Free The Friendship Song by Nancy Springer

“You want me to be a role model for her, Buddy, you got to let her get big and ornery like me.”
    Big and ornery, huh. Those days I felt pretty small.
    â€œAnd you got to let her do what she’s got to do.”
    Which wasn’t going to be easy. I headed right over to Rawnie’s house before I could chicken out, but it took me probably half a minute to lift my hand and knock on the door.
    Her father opened it, which was the first time I had seen Mr. Stellow. He was a slim man with glasses, and his skin was Pepsi brown. I think I looked at him a little bit too long before I said, “Um, is Rawnie around?”
    Mr. Stellow was looking at me too. “You must be Harper.”
    I blushed. Right then I wasn’t real proud of being Harper. But Mr. Stellow was smiling, a good smile, like he really meant it. He said, “Yeah, Rawnie’s around. I think. Why don’t you go up to her room and have a look?”
    When I climbed the stairs my legs ached. I felt ancient.
    Rawnie was in her room all right, belly-flopped on her bed, and when I came in she looked up at me, but she didn’t say anything.
    I told her, “Um, listen, Gus only got two tickets.”
    She looked down, pretending she didn’t care. “Tickets?” she said in a bored voice a lot like Aly Bowman’s was sometimes, except in Aly not caring was real. “Oh. You mean to that Neon Shadow thing.”
    â€œYeah. I mean to that Neon Shadow thing.” I stuck the tickets in their neon-colored envelope under her nose. “Here. You go, okay? I want you to.”
    She jumped like the tickets were made of fire, and sat straight up without touching them, and stared at me. Her mouth was moving, but she didn’t say anything.
    â€œYou take those,” I told her.
    â€œNo way!”
    I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. “Listen. Suppose it was Nico and Ty. If Nico, like, really blew it and really did something stupid …” My voice had gone shaky, and my legs too. I sat down on the bed next to her. “What I mean is, if he hurt Ty, I think he’d try to make it up to him any way he could.”
    Rawnie looked straight at me and said, “I don’t think so. I think Nico and Ty don’t ever have to tell each other thank you or I’m sorry or give each other stuff. They just, like, understand each other.”
    â€œWell, they had to start somewhere, didn’t they?”
    That made her smile. She broke into that great grin of hers, and then she said real soft, “Teah. I guess they did. Harper, I’m sorry.”
    â€œHuh? You’re sorry?”
    â€œYeah. I was stupid. See, I thought you were being, you know, mean, and really—you just didn’t understand about Aly and her gang, did you?”
    I made a face like something tasted bad. I didn’t want to talk about Aly and how she made a goofball out of me. See, I thought she liked me, when all she really cared about was that I had pale skin and light hair and blue eyes. That and making me hurt Rawnie.
    â€œJust take the tickets,” I told Rawnie.
    â€œI can’t! Anyhow, Dad would never let me. They must be worth a couple hundred dollars.”
    â€œGus said you could have them.”
    â€œBut I don’t feel right—”
    â€œListen, I’m not going without you, so you might as well take them.”
    We went back and forth like that awhile, and I guess we might have kept going like that until Saturday except that I thought I heard something. I stopped arguing with Rawnie and said, “C’mon!” to her instead, and took her by the hand and hustled her down the stairs.
    â€œHuh?” she kept saying. “Harper!”
    But once I got her outside she understood. The notes came drifting on the air not much louder than dandelion seed, but we both knew what they were. We stood still, listening hard. Rawnie whispered, “They’re playing ‘The Friendship