Free Shingaling by R. J. Palacio Page B

not just hit me with my favorite 800-fill-power European white goose-down pillow, did you?” said Ximena, standing up slowly. She picked up her own super-fluffy pillow and raised it in the air.
    “Is that a challenge?” Summer asked, standing and holding her pillow up like a shield.
    I stood up excitedly, holding my pillow in the air.
    “Pillow fight!” I said, a little too loudly because I was excited.
    “Shh!” Ximena said, holding her finger over her mouth to remind me to keep it down.
    “Silent pillow fight!” I whispered loudly.
    We spent one long second looking at one another, to see who would strike first, and then we just started going at it. Ximena brought her pillow down on Summer, Summer struck her from below, I made a long sideswipe at Ximena. Then Ximena came up and swung at me from the left, but Summer spun around and struck us both from above. Soon we were smacking each other with more than just pillows: the stuffed animals on Ximena’s bed, towels, our rolled-up clothes. And despite our trying to be completely silent, or maybe
because
of it—since there’s nothing funnier than trying not to laugh when you want to laugh—it was the single best pillow fight I’ve ever had in my entire life!
    The thing that stopped it, or else it might have gone on too long, was the mysterious trumpet blast of a fart that came from one of us. It stopped the three of us in our tracks as we looked at each other, eyes open wide, and started laughing hysterically when no one took credit for it.
    Anyway, two seconds later, Ximena’s mom knocked on the door again, still sounding patient but also obviously a little irritated. It was way past midnight.
    We promised her we would go to sleep now and we wouldn’t make any more noise.
    We were out of breath from laughing so hard. My stomach actually hurt a little.
    It took us a while to straighten out our sleeping bags and put the stuffed animals back where they belonged. We folded our clothes and returned the towels to the closet.
    We smoothed out our pillows and lay down in our sleeping bags and zipped them up, and then we said good night to one another. But I couldn’t fall asleep. Even though I was sleepy, the night swirled inside me. It was like my eyes were too heavy to keep open but way too curious to close. I got a case of the giggles, and then Summer and Ximena started giggling. We kept trying to shush one another by cupping our hands over each other’s mouths.
    Finally, once the giggles had passed and it got quiet again, Ximena started singing really softly in the dark. At first, I didn’t even realize what she was singing, she was singing so quietly.
    No-no, no, no-no, no-no-no-no.
    Then Summer took up the song:
    No, no-no, no, no, no-no, no-no, no-no.
    Finally, I realized what they were singing, and sang:
    No-no-no-no, no-no, no, no-no, no!
    Then we all started whisper-singing together.
    Nobody can do the shingaling
    Like I do…
    Nobody can do the skate
    Like I do…
    Nobody can do boogaloo
    Like I do…
    We were lying on our backs side by side as we sang, and made our arms and hands dance in sync above our heads. And we sang the whole song, from beginning to end, as quietly as if we were praying in church.

How Our Venn Diagrams Look
    I know. I spend too much time thinking about this stuff.

How We Never Talked About It
    On Monday, there was no mention of the sleepover. It’s like the three of us knew, instinctively, without having to say it out loud, that when we got back to school, everything would return to being business as usual. Ximena hanging out with the Savanna group. Summer hanging out with her tiny group. Me playing dots with Maya at my lunch table.
    No one would have ever guessed that Summer, Ximena, and I had become good friends. Or that just a few days before, we were having silent pillow fights and sharing secrets under the pink glow of the red chili lights in Ximena’s bedroom.

How I Failed to Prevent a Social Catastrophe
    The night before