Best Friend Thief

By Laurel-Ann Dooley

Nathalie and Reagan have been best friends for years when popular Blair comes along and decides Reagan is going to be her new best friend.

The Best Friend Thief tells the universal story of what happens when a third girl enters an established two-girl best friendship. Certain trouble, that's what!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9780983155713

Book preview

ever.

* 1 *

STOP DRINKING IT ALL!

I dropped the cup of lemonade I was filling and spun around, like I’d been caught stealing.

I’m not! I’ve only had --

You’ve had like ten cups. My best friend Reagan was scowling at me with her hands on her hips. How are we supposed to sell anything if we don’t have anything to sell? She continued to glare and then burst out laughing. Gotcha!! You really thought I was mad, didn’t you?" She smiled triumphantly.

I did not! I retorted -- even though I really had. I hate to admit it, but Reagan can really fake me out. You’d think that by now, after being best friends for three whole years, I’d know a fake-out when I saw one. But no, I pretty much always fall right into the fake-out trap. If she wasn’t my best friend, it would be annoying, but since she is my best friend, I don’t mind. Well, maybe a little. But it’s just one of those best friend things I have to put up with.

This was our third lemonade stand of the summer. We kept trying new locations to see if we could sell more than a few cups, but it seems that people just don’t pull over to buy lemonade, no matter how much of a discount you put on your sign. Or maybe it was our jumping up and down and waving our arms like maniacs that scared customers off. This lemonade rocks, people! I’d yell at each approaching car. Only fifty cents! Buy one, get two free!

Reagan got really mad at the cars that didn’t stop, which was pretty much all of them. HEY, WHATS THE MATTER WITH YOU? DO YOU HATE KIDS OR SOMETHING?" she’d yell. Come to think of it, maybe we should revise our customer relations strategy.

Reagan peered down the street and sighed. Can you believe school starts in like two weeks? she asked.

Yeah, I know. I can’t believe we’re going back already.

I know, right. She said it like "riiiiiiiight, really dragging out the i sound. The riiiiiiight" was another trademark Reagan thing, just like the fake-out.

Do you think we’ll all be in the same class again? I asked.

All of us? You mean me, you, Catherine, and Isabel? I doubt it. We’ve been together for two years in a row -- there’s no way it’ll happen again, she said.

You’re probably wondering who the heck Catherine and Isabel are, so let me explain. They’re best friends just like Reagan and me, and together, we make one big best friend group.

Catherine and Isabel live next door to each other and have known each other their whole lives. The two of them make a funny pair -- Catherine is tall, thin, and has a serious, quiet, way about her. She’s into math and science and is very logical. Isabel is basically the total opposite. She is super-energetic and gets excited over just about everything. Catherine wears jeans whenever possible; Isabel wears skirts and owns about a million sparkly headbands and jewel-y hair clips.

So, that’s our Best Friends Club: quiet Catherine, bubbly Isabel, flighty, scatter-brained Reagan, who is all into music and fashion, and me. I’m Nathalie. What can I say about me? Let’s see. I like to read, write, and draw. Clothes? Love ’em. People tell me I’m funny (and I do crack myself up sometimes). My mother says I have a unique take on things and a very active mind. No idea what that means.

Anyway, the four of us do tons of stuff together, like having sleepovers and going to movies and making friendship bracelets and creating secret codes. We always email and text each other’s cell phones (well, our moms’ cell phones -- until we get our own for Christmas. That’s our plan anyway, even if our parents disagree). But the way it works with us being four friends is that whenever it’s one of those things where it can only be two people -- like the buddy system or sitting together on the bus during field trips -- then it’s always me and Reagan, Catherine and Isabel.

It was perfect. I didn’t want it to change. "But it’s possible we could be together," I said.

Yeah, anything’s possible. Just don’t get your hopes up, Reagan replied.

We were both silent for a moment. Then I had a flashback. Remember Kayla Kremmins?

Reagan looked at me. Yeah, she said, somberly. Suddenly, the sunny, lemonade-y mood of the day was gone. We were both silent, lost in thought about poor Kayla Kremmins who’d been separated from all her friends last year in fourth grade. At first, Kayla had hung around with the Serena and Emma crowd, but they were more math and science clubby than she was. So then she kept to herself for awhile. Finally, she’d made friends with someone in chorus. What if that happened to us?

Anyway! Reagan said, tossing her black hair back over her shoulders. (She wasn’t one to stay sad for too long.) We get to do the costume contest this year. What country should we be?

She was talking about the International Day costume contest. Each grade does a different project for International Day, and this year it was our turn to do the costume contest. That meant every fifth grader had to find a partner, pick a country, and put together outfits that had something to do with the country -- like kilts and bagpipes for Scotland, or flamenco dancers for Spain. Last year, the kids who got first prize were dressed as marble statues of ancient Greek gods -- Zeus and that god of the sea one -- who is that again? Oh yeah, Poseidon. Anyway, we could basically do anything we wanted so long as it was connected to our country in some way.

Then, on International Day, we would put on this big fashion show in front of the whole school in the auditorium, and all the other grades would vote for the best costumes. The winners would be announced the next day over the P.A. system. It’s like that reality show -- Project Runway.

So the country we picked really mattered. It had to be a place with cool clothes, so we could have shot at winning. No, not a shot -- we wanted to be the absolute, way-better-than-everyone-else, first-place winners!

How about France? I suggested. We could wear those little hat thing-ys.

Berets? Yeah, but what else? Berets won’t be enough to get first prize, Reagan said. She had a point. I