Amber Brown Goes Fourth (8 page)

“Am I allowed to say something about Justin?” I ask, a little afraid that she’ll get mad again.

She nods. “As long as you don’t compare us . . . . . . or make me feel like I just got picked for the ‘friend team’ because there is no one else left.”

“I don’t feel that way.” I cross my heart. “I promise.”

“Good.” She opens up the bubble-gum package.

“I don’t think that gum is gross. . . . Justin and I always used to buy those and split it . . . . . three feet each. Sometimes we each put half of it in our mouths . . . . . and then when we were all done with it, we added it to this huge chewing-gum ball. I still have the ball. I’ll show it to you sometime.”

“Cool.” Brandi grins and raises one eyebrow.

Ever since the first time she did that, I’ve
been practicing, but my eyebrow just won’t move. My lip goes up instead.

She says, “Yeah . . . . . but did you or Justin ever blow bubble-gum bubbles with your nose?”

I shake my head no.

She grins and takes a long piece of gum, starts chewing, and then when enough is chewed, she takes the wad out of her mouth and smushes it over and around her nose.

Then she breathes out.

It’s the most gigantic bubble I have ever seen.

I, Amber Brown, am very impressed.

I try, but realize that before attempting this trick, a person should blow her nose and get rid of the snot first.

I throw my gum out.

It’s too disgusting to add to the gum ball.

“Now.” Brandi takes out a box. “Let’s do the hair weaving.”

I sit down on a chair.

“Sit still,” Brandi says, handing me a mirror. “You can watch what I’m doing. Just don’t move.”

I move.

It’s very hard for me to sit still.

“Stop wiggling.” Brandi puts a piece of cardboard around a small clump of my hair.

I hold up the mirror so I can watch what she is doing.

She holds up lots of different colors of embroidery threads. “Pick out seven colors.”

Glitter purple. Glitter pink. Glitter silver. Black. Turquoise. White. Green.

She puts the threads at the top of the braid and starts twisting it around the hair, working with one color at a time, then making patterns on some sections with a second color.

“Don’t move. This has to be really tight.”

“Where did you learn this?” I ask.

“This summer, when we went to visit California, my cousin Daniela did my hair.
And then she taught me how to do it. We practiced a lot on her old Barbie dolls . . . . and on her dog.”

She finishes one braid.

I look in the mirror. “It’s terrific.”

She continues.

“Brandi.” I ask her the question that I’ve been wanting to ask her ever since she got back. “How come you and Hannah aren’t friends anymore?”

She stops braiding for a minute.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” I say, even though I really do want her to answer.

She starts braiding my hair again and says nothing.

I don’t say anything either.

Finally, she says, “Look. I’ll tell you. It’s not such a big deal. But I want you to promise not to say anything to anyone else.”

“Okay,” I promise, and wait for her to begin.

Brandi continues to braid my hair as she begins to tell her story.

“When I moved here last year, it was really hard for me.” She sighs.

“Everyone already had best friends . . . everyone here already knew each other . . . . and the people who already knew each other didn’t have a lot of time for a new person.”

“But you were always invited to parties and stuff.” I put down the mirror and look at her.

She nods. “But that’s not the day-to-day
stuff, telling each other secrets, just hanging out and having a good time . . . . the way that you and Justin did. Sometimes I looked at you and Justin and felt really bad. Where I used to live, I had this friend, Sandy . . . and we were a lot like you and Justin. The two of you looked like you were having so much fun, except for when you had that big fight just before he moved away.”

“That was a bad fight.” I remember.

“Even though I know it wasn’t right, I was glad that you two were fighting.” She pulls a little tight on my braid. “I figured that maybe it would give us a chance to be friends. But then you two made up. When Justin moved away, I thought we could get to know each other better. But you went to England . . . and then I was away when you came back.”

“Why didn’t you just say something?” I jump a little as she pulls on my hair.

“It’s not that easy.” She shrugs.

I know how she feels.

She continues, “And you two just didn’t have room for another good friend. . . . The only person who did was Hannah.”

I want to say, “Yeah, because no one else wants to be her friend because she’s so bossy,” but I don’t.

Brandi adds beads to the braid. “So I was friends with Hannah, but it was hard. She’s really bossy. Everything’s got to be her way. And sometimes she says really mean things.”

“I know.”

Brandi sits down on the bed and looks at me. “But it was so hard not having a best friend, so I tried to be friends with Hannah. I stayed with her family for a week at the shore. She was really mean to me, saying things like, ‘No one else would be your friend.’ It got so bad that I called my parents and they came down and picked me up early. Then when my parents and I went to California for a while, I got to spend some
time with my cousin, Daniela. She’s fifteen and she’s really nice. We talked about a lot of stuff. It made me feel better. Then when school started, I thought we could be friends, but it was like you wanted another Justin around, not me, Brandi.”

Brandi looks sad.

“But I always thought you were nice. I didn’t know you felt so bad.” I look at her.

Softly, she says, “Well, I did.”

Poor Brandi.

I didn’t know that she felt that way, but now I really do know how she felt.

I say, “Brandi, I’m sorry you felt so bad. I’d really like it if we can be friends.”

“Me too.” She gets up and starts my second braid.

“And not just because Justin moved away.”

“Thanks.” She tickles my nose with my hair. “And I want to be friends with you not just because I moved away from Sandy.”

I think about how Brandi and I do different things than Justin and I did.

Somehow I don’t think that hair braiding is something he would be interested in.

And Brandi likes to read books more than he did.

And she talks about how she feels. That’s not something that Justin likes to do.

I do miss him a lot though.

There will never be another Justin.

But there would never be another Brandi, either.

Brandi says, “If some new kids move here, let’s be nice to them, even if we do become best friends.”

I nod and think about all of the kids who have best friends move away. I think about all of the kids who have to move away.

I bet it’s hard for all of them.

I wonder if it’s hard for grownups when their friends move away.

I think about how Justin’s mom was my
mother’s friend, and she moved away . . . . and how my dad moved away . . . . and even though my mom and dad were definitely not best friends when they split up, I wonder if my mom needs a new best friend too.

I wonder if Max is that new friend. It’s not something easy for me to think about right now.

Brandi finishes the second braid.

I think about how she said we might become best friends.

I guess that’s something that doesn’t always happen right away . . . by snapping your fingers.

Oh, well, I learned to snap my fingers. . . . It just took practice. So I, Amber Brown, can learn how to be a best friend. . . .

Thwip . . . snap . . . I hope.

Brandi hands me the mirror. The two braids look wonderful.

“I love them,” I say.

Then I pretend to stick the bead up my nose, even though I don’t really do it because I know it could be dangerous.

“Perfect in every way.” I continue, “Now, let’s practice the burping. I really want us to win that mermaid.”

I press the stone on the mermaid’s stomach and she makes her strange sound.

It makes me laugh.

I look at her long, thick blonde hair and wonder if Brandi and I should give her braids, with thread and beads, too.

I wonder what Gregory Gifford is doing with his mermaid, the burping trophy one.

That boy burped ninety-two times to win it.

Then he burped the alphabet.

He is definitely the Burp Champion of our school, if not the whole world.

I didn’t even come close to his score.

I burped thirty times and then I got the hiccups.

When Gregory got the mermaid, he pretended she was Karate Mermaid and had her make chopping motions at all of the boys.

Then he drop-kicked her and the boys played touch football with her.

I really wanted that mermaid.

When I got home, I told my mom that I’d lost.

She didn’t seem too upset and said that she hoped that now my burping days were over.

I burped at her.

And then that was it . . . . . . . . until now.