. I promised my father I’d wear it at least once.”
    I’m relieved it wasn’t from Kimberly or Molly or Sara trying to move in on my best friend while we were in a fight.
    Jenna pulls her clothes out of the closet and lays them on the bed. “I don’t want to fight anymore either. But you don’t know what it’s like finding out something might be wrong with someone you care about. I’ve been there before, and believe me, it’s really scary.”
    I look down at the floor, ashamed. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I’m really sorry if I made you worry.”
    “And I’m sorry I got so mean,” she says, starting to pace. “But I kind of did a bad thing yesterday after you left school early.” Guilt flickers across her face. I recognize it from that time she literally got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She takes a deep breath. “Well, Kimberly was asking me what was going on with you, and at first I told her I didn’t know — because I
didn’t
know — but then when I
did
know and I was so mad at you … well, I told her the truth. About you seeing the colors.”
    “How could you do that?” A dark cloud of dread descends upon me.
    “I’m really sorry.”
    “Who else knows? Wait, if Kimberly knows, then everyone must know!”
    “I’m sure not everyone …,” Jenna says, trailing off and looking everywhere but at me. I can hear the third-grade laughter ringing in my ears all over again. The passage of time doesn’t make it sound any nicer.
    “I’d take it back if I could,” Jenna insists.
    Still stinging from the betrayal, I say coldly, “What’s done is done, right? I’m sure eighth-graders aren’t as cruel as third-graders.”
Yeah, right.
    “No one’s going to make fun of you,” Jenna says. “They’re just curious, that’s all.”
    “We’ll see about that.”
    I hurry out of her house and walk quickly back down the road, suddenly eager to get home. I hate the idea of everybody at school talking about me behind my back. I’d tried so hard to avoid it, and then Jenna, of all people, sets it off.
    Zack is sitting at the kitchen table eating scrambled eggs when I walk in the back door. Seeing him there strikes me as strange. My life is changing by the minute, when for Zack everything is exactly the same as it was yesterday. As I pass by he tosses a handful of salt over his shoulder, spraying me with it.
    “Hey!” I say, brushing the tiny crystals off my jacket.
    “Sorry,” Zack says. “Didn’t see you there.”
    “You better clean that up before Mom sees it. And don’t leave it for Mango to lick up.”
    “Relax,” he says and grabs a sponge from the sink. “If you spill salt, you have to throw some over your left shoulder to appease the evil spirits. No big deal.”
    “The evil
salt spirits?
”
    “Go ahead, make fun,” Zack says. “But Beth knows it’s true.”
    “You’re brainwashing her,” I accuse him. “She never used to be this way.”
    “Hey, the Voodoo Vixen came to me, not the other way around,” he says, stuffing a whole piece of toast in his mouth.
    I head out of the kitchen, and Zack calls after me in a muffled voice. “By the way, if you can’t find Mango, he’s probably hiding in the walls.”
    Like the rest of us, Mango had found the house’s little nooks and crannies that never quite fit together. I go back in the