Best Friend Next Door

  To my son Miles, whose name scrambles to spell smile (perfect) and limes (yum) and miels (the plural of honey in French).

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  One: Hannah

  Two: Emme

  Three: Hannah

  Four: Emme

  Five: Hannah

  Six: Emme

  Seven: Hannah

  Eight: Emme

  Nine: Hannah

  Ten: Emme

  Eleven: Hannah

  Twelve: Emme

  Thirteen: Hannah

  Fourteen: Emme

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  My name is Hannah Strafel. Hannah is a palindrome, which means it’s the same backward and forward. Strafel spelled backward is Lefarts, which sounds French. As in Le Farts. Unless the French have another word for fart, which they probably do. I’ve never looked that up.

  If I were going to look up any word in French right now, it would be terrible. Right now, my life is terrible in every single language. For one, my best friend, Sophie, just moved to Ottawa. That’s a city in Canada, almost three hundred miles from western New York. I’m sure she’s making tons of new friends there and will soon forget I exist. Sophie and I lived next door to each other on Centennial Avenue since we were toddlers. I can’t imagine life without her.

  Reason two that things are terrible: Sophie’s house wasn’t empty six hours when a real estate agent teetered across the lawn in her spiky heels and hooked a SOLD!!! pendant under the FOR SALE sign. I bet she SOLD!!! it to old people who hate kids. Or murderers. Or worse, a family full of girls who will take over Sophie’s room at the top of the stairs and paint her walls pink and have slumber parties on Sophie’s floor, where we used to roll out our sleeping bags.

  “Hannah?” my stepmom, Margo, calls from the kitchen. “Are you almost done?”

  I’m sitting on the side porch. I was supposed to be shucking a bowl of corn, but I’ve been watching a man move boxes into Sophie’s house instead. Another man is wheeling furniture up the driveway on a cart. They arrived a little while ago. At first I thought they were the new neighbors until I saw that their van said MOVING ASSOCIATES.

  “Are you almost finished with the corn?” Margo says. “Dad just got home from the store and we want to talk with you.”

  “Coming,” I say. Even though I’ve only shucked three ears, I’ve strewn corn silk all over the porch. I brush it into the trash bag that Margo gave me. “I’m not done, though.”

  “Bring it inside!” my dad calls from the kitchen. “We can help.”

  I stand up, holding the heavy bowl in my arms. Margo must have put twenty ears of corn in here. I’m strong, though. I’ve been on the Dolphins swim team since third grade. Freestyle is my best stroke. Everyone says I have muscular arms. That’s the plus side. The downside is that my short sandy hair is greenish from the past month of swim camp. Margo says she’s getting me a new shampoo because my Ultra Swim shampoo isn’t working.

  “Hey, Hannah,” my dad says. He unclips his bike helmet and washes his hands at the sink.

  Margo is at the table, slicing tomatoes. There are hot dogs and veggie burgers defrosting on the counter. We’re having a barbecue in our backyard tonight. Uncle Peter is coming over and a few of my dad’s friends and some people Margo knows from her book group. If Sophie still lived here, her family would be invited, but she’s probably having a barbecue with her new friends in Canada.

  And then there’s reason number three: Fifth grade starts in two weeks. I went online this morning and found out I have Mr. Bryce. I’ve never had a guy teacher before. I bet he’s the strictest teacher at Greeley Elementary. I bet he yells if you’re late and only lets you drink water once a day.

  “I got you a peanut butter cookie at Crumbles,” my dad says, taking the corn from me and setting it on the table. He gestures to a small white paper bag. “Just save it until after lunch, okay?”

  Peanut butter is my all-time, hands-down favorite food. Even so, my heart races with suspicion. Something about how my parents are both grinning makes me think they’re going to tell me awful news. I’m being a worrier, but that’s the way I am. It’s who I am. Just like how I swim competitively and my birthday is on New Year’s Day and I’m the only kid in Greeley who hates pizza.

  Sure enough, my dad grabs an ear of corn, tugs off the husk, and says, “There’s something big that we want to share with you.”

  “We’re going to be telling people tonight,” Margo adds, shifting her smile to my dad, “but we wanted you to know first.”

  Hang on! Maybe they’re going to tell me that we’re moving, too. Please let it be Canada. I’ve always liked the maple-leaf flag. I will learn to love massive amounts of snow. I will get over my fear of ice-skating.

  “The thing is,” my dad says, “we’re having a baby.”

  My stomach flips over. Actually, it’s more like a triple somersault. Margo reaches across the table and touches my hand.

  I yank my fingers away. “I thought you didn’t want more kids.”

  Margo is forty-two and my dad is forty-seven. Not like it’s any of my business, but isn’t that too old to be having a baby? Also, she and my dad are always saying how, now that I’m older, we can start traveling and doing cool things. Not to mention that Margo is in the process of adopting me. Margo has been my stepmom since I was one. Before that, it was just my dad and me. I never even knew my real mother. They’ve already done all the paperwork for the adoption and talked to lawyers. After the adoption goes through, our true family was going to be the three of us. Not the FOUR of us.

  “Honey,” Margo says gently, “we were hoping you’d be excited.”

  “Can you believe you’re going to be a sister?” my dad asks.

  “No,” I snap. I’ve been an only child for almost eleven years. “Please don’t call me a sister. I’ll be a former only child.”

  My dad laughs. He doesn’t get that I’m not kidding.

  “You’ll get used to it,” he says. “You’ll have plenty of time to adjust by February.”

  February? That’s only six months away. I happen to know it takes nine months for a baby to come out. That means they haven’t been telling me the truth for three whole months.

  Margo tips her head to one side. “I’m a little more than three months pregnant, if that’s what you’re wondering. We wanted to make sure everything was okay before we told you.”

  “We didn’t want you to worry,” my dad adds.

  This can’t be happening.

  “What about the Bahamas?” I ask. My dad, Margo, and I have been talking about going to a tropical island this winter. Supposedly it’s a swimmer’s paradise because the ocean is crystal clear. It was going to be the biggest deal of my life. Every school break we either stay in Greeley or go to Pennsylvania to visit Margo’s parents. All of last year, we were watching plane ticket prices. I suddenly realize they didn’t mention the tropical trip all summer. I should have suspected something.

  “The Bahamas can’t happen this February,” my dad says, reaching over to tousle my hair. “Don’t worry, Hannah. We’ll make it up to you.”

  I dodge my dad. There are a million things I want to say, like maybe you could have consulted with me before ruining my life? Or how could you drop this baby bomb so soon after Sophie left? Instead I mutter, “I am not okay with this.” Then I grab my cookie off the counter and shove through the door.

  As soon as I reach the porch, I look across our side yard at Sophie’s house and smudge the tears from my eyes. If Sophie were still here, I’d run next door, go up to her room, flop onto her bed, and have a serious cry. Because I know what’s really goin
g on. I’ve been a fine stand-in kid for my dad and Margo, but now they want a real child of their own.

  A silver car slows in front of Sophie’s house. The blinker is flashing. As the car steers into her driveway, I notice it’s towing a U-Haul trailer. Not a good sign. I clench the cookie bag in my hand and hold my breath.

  A tall woman emerges from the driver’s side and stretches her arms over her head. A shorter woman with blond hair and big sunglasses opens the passenger door. So far, so good. But then the back door opens and a smallish girl steps out. She’s barefoot and really tan, especially her arms. Her hair is short and sandy, almost exactly like mine. And the weirdest thing is that she’s wearing the same blue tie-dye tank top that I am. Margo got it for me at Old Navy last week.

  As the two women walk toward the front door, the girl stands there looking around. It’s almost like she’s searching for something, except the street is deserted. The only sound is a baby down the block wailing. Ugh. I don’t want to think about babies.

  “Hey,” the girl says. “I guess you’re the girl that the real estate agent told my moms about. You’re thirty-seven Centennial Avenue, right?”

  I bite at my thumbnail. I hadn’t realized she could see me up here on the porch. I hadn’t realized that high-heeled real estate agent was using me to sell Sophie’s house. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have helped Sophie make her bed and straighten her room before every showing.

  “Hey,” I say. For some reason, I start down our steps. I totally shouldn’t. I should leave it at hey and go back into my house. But I’m sure my dad and Margo will pounce on me and want to talk about my feelings about having a baby the moment I go inside.

  In other words, I’m stuck.

  “We just moved here,” the girl says, coming across the driveway and into my side yard.

  As she gets closer, I can see that she has a constellation of freckles across her nose and her toenails are all painted different shades of blue.

  “Nice shirt, by the way,” she says to me.

  I wish I’d worn my yellow T-shirt. Or the green striped one. Anything but the exact same blue tie-dye tank top.

  “What’s your name?” the girl asks.

  “Hannah,” I say.

  She laughs and shakes her head. I stare her down like Okay … what’s the big joke? Sophie used to say I have a killer stare when I’m mad.

  “Sorry, it’s just funny because my name is Emme, with an ‘e’ at the end. We’re both palindromes. That means it’s spelled—”

  “I know what a palindrome is,” I snap.

  Emme shrugs. “What grade are you going into?”

  “Fifth,” I say. From her size, I’m guessing she’s going into fourth or maybe even third. “Greeley Elementary. I’m ten.”

  “Me too!” she says. “At least I think that’s the name of the school.”

  I squeeze the paper bag tight in my hand and feel the peanut butter cookie inside breaking into pieces. There are four different fifth-grade classes at Greeley Elementary, which means there’s a good chance Emme won’t be in mine. But she probably will be, with the way things are going.

  “Do you know who your teacher is yet?” I ask.

  Emme shakes her head. “This all happened fast. We just found out a few weeks ago that we were moving for sure. Actually, I just found out. They’d been planning it for a while.”

  She says it like she wants me to feel sorry for her. Well, I don’t. She can’t just move into my best friend’s house and expect me to welcome her with a hug.

  “Everyone thinks I’m younger,” Emme says, “but I turn eleven on New Year’s Day.”

  “No way.” This can’t be happening. “No. Way.”

  “What?”

  “That’s my birthday, too,” I say quietly. “New Year’s Day.”

  “For real?”

  I nod. This is all getting a little weird.

  Emme starts giggling. “Mom J!” she shouts. “Mom C! You won’t believe it! The girl next door has my birthday!”

  Her birthday?

  As the two women come out of the house, it dawns on me: Emme has two moms and I don’t even have one to call my own. I feel an angry itch inside at the unevenness—the unfairness—of this.

  “I’m Julia,” the short blond woman says, waving at me. “It’s nice to meet you. You two have the same shirt on! And you’re a New Year’s baby? Do you know what time you were born?”

  I shake my head.

  “Not exactly baby,” Emme says.

  “I’m Claire,” says the tall woman. “I’m so glad Emme’s already made a friend next door.”

  Not exactly friend! I glance at Emme. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s staring at her feet. For a second, I feel bad for her the way her mom said we’re friends.

  As soon as the moms head back into the house, I blurt out, “Do you like peanut butter?” I know that’s random, but I’m hoping to find a few more ways that Emme’s different from me. Ideally, she will be allergic to nuts. Not bad allergic, like Marley from school, who has to carry an EpiPen wherever she goes. But just allergic enough to leave me with my peanut butter obsession.

  “That’s so funny,” Emme says, grinning. “I love peanut butter anything. Almost as much as I hate—”

  I cut her off. “Pizza?”

  She opens her eyes big. “How did you know that I hate pizza?”

  No! She cannot love peanut butter AND hate pizza. Without saying anything, I turn and storm into my house.

  I don’t want a baby in my life, and I definitely don’t want an identical twin.

  I still can’t believe we’ve left Florida and moved to Greeley, New York. For the first ten (and three-quarters) years of my life, I lived on Captiva Island with my moms and my fat orange cat. We had the ocean on one side and the bay on the other. Now we live in a small town where the only body of water is the YMCA pool. I used to collect shells on the beach and swim outside every day and set up my easel and sketch tropical flowers on our back porch. Now I’m sitting in an empty bedroom at the top of the stairs, staring at the paint samples that Mom J brought me this morning. She selected shades of pink like Luscious Blush, Diva, and Sunrise Surprise. I haven’t liked pink since kindergarten. I’m more of a periwinkle blue kind of girl.

  For the four days that we’ve been here, Mom J (otherwise known as Julia, or my short mom) has been pointing out all the “great” things about Greeley. She says we’ll go to an apple orchard this fall and plant a garden in the spring and go strawberry picking next summer. Like that’s supposed to make me happy about moving. Fruit is fine and all, but it’s not like a fresh peach can hang out with me and help me decide what I’m going to wear for the first day of school.

  “Lunch is ready, Em,” Mom C calls up the stairs. That’s Claire (or my tall mom). Up until now, Mom C has been the stay-at-home parent. But starting tomorrow my moms are trading places. Mom C will be working at a big law firm in Rochester. That’s why we moved here. “Peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. Crusts cut off.”

  “And local apples!” Mom J chimes in.

  As if a local apple a day can keep the loneliness away.

  “Emme!” Mom C calls again. “No ignoring. We know you’re up there.”

  My cat, Butterball, is curled in a mound outside my door. I heave him into my arms and head down the stairs. He immediately starts purring. He loves being cradled like a baby. We think it’s because he was a stray when he was little, so he’s making up for his lost kittenhood. Back in Captiva, my friends and I used to dress him in bonnets and bibs.

  When I get to the kitchen, Mom C and Mom J are laughing. They’ve been a couple since college. People always comment on how perfect they are together. I guess it’s true, but recently they’ve been annoying me. Maybe it was the long drive up north. Or maybe it was how they didn’t give me a choice about leaving Captiva Island.

  “What amazing apples,” Mom C says as we sit on stools at the kitchen counter. Mom J sliced them onto a plate, with a sprinkle of c
innamon and nutmeg.

  Mom J passes the apples to me. “If it doesn’t rain, let’s check out an orchard when Mom C goes to work tomorrow.”

  “Do you really think picking apples will make me feel better about leaving Captiva?” I grumble, looking around the kitchen. A lot of our stuff is still in cardboard boxes stacked against one wall. We haven’t even hung any photos yet. “I don’t think I’m going to make it here through the fall.”

  “Are you starting the Back in Captiva thing again?” Mom C asks. “I thought you said you’d try to like Greeley.”

  I lick a glob of peanut butter off the side of my sandwich.

  “Yeah, where’s my glass-half-full daughter?” Mom J says. She’s always talking about how we’re both optimists.

  “Your glass-half-full daughter is back in Captiva,” I say.

  They laugh like it’s a joke, but I’m not finding it funny. I know the truth is that I have to survive fall and winter and spring (and every season until … forever). It was a big deal when Mom C got hired as a lawyer at this firm. Mom J quit her job at the newspaper. She’s going to stay home and write during the day and drive me wherever I need to go. I’m going to try out for swim team and find a place to ice-skate, just like I did in Florida. People don’t realize there are rinks in Florida, but it’s true.

  “What about Butterball?” Mom J asks.

  “That’s right,” Mom C says, nodding brightly. “That’s a definite plus about being here.”

  It’s true that my cat’s life has improved in Greeley. Back in Captiva, we lived in an apartment on the second floor of a house. Butterball’s only fresh-air time was on the screened porch, where he’d pace the perimeter, meowing angrily. Here in Greeley, we have a backyard with trees to scratch and birds to stalk. Anytime Butterball wants to go outside, he squeezes his round body through the cat door and romps around Centennial Avenue.

  I sigh heavily. “I guess so.”

  “Did you look over those paint samples?” Mom J asks. “Once we get your room decorated, you’ll feel much more settled in.”

  “What about seeing if the girl next door wants to hang out?” Mom C suggests. “Hannah, right? She seemed nice.”