Best Friends (Until Someone Better Comes Along) by Erin Downing Page A

us, Your Highness,” Brennan said with an arrogant smile. He gestured to the sunken canoe and bowed. “May I help you into your chariot?”

Chapter Seven
    W hat an arrogant jerk!
    I really wanted to show Brennan that I wasn’t a total princess, and that I could play their stupid canoe game. But even though I sat as still as possible and tried really, really hard to not rock the boat, our team still lost the next round of Canoe Wars in less than two minutes. Apparently, Bailey and Ava made a critical error when they left me alone to protect the half-submerged canoe while they swam underwater to try to make a move on Brennan, Madeline, and Zach.
    â€œJust sit as still as you can,” Bailey instructed as they swam away. Choppy waves lapped at the side of the canoe, making it rock back and forth. But I sat still, my hands wrappedtightly around the sides of the boat. I worked on conjuring up my Zen focus. I had to prove myself.
    â€œWe’ll be back in two seconds,” Ava promised, looking back. “Just don’t move while we’re gone.”
    But as soon as she and Bailey were positioned on either side of Brennan’s canoe, Zach popped up out of the water, right by my seat. “Boo!” He screamed into my ear and threw a live crayfish into the boat. The creepy thing zipped around in the water, its little pincers opening and closing. I screamed too, and flailed around in the watery canoe, trying to keep as far as possible from the creepy crayfish. I swished my body back and forth in the water inside the canoe, but the crayfish acted like it was hunting me for dinner. Finally, unable to escape the snapping little beast, I jumped up and hopped around, trying to keep my toes out of its claws. But once the boat started rocking, I couldn’t figure out how to keep it from going over. Within seconds, I’d rolled out into neck-deep water, and the canoe floated upside down in the lake once again.
    I watched the crayfish roll out of the canoe beside me, then swim lazily to the bottom of the lake. I was totally skeeved out, since marine life was freaky. But more than anything, I felt picked on.
    â€œBest three of five?” Ava suggested hopefully. When no one said anything, she muttered, “Maybe later.”
    I’m not dim. I knew that “maybe later” meant “maybe later when Izzy’s not around.” I felt the sting of rejection, though no one had actually said they didn’t want me there outright. It was almost worse that no one just came out and told me to leave. I felt like one of the cling-on girls that always tried to hang out with Heidi and Sylvie and me—there were a few of them in our grade that just didn’t get that they weren’t welcome, no matter how many times we’d made it clear.
    I knew I was like one of those girls now. No one needed or wanted me there, but no one had the guts to just come out and say it.
    Even though I wanted to go back to my cabin and hide, I decided to help Ava and Bailey dump the water out of our canoe and drag it back to shore. But every time I tried to help, I just kept tipping the thing again. So finally, Bailey told me to wait onshore while they did it themselves. “It’s easier with just two,” she lied, smiling at me like I was some sort of idiot.
    I tried to think of an excuse to get out of there, but found it impossible to come up with anything that wouldn’t make me look like I was a sore loser. I considered saying I had to go back to my cabin to put on sunscreen, but the giant cloudshad completely obstructed the sun, and I knew it would sound like a hollow excuse. So I unhooked my life jacket and hung it over the fence that ran along the tree line. I leaned against a fence post and watched the clouds rolling in over the lake, wondering if this is how it felt when Heidi and Sylvie and I wouldn’t let people sit at our lunch table. I felt like an outsider, like I couldn’t do