Best Frenemies Read Online Free PDF Page B

“You know, it’s like when you look like you smell something bad?”
    â€œLike this?” Alice said, screwing up her face like she had just smelled her mom microwaving fish taco leftovers.
    â€œLike this!” Cassidy said, pinching up her nose and mouth as close together as she could in the middle of her face. The girls dissolved into laughter again.
    â€œAfter class,” Cassidy said, “a bunch of us hang out afterwards and just have a little snack while we get dressed. No big deal, just like orange slices or whatever. But not Nikki—not only does she not spend time with the class, she just busts right out without saying good-bye or even changing. It’s like she can’t stand to be in the same room as us for one second longer than she has to!”
    â€œI wonder what’s up with her,” Alice said.
    â€œWho knows?” said Cassidy. “Let’s talk about something fun. Speaking of eighth graders, there’s a boy who’s kind of cute who I think might actually know I exist.”
    â€œOooh, tell!” Alice said, flopping on her stomach on her bed.
    â€œHis name is Jesse, and he’s on the baseball team with David,” Cassidy explained, referring to her older brother. “So I see him when my mom picks David up after practice. He’s really skinny, but he has the cutest smile,” she said, looking dreamy.
    â€œNice!” said Alice. “And you think he likes you?”
    Something about the phrase “cutest smile” made a picture of Aaron Woolsey pop into Alice’s head. She shook it away. She had decided to keep crushes on hold for now—it was hard enough to deal with middle school and honors classes. Sure, it was fun to talk to Aaron in class and to see him smile, but she was okay with just being friends with him—for now.
    â€œWell, he always seems to make a point of smiling at me when we pick David up,” Cassidy said, pulling out a pink heart-shaped lip balm from her pocket and applying it—like the guy in question was going to show up and ask for a smooch then and there. “ And he said hi twice to me so far this week in the hall at school.”
    â€œWow, Cassidy,” teased Alice. “It sounds like you guys are practically engaged already!” In elementary school Cassidy had had a tendency to crush hard and fast on boys—so fast that sometimes she didn’t have aBoy of the Week but a Boy of the Hour.
    â€œOh, hush your butt!” Cassidy said, hitting Alice with a pillow. The girls laughed and spent the next half hour playing the catalog game: taking a pile of some of the most random catalogs Alice’s parents received and choosing one thing from each page that they’d have to buy.
    This was a good week for catalogs. Alice’s parents had received one selling strange, seemingly useless gizmos like automatic dog feeders and leg massagers; another that apparently thought Alice’s parents were ninety years old, as it featured gadgets to help old people zip up their clothes and pick things off shelves. The best one, however, displayed high-end Halloween costumes for dogs. Before Cassidy had to go home for dinner, they had picked out some quite elaborate outfits for Bagel, Cassidy’s pug, who was in danger of being dressed as a dinosaur, a Raggedy Ann doll, and possibly a mermaid—or was it mer-dog?
    â€œPizza for dinner tonight okay?” Mrs. Kinney said, poking her head into Alice’s room after Cassidy had gone home for the night.
    â€œSure!” said Alice.
    â€œYou seem happy,” said Mrs. Kinney, sidling her way inside.
    â€œWell, you see, I like pizza,” explained Alice. “It tastes good in my mouth.”
    â€œNo, I mean in general. You seem a lot cheerier than you did at the beginning of the week.”
    â€œI guess I was just nervous about school, and about not seeing Cassidy as much,” said Alice.
    â€œAnd it turns out that