Free Best Friends...Forever? by Krysten Lindsay Hager

mad at me anyway. I asked my mom if I could have Thalia spend the night. Mom thought it was too late to have her come over, but she said Thalia could come over the next night.
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    Albright2001: Can you spend the night tomorrow?
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    Thalia22: Let me go check ;0)
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    Yup, my mom says it ' s fine. What time should I come over?
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    Albright2001: How about five and we can order a pizza or something.
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    Thalia22: Ok ay , just no mushrooms cuz I ' m severely allergic.
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    Only Thalia would write "severely allergic." For our step-by-step speech the previous year, she did hers on how she could die if a bee stung her. India had the same allergy, but I didn't see her telling the whole world about it.
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    On Saturday afternoon, Mom asked if I wanted to rent movies for the sleepover. Thalia liked cartoons, so I got a couple of those . Devon found those kind of princess-y animated movies too babyish, so we always rented horror movies and action stuff. It was nice to be able to choose the type of movies I liked to watch for a change. Thalia's dad pulled into the driveway right when we got home from picking up the pizza. Mr. Zimmer stood outside talking to my mom while Thalia and I went inside to eat. Her dad had let her take a lot of candy from his candy store. I guess there were some definite benefits to being friends with Thalia. She had licorice whips, lollipops, cotton candy — which became gum when chewed — and lots of chocolate.
    "What movies did you get?" she asked as we sat down to eat. I held up the titles as I searched for the napkins.
    She asked how things went with Vladi at the movie night the night before. I ended up telling her the whole story about running out of Ignatowski's Ice Cream Palace and how sure I was that nobody would be speaking to me on Monday.
    "That stinks they would try to turn Vladi against you," she said. "It's India's fault anyway. You didn't do anything wrong, and I think Devon deserved to know what was going on."
    "I was afraid she'd find out on her own and then get mad at me for not telling her, but it's like I couldn't win either way," I said, wiping sauce off my chin.
    "Devon's probably just embarrassed about the whole thing, and she's taking it out on you. I wouldn't worry too much. She'll probably forget all about it by Monday," she said.
    Easy for her to say. She didn't know how long Devon could hold a grudge. Devon once told me she was still mad at Halle Gephardt because she had accidentally released Ricardo, their third-grade class hamster, the day before it was Devon's turn to take him home. They never found little Ricardo, and the teacher decided not to get a new pet after all the kids got so upset, so Devon never got to take a pet home.
    After dinner, we spread out our sleeping bags so we could get comfortable while we watched the movies. I wanted to watch downstairs, but even though we had a finished basement, it still got cold down there. Thalia had brought over the new Cadia doll she had gotten for Christmas. Peyton, Ericka, and I all had those dolls, but we stopped playing with them years ago, partly because of my stupid cousin. Sure, the dolls still sat on our dressers, but it wasn't like we changed their outfits and played with them.
    Thalia's doll was similar to the one I had. However, Thalia had put a little pink-and-white striped pajama outfit on her. I thought it was a little weird, although I did own the same pj outfit. Actually, I had the bed and nightstand for Cadia, too, and Peyton had all of the playsets for her doll, but it wasn't as if we brought them over for sleepovers. Although, last year Ericka and I had played with her Cadia doll's birthday set, and I had brought mine over to her house, but that was different. I mean it was seventh grade and we were just having a kid moment or something. It wasn't like Ericka and I had annual dolly birthday parties.
    "I have those pj's for my doll, too," I said.
    "You should put them on her," Thalia said.
    I