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hair and May has blonde hair.
    And their chins are a different shape. Their mom’s name is June. I think that’s funny.
    The other best part of second grade is that Mrs. Hennepin said that she wants us to practice writing, so she wants us to write things down every day. Xander said, “You mean, like a diary?”
    All the boys laughed. They said that diaries are for girls. I asked

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    Leslie Carroll
    her if we have to show her what is in our diaries because I thought they are supposed to be secrets.
    When Mrs. Hennepin looks at me, she has a fish face. She doesn’t look at the other kids that way. I’m going to be the best at writing. That way, maybe she won’t hate me.

    Chapter 2
    Well, Zoë’s been in school for a full week and so far I’ve only gotten two notes from Mrs. Hennepin. In the first, she made a big deal out of Zoë and her little girlfriends calling her Mrs. Henny Penny behind her back and giggling about it. I laughed that one off. Besides my
    ,
    generation called
    her that, and I bet every class before and since has done the same, so it’s about time she got used to it. Kids will be kids, and there’s much worse they could call her. Thank God they probably don’t know that the woman’s first name is Regina. I sound like my father—New York’s poet laureate at the time—who, faced with the same note brought home from school in my sweaty little hand, wrote back to Mrs. Hennepin reminding her that Henny Penny was a famous literary figure and urging her to accept the compliment graciously. His response earned me two weeks’ detention. And she wasn’t even impressed by getting his autograph.
    I seem to be forever planning my life around other people; and nothing my sister ever schedules works out exactly according to plan. To do anything sociable with Mia is to embrace Murphy’s Law.

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    Leslie Carroll
    I realize this right after I drop Zoë at school, so I phone Jennifer Silver-Katz, the mother of Zoë’s best friend Ashley, to see if she can take Zoë this afternoon.
    I can hear in Jennifer’s elongated sigh that this would be an imposition. “We were going to take Tennyson for a lip wax.”
    Tennyson, Ashley’s older sister, is ten .
    “I guess I can try someone else,” I say, dejected and disappointed, wondering which mom might be more responsive at the last minute. I should have thought of this sooner. We get booked up pretty quickly days, if not weeks, in advance, if my own dry-erase calendar is any indication of the norm.
    “Well, I suppose I can swing it,” Jennifer says, “if Zoë doesn’t mind sitting around Bumble and Bumble while Tennyson has her treatment. She can sit there with Ashley and look at the pictures in Vogue . But,” she adds, drawing out the word, “I’ll need you to do me a favor on Wednesday and take the girls from school to ballet and bring Ashley back with you. It’s our anniversary.”
    “Oh. Congratulations.”
    “Thanks.” She sounds less than thrilled. “Oh—and that’s my day for snack, so you’ll have to pinch-hit for me there, too. This year two of the girls are on Atkins and Miss Gloo says that three of them are lactose intolerant. So no cheese and crackers. And of course, no sugar or processed foods. But you know that. So, you’ll pick up Zoë by five today?”
    I assure her that I will and hang up. This gives me thirty-seven minutes to 1) phone the school to let them know that Jennifer—she’s on my “okay to pick up” list—will be getting Zoë after school today; and 1a) ask them to send a note up to Mrs. Hennepin so she can tell Zoë to go with Ashley and her mother this afternoon; 2) do a week’s worth of grocery shopping, get it home, unpack it; and 3) get to midtown to hook up with Mia.
    When I meet Mia and Gayle at the appointed place for the PLAY DATES
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    start of the sightseeing tour, Gayle gives me a big hug like she’s known me all her life. Gayle is very tall, very blonde, and very loud. In fact, she’s exactly how