girl stuff. by Lisi Harrison

Author:Lisi Harrison [Harrison, Lisi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Ruthie heavy-sighed whenever Drew and Fonda shared a story from one of their classes.

Drew changed the subject when Ruthie recited a limerick her friend Sage wrote about the periodic table.

Fonda was happy that Drew changed the subject, because she was kind of jealous that Ruthie had made a new friend too.

Everyone went their separate ways on Saturday, which NEVER happened.

Basically, the next-door besties were acting more like next-door foes, and the idea of changing their name from nesties to noes felt even worse than it sounded.

Fonda would have been lying if she’d said the idea of giving up and moving to Myanmar to build houses for Habitat for Humanity didn’t cross her mind. But one of yesterday’s speakers at the Feminist Fall Lecture Series talked about the importance of women lifting each other up so they could reach their goals. And that lifted Fonda up. Not enough to keep self-pity at bay, but certainly enough to keep her from moving to Myanmar. Maybe they were going through rough waters, but she was going to right their sinking friend-ship and put the nesties back on course. And if that required a little eavesdropping to find out how the popular girls kept their friend-ships afloat, so be it.

“What’s our answer to last year’s sneaker pact?” asked Winfrey as she blew on her drying white polish.

“Um, what’s the question?” muttered her friend Jaymee, the clay on her face mask dried and cracking.

Fonda smiled to herself. Lately, Winfrey had been saying things like What’s our answer to backpacks? or What’s our answer to beef? It was her fancy new way of pointing out that a tired old trend needed updating and that she was the person for the job. Basically, it was her “answer” to the normal way of asking, How can I stand out? And everyone found it super confusing.

“The question is, we all wore sneakers to the dance last year, and we need to come up with something better.”

That’s not a question, Fonda thought. But Winfrey’s friends didn’t fixate on semantics. Ruthie, on the other hand, would have placed a citizen’s arrest.

“Anything but heels.” Amelia padded over to the hair-staining station to contemplate the colors. “Like I always say—”

“Cute can be comfortable, and comfortable is cute,” everyone said together.

Fonda typed GET A PERSONAL SLOGAN in the Notes app on her phone.

“What about sandals?” said Cami, peeling a crooked false eyelash off her lid.

“Ehhh!” Winfrey said, impersonating an elimination buzzer. “Too daytime.”

“Flip-flops?” Priya tried.

“Too July.”

“Rain boots?” Jaymee said.

“NF!” Winfrey and Amelia called. It stood for not funny. They shouted it whenever someone told a bad joke.

“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

“In your case NF stands for not Filly,” Winfrey said.

“Meaning?”

“You don’t live in Philadelphia anymore. You live in California. It never rains here. We don’t own boots.”

Instead of pointing out that Philly didn’t start with an F, the girls fell silent, each of them probably trying to solve the footwear crisis.

“What about no shoes?” Amelia finally said. “A barefoot pact.

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