Friends Forever? Read Online Free PDF Page A

pretended to look for someone behind him.
    Ohmylanta! Zee thought. She didn’t know why Landon and Jasper had trouble getting along. But she liked both boys, and she didn’t want to have to choose between them.
    Chloe looked at Zee as Landon walked away. “Why would he say something like that?”
    â€œI guess he just knows how uncomfortable Jasper is when he’s not wearing his own style,” Zee explained with a nervous giggle.
    â€œUh-huh,” Chloe said, but she didn’t look convinced.
    Jasper put his glasses back on and looked at Landon. “On second thought,” he began, “I’m looking forward to being hot .”
    Â 
    That night all the seventh graders gathered around the campfire for a singalong.
    â€œThe other day,” the boys belted out.
    â€œThe other day,” the girls echoed, sitting on tree stumps.
    â€œI met a bear,” the boys came back.
    â€œI met a bear,” the girls repeated.
    â€œOut in the woods.”
    â€œOut in the woods.”
    â€œA-way out there.”
    â€œA-way out there.”
    Then together the group sang, “The other day/I met a bear/out in the woods/a-way out there.”
    At first, Zee joined in on every round of call and response. Then she felt a tightness in her belly, and her face twisted in pain.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” Ally asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” Zee told her. “My stomach hurts.”
    Ally looked concerned. “What do you think it is?”
    The pain went away as quickly as it had come. “I’m fine,” Zee said. “It’s nothing.”
    Zee started singing again. But she had to stop when another twist of pain made her double over. “Ohhhh,” she groaned, clutching her stomach.
    â€œOmigosh!” Chloe said. “Maybe you should go to the camp nurse.”
    â€œIt’s just a stomachache—probably from that delicious ground beef medley they called dinner,” Zee said.
    â€œBut we all ate it,” Jasper pointed out.
    â€œExcept me,” said Chloe, who was a vegetarian and got the tofu medley instead.
    â€œThe point is,” Jasper continued, “that no one else is sick.”
    â€œDo you feel like you’re going to throw up?” Ally asked.
    â€œNo,” Zee said. But what could make her stomach hurt this much all of a sudden?
    Kathi leaned over. “Maybe you have a disease.”
    Ally swung her head so that her brown hair whipped around like a horse’s tail. “She doesn’t have a disease. It’s just a little stomachache.”
    â€œKathi’s right,” Jen said. “I saw a show on TV about a girl who was really, really sick and—”
    â€œShe’s not ‘really, really’ sick!” Chloe said.
    â€œWhatev,” Kathi said dismissively.
    â€œYou’re not really, really sick, are you?” Chloe whispered to Zee.
    â€œActually, I feel okay now,” Zee told her friends. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
    As the campfire died down, some of the seventh gradersin other classes went back to their cabins, but fifth period was having too much fun to go anywhere.
    â€œLet’s tell ghost stories,” Conrad suggested.
    â€œOkay,” Ally said.
    â€œDon’t make them too scary,” Chloe pleaded.
    â€œJust keep reminding yourself there’s no such thing as ghosts,” Ally told her.
    â€œMaybe not,” Marcus said. “But there is such a thing as the Mountain Man.”
    â€œYou know about the Mountain Man?” Zee asked. Maybe Adam wasn’t lying after all.
    Marcus nodded. “He tried to attack my older brother Jordan when he went on the science trip.”
    Ally shook her head. “Yeah, right.”
    â€œYou don’t believe in him?” Chloe asked her.
    â€œNo,” Ally said. “Because he’s not real. Right, Zee?”
    â€œWell…” Zee hesitated, looking from Ally to Chloe to Marcus.