Free My Extra Best Friend by Julie Bowe Page B

my fist around the note.
    Take out another piece of paper.
    Dig out my most unfavorite gel pen. Scribble down the words.
    I hope your parents L-O-V-E love the card. Let me know if you need help addressing the envelope.
    I
    I let the note fall through the crack.
    Wait.
    Snatch the next one up.
    We learned how to address envelopes in third grade. Duh-member?
    L
    Of course I remember. But I thought you must have been sick that day since you for sure didn’t know how to address an envelope to me when you moved to Albuquerque.
    I
    I drop the note through the crack just as Alex steps into the room. “Quiet Time is over,girls. You can get dressed for the beach.”
    I wait until Elizabeth goes to the bathroom to change, then I slide down from my bunk.
    “I’ll swim with you right after Randi and I race Rusty and Joey around the raft,” Jenna tells me. She holds up her beach towel so I can change behind it. “They challenged us after our team beat the pants off their team in kickball.”
    “Great,” I mumble, putting on my blue two-piece. “Brooke already asked Stacey to be her swimming buddy. That means I’m stuck with
you know who
.”
    “Don’t worry,” Jenna says from the other side of the towel. “It won’t take us long to beat the boys again.”
    I take the towel as Jenna slips behind it to change.
    The bathroom door opens. Elizabeth steps out, dressed in
her
swimsuit. It’s the first time I’ve seen it, since she didn’t take the swim test yesterday.
    Two-piece.
    Bright blue.
    Exactly
like mine.
    I do a gasp.
    “What is it?” Jenna asks, peeking out from behind the towel.
    “She’s got the
same suit,
” I wheeze.
    Elizabeth walks up to us. “I know, I saw yours yesterday before you ran away to find…what was it? Oh yeah, something you lost.”
    No words come out of me even though my jaw is practically touching my chest. Elizabeth does that smile again. “Imagine my surprise when I saw that your suit was blue. I mean, your best color is
pink
. It’s
always
been pink.”
    Jenna steps out from behind the towel. “Ida had hers first,” she tells Elizabeth. “Go change.”
    Elizabeth snorts. “Into what? My birthday suit?”
    “Fine with me.” I finally find my voice. “Anything’s better than looking like twins.”
    Elizabeth’s face pinches. “If you want to wear
your
birthday suit, go ahead,” she replies. “I’m wearing
this
.” Then she does a sassy turn, sets her goofy glasses next to her orange bird, and picks up a lumpy beach bag.
    I shove the towel back into Jenna’s hands andstomp over to Randi. “I need to borrow a T-shirt,” I tell her, loud enough for Elizabeth to hear. “Something in an extra-large.”
    “Sure thing,” Randi replies. She digs through her bag and pulls out a crumpled shirt. “This one is extra-
extra
-large.”
    Randi holds up the biggest, reddest T-shirt I’ve ever seen.
Peterson Plumbing
is printed on the front. So is a smiling toilet.
    Randi grins. “Compliments of my dad.”
    I blink at the T-shirt. Do I want to wear a ginormous smiling toilet in public? No. But do I want to match Elizabeth Evans? Double no.
    Sometimes you have to choose between the things you
don’t
want the most.
    I grab the shirt and slip it on over my suit.
    The sleeves hang past my elbows.
    The toilet touches my knees.
    I hear snickering and look at Elizabeth. She bites back a smile.
    “You’re joking, right?” Brooke says, giving me the once-over. “You’re not actually going to wear that thing to the beach.”
    I sigh. “That’s my plan.”
    Brooke sniffs. “Then
my
plan is to swim as far away from you as possible.”
    She slips on her buggy sunglasses, takes Stacey’s hand, and heads out the door.
    Click!
    Meeka looks up from her camera. “Got it!” she says, smiling at me.
    “Meeka!” I shout. “I don’t want a picture of me wearing this!”
    “But it’s a memory,” Meeka replies. “Our first day playing at the beach.”
    I snatch the camera from her and