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  The hearts were the same colors as those candy hearts—pink, yellow, light blue, and pale green. Curious to know what had been written on them, I started reading them aloud.

  “ ‘Make Today Great,’ ” I began. “ ‘Today Is Your Day.’ ‘Believe in Yourself.’ ”

  When we reached the seventh-grade lockers, Dylan started breaking off pieces of the masking tape.

  “I’ll tape, you stick on the hearts?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said, and we got to work.

  “I guess this dance will be a lot less stressful than the cotillion,” Dylan remarked.

  “No kidding,” I said.

  “I mean, though, it wasn’t that bad,” Dylan said. “At least I had you as my partner.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said hesitantly. Where was Dylan going with this?

  I handed him a paper heart, and my mind drifted off, thinking about the cotillion. I had been miserable, knowing I had to wear a dress. Avery had helped me out by bringing a sparkly hoodie for me to wear when the formal dance part was over, so I felt more like myself. And by then we could dance with whoever we wanted to, and I had danced with Amanda, jumping around and laughing. In the end, it had been really fun.

  “Here’s my locker,” Dylan said, and I handed him one from the bag without looking.

  “ ‘You rock!’ ” he read. “Thanks, Elle.”

  I didn’t have it in me to tell him that I had randomly picked it, but maybe I should have. Because then he did something that really surprised me.

  “So, um, Elle,” he said nervously. “Do you maybe want to, like, go to the dance together?”

  Oh no! What was I supposed to say? Dylan is really nice, but I didn’t like him like that.

  “I don’t know, Dylan,” I said. “I mean, this is a Buddy Dance, right? I was just going to go with my friends.”

  “Yeah, right, of course,” Dylan said quickly, and his cheeks turned pink. “A Buddy Dance. Duh.”

  “It was nice of you to ask, though,” I said, which was true.

  “Sure,” Dylan said, but he was quiet as we made our way down the hall, until we came to my locker.

  “Are you going to pick out something good for yours?” he said.

  I dug my hand into the bag. “Nah, I’ll just go for something random.”

  I pulled out a yellow heart that read DREAM BIG.

  “Cool!” I said, and I slapped it onto the locker. Dream big. Like what I did when I imagined having my own line of women’s pro basketball shoes. That was a big dream. Dream big. I could do that!

  Dylan and I finished up the hall a few minutes later and went back to get more hearts. Katie and Gabrielle caught up to us and we breezed through the eighth-grade hallway while the others cleaned up the mess in Ms. Ebear’s room. When we were all finished, we stepped out into the hallway to see our finished work.

  “This looks amazing!” Satoko squealed.

  “This will definitely get attention,” Cole remarked. “Everybody’s going to be talking about this on Monday morning.”

  “Principal Lubin is going to read our announcement on Monday,” Ms. Ebear reported. “He told me that he’s a hundred percent behind this change.”

  There was a pause, and it felt like we needed some kind of official moment of closure or celebration. I took a cue from my sports teams.

  “Hands in!” I shouted, and I held out my right arm. Everybody else figured it out, and we piled our hands on top of each other.

  “Goooooo, Buddy Club!” I cheered.

  “Goooooo, Buddy Club!” the others shouted, and we ended with a lot of whooping and clapping.

  I couldn’t stay to hang out much longer, though, because I had a booster club meeting to run. I just hoped that all my friends would be able to get along the way the Buddy Club did!

  7 Experiment

  So that will be six orders of cheese fries, twelve forks, six sodas, two iced teas, and four lemonades?” the waitress asked, repeating our order back to us. Her voice sounded flat, like she had taken a million orders like this before.

  “That’s right,” Kenya told her.

  “Coming up,” she said, and then she quickly stepped away.

  Almost all of us had been able to make it. Only Tiff, Caroline, Hannah, and Lauren couldn’t be there. The twelve of us had moved three tables together in a corner of the diner, right in front of a huge painted wall mural of a steamship.

  Now that our order had been taken, everyone looked at me.

  “So, Elle, what’s the plan?” Kenya said.

  Thanks to Avery, I had a list of stuff to talk about on my phone. We had worked on it during the week, texting back and forth.

  I looked down at my list. “First, we need an advisor. Ms. Ebear said we should ask one of our coaches.”

  Patrice spoke up. “I think my mom will do it. She was really happy when she heard we were forming a booster club.”

  “Yeah?” I asked. “Happy” was not a word I’d ever use to describe Coach Ramirez.

  Patrice nodded. “Definitely,” she said.

  “We could ask Coach Patel, too,” Kenya said. “He’s really great.” The volleyball girls nodded in agreement.

  “Let’s ask them both, and see who has the time to do it,” Avery said.

  “Plus, who says we can’t have two advisors?” Hannah chimed in.

  Everybody seemed satisfied with that, and I sighed with relief. I had been worried about the two teams getting along, but things were going great. I should have figured that girls who knew all about teamwork would be able to work together.

  “Okay,” I said, and I looked down at my list. “So, what kinds of things should we do?”

  “We could start by going to each other’s games and cheering each other on,” Dina said.

  “Definitely,” Summer agreed.

  Jenna spoke up. “I want cheerleaders, just like the boys have!”

  “We should get boy cheerleaders,” Natalie added, and Jenna grinned at her. Some of the girls started laughing. “They should have to wear short shorts just like the cheerleaders have to wear short skirts.”

  “Ew, no thank you!” I said. “Cheerleader uniforms are ridiculous. They’re jumping around and doing amazing athletics. Shouldn’t they be wearing sweats or leggings or something?”

  “Well, Jenna’s got a point,” Avery said. “It’s not fair that the boys get cheerleaders and we don’t.”

  Amanda spoke up for the first time. “The other day, when Patrice came to talk to me, I was with some of my friends in the band,” she said. “They said they would form a pep band for the girls’ games.”

  “What’s a pep band?” Jenna asked.

  “It’s a band that sits in the stands and plays, instead of marching on the field,” Amanda explained. “You don’t need a lot of musicians. So far we’ve got one drummer, a trumpet, a clarinet, and a flute. That should be enough to do some basic songs.”

  “I love that idea,” I said, giving Amanda a grateful smile. “Much better than cheerleaders.”

  Then I winced. Had I insulted Jenna? I looked at her, and she was grinning.

  “A band would be awesome!” she said. “The boys don’t even have that.”

  Everybody started talking at once, excited by the idea of the pep band. Then our fries came, and everyone got more excited. When things calmed down, I went through my list, and we made some decisions. We would try to meet every other Saturday afternoon. We would try to go to each other’s games. We would decorate players’ lockers before games. And we would reach out to the other girls’ teams.

  I was feeling pretty pumped up afterward, as we waited outside for our rides home.

  “That went really well,” I told Avery. “We made so many plans.”

  Then I had a panicked thought. “Oh no! I didn’t write anything down. What if I don’t remember everything? There was the pep band, and the lockers, and …”

  “Chill,” Avery told me. “I took notes on my phone.”

  I hugg
ed her. “What would I do without you?”

  Then I heard someone call out, “Bye, Amanda!” and I turned to see Amanda climbing into her mom’s car. She hadn’t even said good-bye to me before she left, which was unusual.

  That deflated my happiness bubble a tiny bit, but not much. I still had a great feeling after our meeting. A positive feeling that by working together, we could make a change. Was it girl power? Whatever it was, I couldn’t wait for tomorrow’s game!

  * * *

  Sunday began like every other game day. I woke up at 6:30 and walked and fed Zobe. Then I spent thirty minutes shooting baskets in my driveway. After that, I showered, ate half a bagel with peanut butter, and napped for a half hour. When I woke up, I put on my jersey, basketball shoes first. Then I put on my shorts, right foot first, so I would be sure to start off the game on the right foot.

  Mom and Dad drove me to the game in Hillside, where we were playing against the Gophers.

  “Will your booster club be in full force at the game?” Mom wanted to know.

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “We only had one day to plan. I’m not sure if the other girls are ready to come support us yet. But there’s still time in the season.”

  When we got there, only about half of the Nighthawks were there, and the stands were about as empty as they always were. When the whole team was there, we warmed up with a shooting drill, and I wasn’t thinking about the booster club at all until the sound of a trumpet made me jump.

  I turned to see four musicians from the band sitting in the stands, wearing Nighthawks T-shirts. They were playing “Another One Bites the Dust.” Amanda smiled and waved at them.

  “Wow, they’re really great!” I said.

  She nodded. “Yeah, I told them that they need to be quiet when we were playing, because they sound so loud in here. But they can play for us during breaks and stuff. And to get the game going.”

  I bit my lip. “I hope Coach doesn’t mind.”

  But when I looked over at her, Coach was tapping her foot to the music.

  The second surprise came when the girls from the volleyball team came in with a few other girls from our school. They were holding up a paper banner: GO, NIGHTHAWKS! They brought it up to the top of the stands, and it looked amazing!

  Coach talked to us before we went out onto the court.

  “I normally don’t talk about stats, but today is a big game,” she said. “If we win today, we will be guaranteed a spot in the playoffs.”

  Some of the girls cheered. Avery and I looked at each other, our mouths open.

  “If we make it, this will be the first time the seventh-grade team has gone to the playoffs,” she said.

  “No way. Really?” Natalie asked.

  “Really,” Coach replied. “So no excuses today. Go out there and play your best!”

  “YES, COACH!”

  I wondered why Coach had given us this news right before the game. It was a lot of pressure—but it was also a huge motivation. Because we did play our best—all of us. The band and the banner and the girls cheering us on really helped too.

  Caroline scored a free throw. Avery made two layups. Patrice made an awesome shot after she recovered a rebound. Coach put in Amanda in the third quarter, and she blocked two shots from the Gopher girl she was guarding. The third time, she stole the ball and passed it to Bianca, who made a basket.

  I played one of my best games yet. I scored fifteen points! In the end, we beat the Gophers 43–30.

  After the game, the pep band launched into a happy victory song. The volleyball girls came down with the banner and swarmed us. It felt like a big win—bigger than beating the Wolves. We were the first seventh-grade team to make it to the playoffs!

  “You guys are coming out to celebrate with us, right?” I asked Kenya.

  “Definitely!” Kenya replied, and a little while later we were all in the crowded pizza parlor, hyped up and making a lot of noise. I looked around at all the girls, and thought about the yellow heart on my locker: Dream Big. The booster club idea had started out as a kind of a dream. And now it was really working!

  I turned to talk to Kenya at the table behind me. “Thanks for the banner. That was really cool.”

  Kenya grinned. “You guys can borrow it for Friday if you want.”

  Avery overheard us. “We should surprise you with something, just like you surprised us.”

  “I hope you have an idea,” I whispered to Avery.

  “Don’t sweat it,” she told me. “We’ll figure it out.”

  The pep band had come out with us too—two boys and two girls—and Amanda was sitting with them at a table. I walked over. I knew their names, because this is a small school, but I didn’t know them that well.

  “You guys sounded awesome,” I said. “Thanks so much.”

  “No problem,” said Kyle, the drummer.

  “We don’t get to play much now that football season is over,” added Stephen, who played clarinet.

  “Yeah, and it’s easier than marching around the field,” added Kristin, the flute player.

  Rachel, the trumpet player, nudged Amanda. “I just wish Amanda was still playing with us.”

  “Hey, I’m still in the concert band!” Amanda said. “And I’m in the orchestra for the spring musical, too.”

  “Wow, that’s like, a lot of music-playing,” I said, and then I cringed. Had I forgotten how to make sentences all of a sudden?

  “Thanks,” Amanda said, and then she looked away from me and started talking to Rachel about the musical.

  “Okay then, well, thanks,” I said. “Will you guys be at the volleyball game on Friday?”

  Kyle nodded. “Yup,” he said. Then he tapped on the table with his drumsticks.

  I felt a little sad as I walked back to the table. My friendship with Amanda just wasn’t the same, and I wasn’t sure why.

  Our friendship needs a booster club, I thought, which was kind of a silly thought, but it gave me an idea for a way to make things better. Because even though things were going really great, I knew they could be much better if I could fix things with Amanda.

  8 Jealous? Seriously?

  Good morning, Spring Meadow!” Principal Lubin announced over the speakers. “I am sure you were heartily surprised to see the wonderful hearts on your lockers this morning. The members of the Buddy Club put their heart and soul into them and wanted me to announce that this year’s middle school Valentine’s Day Dance now has a heart-warming theme: friendship! That’s right. Cupid is taking a vacation, and this year’s dance will be a Buddy Dance. From the bottom of my heart, I think this is a great idea!”

  I looked at Ms. Ebear. Principal Lubin’s corniness could be painful sometimes. He was the king of dad jokes.

  “That is not what Cole wrote,” she said. “But I think he got the point across.”

  She was right. Even Principal Lubin’s cringe- worthy delivery could not spoil the excitement over the revised Valentine’s Day Dance. It was all anybody could talk about on Monday. People were asking one another what message they got. Most were really relieved that the dance was no longer a romantic one—except for a few eighth-graders. Word got around that Lanie Frye said that a Buddy Dance was too immature, and she tried to get a petition going to keep it a Valentine’s Day Dance. But I heard that she only got four signatures. Most people really loved our idea.

  At practice that day, we got more good news.

  “The Wolves lost their game this weekend,” Coach Ramirez announced before practice started. “If we win our next game—which is our last regular season game—we’ll get the home-court advantage on the playoff schedule. That’s a big deal. So this is not the time to slack. Give me twenty!”

  It was just like Coach to double our laps while we were on top of our game, but none of us minded.

  “We’re going out on top!” Natalie sang happily as she and Hannah jogged past me.

  Bianca caught up to me. “You came back just in time, Elle,” she said, and I smile
d at her.

  “Just don’t mess it up!” she concluded, before jogging ahead. It didn’t bother me. That was just Bianca being Bianca.

  I got a ride home from Avery’s mom after practice, and I ran into the house, excited. Zobe jumped up and licked my face. I patted him and went to Beth and formed into her hand: Happy. I knew she liked to know when I got good news.

  “You seem very cheerful, Elle,” Mom said.

  “The team is doing great,” I told her. “We’ve got one more game before the playoffs, and if we win, we’ll get the home-court advantage. And I think we can do it. We’ve gotten so good at working together.”

  She looked at me. “So I guess you’re glad you rejoined the team?”

  “I am,” I said. “And not just because we’re winning. I’m really having fun.”

  “I’m glad you found your way back,” Mom said. “Now please feed Zobe!”

  My poor dog’s pre-dinner whine was becoming deafening, so I quickly obeyed.

  “Things are a little crazy right now, Zobe, but I’ll make it up to you,” I promised. And I did, with an hour-long play session in the living room after dinner, because it was too cold to go outside.

  The next day after school, I went to Avery’s house to make a sign for the volleyball team. Patrice, Natalie, Hannah, Dina, and Tiff came too. Avery had stacked her kitchen table with art supplies: poster paper, construction paper, markers, and stickers.

  “We need to do something really cool,” I said. “The banner that the volleyball team made for us was awesome.”

  “Well, we have one thing that they don’t have,” Avery said, and I noticed that both her hands were behind her back.

  “What’s that?” Natalie asked.

  Avery grinned and thrust out her arms. “Glitter!”

  She held two giant jars of glitter—one green, and one yellow.

  Tiff made a face. “Glitter is sooooooo messy! Somebody gave me a birthday card with glitter in it once, and I kept finding it in my hijab, no matter how much I washed it!”

  “It’s messy but it’s beautiful,” Natalie said.