Girl's Best Friend Read Online Free PDF

followed her to the kitchen.
    The best thing about being friends with Lucy—besides the fact that she’s super sweet and hilarious and would never ditch me for someone (supposedly) cooler—is the fact that her parents own a small chain of restaurants: two in Brooklyn and one over the bridge in Alphabet City. They’re always experimenting with new recipes and looking for taste testers. Their food is Vietnamese-Peruvian fusion, just like Lucy.
    And after my disastrous day with the dogs and Finn’s news about the dreaded Ivy, which only ruined my appetite briefly, I really needed a snack.
    “Maggie, you’re just in time,” said Lucy’s dad, Chuck, as he spooned something from his frying pan onto a pale green lettuce leaf. “This is pork belly with scallions—my great grandmother’s recipe. It’s a little spicy, but you don’t mind spicy, do you?”
    “Nope. Not at all.”
    Lucy scrunched up her nose as I reached for the plate. She refuses to eat anything that’s not grilled cheese or spaghetti with red sauce. Something her parents would be more upset about, probably, except that until recently she’d only taken her pasta with butter.
    “Mmm.” I chewed and swallowed. “So good.”
    “But is it better than the ginger duck wrapped in cilantro-infused rice paper?” asked her mom, Vanessa.
    “Hello?” Lucy interrupted. “Are you done using my friend as a guinea pig?”
    “Unless you want me to sample some dessert.” I looked around the kitchen. “Because I’m all for that.”
    “Try us next week,” said Vanessa. “We need to iron out the entrées first.”
    “You girls are dismissed,” Chuck joked, like it was time for recess.
    “Finally.” Lucy grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the staircase.
    Lucy lives six houses down from me in an identical brownstone, but her family has four whole floors, not just one. We have the same bedroom, too, except Lucy’s seems gigantic because she has it all to herself. I share mine with Finn, which is not as weird as it sounds. A huge bookshelf splits our room right down the middle and offers plenty of privacy. There’s a big bay window that looks out onto Garfield Place, and we each have half a view.
    “So, you and Milo. Tell me everything,” Lucy said once we were in her room and out of earshot.
    I stifled a groan. With everything else going on, I’d completely forgotten about the Milo mess.
    “Let’s just say that I’ve secured my place in the Pizza Den Hall of Shame.”
    Lucy’s eyes got wide. “You didn’t pull an Amber Greyson, did you?”
    “It wasn’t that bad,” I said. (Amber puked up something purple there last spring.)
    “And you stayed away from the chili peppers?”
    “Come on, Lucy. Give me a little credit.” I flopped down into her blue beanbag chair.
    She sat in the green one across from me. “Well, you’re being so mysterious. What am I supposed to think?”
    “I don’t know—maybe that I’d never try to impress Milo by sticking hot peppers up my nose. Especially since Paul Livingston ended up in the emergency room for that just two weeks ago.”
    Lucy shuddered. “I heard he still gets teary-eyed whenever he sneezes.”
    I blinked. “I get teary-eyed just thinking about it.”
    “So what happened?” asked Lucy. “I’ve been sending you good vibes all afternoon. I couldn’t even focus on my violin lesson. Mrs. Tamagachi was all, ‘Lucy, if you don’t pay attention, you’ll never make it to first chair.’ As if I care!”
    I stood up and walked over to Lucy’s owl collection—so big it takes up an entire wall-size bookcase. She’s got owl everything: mugs, pencils, stuffed animals, pillows, ceramic figurines—both life-size and miniature and one with real feathers. I picked up an owl egg timer. “Is this new?” I asked. “It’s cute.”
    Lucy stared at me. “Why are you stalling?”
    “I’m not.”
    “Maggie!”
    I put away the egg timer and sat down on her futon couch. “Nothing to tell.