Free My Worst Best Friend by Dyan Sheldon Page A

next to the bed. “Are you sure you don’t want something else? I could heat up some soup.” Savanna hadn’t had any supper.
    “No, this is great.” She reached for a pickle. “I mean, frankly, I’m amazed I can eat
anything
. My stomach has more knots in it than a noose.”
    I sat down across from her. “Tell me everything,” I ordered. “Every single detail. I can’t stand the suspense any longer.” I couldn’t. When the bell rang, and my dad said it was either the police or Savanna Zindle, I was at the door before he finished his sentence.
    “Ohmigod…” Savanna leaned back with a sigh. “It’s been such an awesome day… I don’t think I know where to start.”
    “Start at the beginning.”
    “Well…” She looked as if there was a really high probability that she would never stop smiling. “His name’s Morgan – Morgan Scheck – and he’s, like, six-foot-two, and he’s got blond hair and the most awesome eyes, and he’s really well built, but not all muscles like he’s diseased or something, and when he smiles it’s like someone just turned on the lights, and—”
    “Savanna, that’s not what I meant.” I nudged her foot with mine. “I meant, how did you meet him? Were you strolling down the street and he just came up to you and said, ‘Hi, my name’s Morgan Scheck and I’d like to change your life’?”
    “Oh, Gracie, you are, like, sooo funny…” crowed Savanna. “Of course it wasn’t like that!” She bit into a chunk of cheese. “I met him at Dentist Tim’s.”
    I hadn’t thought of that possibility. “What?”
    “I know… I know… It is like so totally incredible.” She took another bite. “Usually the only people in the waiting room are either under twelve or over thirty. But there he was, just sitting there, suffering in manful silence and checking his emails.”
    “Are you saying you met a boy at the dentist’s?” The only thing that ever happened to me at the dentist’s was a shot of Novocain and a filling. And, sometimes, I had my teeth cleaned.
    “Not just a
boy
, Gray.” Savanna hugged herself. “This one’s really, really special. I just know he is. I mean, like how incredible
is
that? What are the chances? Like
twenty trillion to one? There has to be, like, more chance of a blizzard in July. And get this – he was only there because he had a toothache and his regular dentist
doesn’t work on Saturday so he was seeing Mrs Dentist Tim as an emergency. Isn’t that, like, too awesome? I mean, what if he’d gone to someone else? Or his tooth didn’t start throbbing till Sunday?”
    “If” may be a small word, but it takes up a lot of space.
    “Then you wouldn’t’ve met him.” I told you I wasn’t naturally romantic.
    “Exactly! We would’ve been like sheep that pass in the night.”
    “
Ships
.”
    “And you know what else is incredible?” She picked up another chunk of cheese. “He’s a Cancerian. Isn’t that amazing, Gracie? A Cancerian. I mean, that’s like my romantic ideal.” She paused to let her breath catch up with her. “It’s destiny, Gray, that’s what it is. It’s like Fate brought us together.” This time she wrapped a piece of bread around the cheese. “It can’t be anything else.”
    “Are you sure it wasn’t the Tooth Fairy?”
    Savanna laughed. “Scoff all you want, Gracie Mooney, but it has to be Fate. I mean, what else could it be?”
    Dumb luck?
    Savanna made one of her Oh-Gracie faces. “I know you’re not into astrology and stuff like that,” Savanna went on, “but my horoscope
did
say something totally overwhelming and unexpected was going to happen today!” She waved her mini-sandwich at me. “And it did! Just like the stars predicted! I mean, how glad am I that I wore red?” Red was Savanna’s colour – the brighter the better. Mine was brown. “And I almost didn’t! I almost wore my blue turtleneck because it was already ironed and I was running really late. I mean, ohmigod, Gracie,