This is the continuation of a story started earlier. Summary of previous action in the story: Olivia has always been popular at school. One day, she was seated next to a kid who offered to help her. Not wanting to seem very friendly (she had her own friends!), Olivia refused. The girl, named Audrey, accepted her refusal as an answer and smiled. Olivia and her friends—Sandra, Brittany, and Lisa—started pranking Audrey after that day. They were not being mean, they reasoned. Just funny. On the day of Olivia’s thirteenth birthday, Audrey was invited with the rest of Olivia’s class. Olivia does not want her there. 

For the entire part 1 of this story and more information on what happened, go to: http://www.thewattle.com/2018/10/22/out-of-sync/

“Hey, Audrey!” my mom trilled as she saw the recipient of our pranks at the door.

“Good evening, Mrs. Anderson,” replied Audrey politely.

“Please, call me Susan. Come in! Is that a gift for Olivia?”

“Yes, ma’am. I hope she likes what I’ve made for her.”

“You made it?” my mom enquired. “How very nice of you. Just stick it over there on the table. The party is—oh—right behind me. You go have fun!”

I gritted my teeth. What was Mom doing, messing things up? Why was she being so friendly with Audrey? Didn’t she know not to do that? And Audrey made something? Like, seriously? I turned to Lisa. “Can you believe it?” I asked.

Lisa snickered. “No.”

My mother had pushed Audrey towards me. “Hi!” she said. “Where’s everybody else?”

“Upstairs. We were going to play a game,” I responded. I nudged Brittany, Sandra, and Lisa. They scurried upstairs to the guest room, where we had put a table and chairs for the guests. They were going to do what I had told them to do before the party. “I’ll take you up,” I said and went upstairs. Audrey followed. “Sit there,” I said, keeping my voice cool and pointing to a chair. My friends were looking in the other direction, trying to keep straight faces. This was going to be something great. 

Audrey sat down in the chair I pointed at, and let out the biggest fart in the history of farts. We thought it was her, anyways. It was actually a whoopee cushion which my friends had placed under the soft cushion of the chair. It was what I had told them to do before I took Audrey up. 

We cracked up! Everybody except me and my friends thought it was Audrey and not the cushion, and the room resounded with our laughter. Audrey was astonished, but she wiped that look off her face after only a second and laughed. She reached under the cushion and brought forth the cause of her fart. Still laughing, she put it on the table. 

But Audrey didn’t get it. We were laughing at her. She was laughing with us. The other guests looked me. They could tell it was me. “Olivia!” one boy giggled. I hoped it was because he thought my joke made me seem daring and brave. He was kind of cute. 

I thought I could try talking to him. “Some people are mean, and some people are funny. Which do you think I am?” I leaned forward and put my hand on my cheek.

“I—I dunno,” he responded, lowering his eyes. That was okay. I could always try to talk to him later.

Something stirred behind me and I turned to see Sandra, Lisa, and Brittany. They looked uncomfortable. “Sometimes, you actually can be kind of mean,” said Sandra softly. 

I tried to move us past that. “So, what game do you want to play?” I asked loudly. Silence.

“That time, when we first met, when you pushed me off the diving board at the pool,” added Lisa. “That was kinda mean.”

“When you took my barrette right off my hair in the third grade,” commented Brittany. “That was also a little mean.”

I fake laughed. “You can’t be serious!” I tried to joke. My words vanished into the thick air.

My friends started up again. “We’ve been talking,” said Lisa. “We decided that you just want to do mean things to us… and encourage us to do mean things to others.”

“But you played along with it before!” I cried. They were acting like total meanies. 

“We figured that, because you were popular and all that, our life would be made better by your status. But if all you have us do is mess with kids, then we don’t need you anymore.”

“And, if that’s the case,” added Sandra, “we don’t think we want the association.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing as my three friends walked out of the room. I wanted to cry. Had I been that bad? Surely not! I got up and looked down the hallway. My friends were telling my mom some lie about having to leave early. I sank into another chair, and the sound of the whoopee cushion pierced the air. Small giggles all around me. 

“Olivia,” said a quiet voice behind me. “You don’t need them. They’re just using you, and you mistook them for loyalty. You just went down the wrong path, that’s all. And they got you right again.”

We ate cake and opened presents, but I wasn’t having a lot of fun anymore. Why had they just left me? What had I done? I felt like I had woken up from a dream and things were going very, very fast. 

It’s been a year now, and I’m thinking about that incident as I prepare for my fourteenth birthday party. I reach for the pink dress and think awhile. I hang it back in the darkest corner of my closet and run for the phone and dial a number. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, Audrey?”

“Hi! What’s up?” she asks.

I think for a moment. “What are you wearing to my party tomorrow?”

“My red shirt and camouflage pants, like last year. Why?”

I freeze for a minute, then say the words. “Can I borrow a pair of your pants?”

An uncomfortable silence grabs the air between us. “Yeah!” Audrey responds. “But,” she asks, “why? I thought you were going to wear a dress or something?”

“Yeah, no. That—that’s just not me anymore. Bring the pants over tomorrow afternoon and help me pick out the cake,” I offer.

I can almost hear her smiling. “Sure thing,” she says, and hangs up. I put the phone down feeling good.

 A lot has happened since the party a year ago. My “best” friends and I have different schedules. They plan to go to a different high school then I do. We still see each other, but we don’t prank people anymore or do mean stuff to them. The boy I talked to last year at the party seems to hold good prospects, although we haven’t gone out yet. My mom says I’m too young. And there’s one more change.

Audrey has become my best friend.