Nevermore

“Isobel!” she shrieked again, and bounded to a stop beside her dad. She threw her arms over her head, the sleeves of her impossibly huge sweatshirt waggling—no, Isobel corrected as she took note of the yellow T—the sleeves of Stevie’s impossibly huge sweatshirt. Isobel stepped back from the fence to give Gwen an astonished once-over. She’d never once seen her friend in a pair of pants, let alone anything resembling school colors (did Gwen even own a pair of pants?). After closer scrutiny, Isobel couldn’t help but notice a certain familiarity about the Trenton sweats she wore.

They looked a lot like the ones she herself had shed earlier in the locker room. And then there were the long pigtails, held up by a set of equally familiar blue and gold pom-pom hair-ties. Suddenly it was easy to figure out where Gwen had been all this time.

“Omigosh, is this your dad? Hey, Mr. Lanley!” Gwen slung one wiry arm around his shoulders.

“Um, yeah,” Isobel began, not sure where Gwen was going with this, “Dad, this is Gwen. She’s, uh . . . she’s . . .” Mentally whacked, Isobel wanted to say.

“I’m the mascot escort,” said Gwen. She flashed her perfectly straight white teeth in a wide grin. “I babysit the mascot,” she added.

“Ah,” Dad began. He twisted to look around as much as Gwen’s friendly grip on his shoulders would allow. “Where is the mascot, then?”

“Oh, he’s around here somewhere . . . molting or something, I dunno. So, Iz, are you coming to my victory party or what? You never answered my Facebook invite.”

“Victory party?” her dad echoed.

All at once, Gwen’s genius dawned on her.

“Ohh,” Isobel chimed in, sounding appropriately glum. “I forgot to respond. I haven’t been online much because I’ve been really busy trying to finish that English project, y’know? Anyway, Gwen, I don’t think I can go.”

“What?” Gwen deflated, her face crumbling in an instant. For added emphasis, she let her arm slip from Dad’s shoulders, where it flopped against her side. “Why not? Didn’t you get the project done?”

Isobel shrugged. “I got it done. I mean, thanks to Dad. I just . . .” She sent a pitiful glance to her father. Yes, she thought, catching a glimmer of indecision in his eyes. They just had to play it up a little more. “I just don’t know if I can.”

“Oohhhh,” Gwen said, looking between Isobel and her dad, feigning sudden understanding.

“How can you have a victory party if your team’s losing?” her dad asked.

“Wait, we’re losing?” Gwen craned her neck in search of the scoreboard.

“Where’s this party going to be?”

Isobel sprang on her chance. “Omigosh, Dad, for real, can I go?”

“Yeah, Dad, for real, can she go?”

“I just asked where it was going to be—”

“My house,” Gwen said, “all-girls’ sleepover, no guys allowed.”

“Are your parents going to be there?”

“Oh, they’re there right now, setting up the karaoke machine.” Gwen mimed holding a microphone and swayed against Isobel’s father. “Fame! I’m gonna live forever—take it away, Mr. Lanley.”

Isobel’s dad set a hand on Gwen’s offered fist, gently pushing it down from his face. “Who else is going?”

Gwen pointed at the figure waiting on the bench. “She is.”

“Nikki is going?” he asked, looking at Isobel, surprised. “I thought you two were on the fritz.”

“Oh,” Isobel said. She saw Nikki rise from the bench and start over toward them, probably at hearing her name. Thinking fast, Isobel blurted, “We made up.”

“Nikki!” shouted Gwen. “You’re coming, right?”

“What?” she called back, eyeing Gwen’s getup.

“To the party,” Isobel said, nodding, trying to communicate meaning through her eyes. Despite her recent show of perceptiveness, Isobel couldn’t see Nikki picking up the clue phone to get the message. “You know,” Isobel went on, “the party Gwen’s having tonight.”

“You’re having a party?” Nikki asked, studying Gwen. “Hey, isn’t that Stevie’s sweatshirt?”

Uh-oh.

“Dad might let me go now,” said Isobel, nodding again. Lots of nodding.

Nikki’s eyes remained on Isobel’s, searching, things still not fully clicking. “Well . . . okay,” she said finally.

“Someone taking you there tonight?” he asked, checking the time on his cell phone.

Isobel felt a leap of joy in her chest. He was going to let her go.

“She can ride with me,” said Gwen. Good old Gwen. Good old brilliant, inventive, industrious Gwen.

“And Nikki can bring me home in the morning,” Isobel added.

He sighed, and she knew that his resolve had already crumbled. She launched up into a fit of jumping and squealing, forgetting for half a second that she wasn’t really going to a girls’ sleepover, that right now she was tricking him, lying to her dad after everything. Again. A stab of guilt grounded her.

“In that case,” he said, “I’m going to go ahead and get out of here. It doesn’t look like the score is going to change any time soon. Maybe I can catch the end of the U of K game on TV. Think there’ll be any candy left on the porch?”