My Year of Epic Rock by Andrea Pyros Page A

could get could were, “He’s So In Love” and “He Can’t Get Enough of You.” “Intrigued” was for sure the worst of the three. You’d think the magazine writer would have just admitted, “He’s Kind of Meh on You so Maybe You Should Move On, Loser .”
    Intrigued, schmintrigued.
    There wasn’t a peep from either of my parents, not even after I saw Dr. Mehta’s car drive off over an hour later.
    At bedtime, I stepped out of my room to wash up as quietly as I could, hoping to get through the rest of the night without a lecture, but Mom was in the hallway. It was like she’d been waiting for me. Her hair was wet and she was in her fuzzy robe that has blue and pink cupcakes all over it.
    â€œDo you feel like your behavior tonight was mature?” Mom said.
    â€œMom, I know! I’m sorry!” I yelled it though, which made me sound not as sorry as I should have sounded, even though she was right.
    â€œWhen we have a guest here, I expect good manners.” With that, Mom turned and went into her bedroom without waiting to hear what I had to say.
    I went to bed feeling awful. And also, of course, hungry. That’ll show me not to get up from the table before I’m full.
    That off-my-game mood stayed with me for the whole next morning too. I pretty much moped, not walked, to school, ignoring Jackson as he went on and on and on about how awesome Dr. Mehta was.
    As I was walking on the side pathway up to Woodgrove, I saw Jody getting dropped off by her dad. She mouthed, “WAIT!” and gestured at me to wait for her to get out of the car so we could walk in together.
    â€œAre Brianna and Shelley having a huge party for the whole grade?” she asked as soon as she caught up to me. “That sounds so cool. Do you know who’s going?” Jody flipped open the front pocket on her purple zebra print messenger bag and took out a lip gloss.
    Her question totally took me by surprise. I had no clue Brianna and Shelley made their official party announcement. I wondered where Jody heard about it.
    â€œI don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess, well, I don’t know much about it.”
    â€œActually, I overheard them talking about it. I figured you’d have more of the details.”
    â€œI’m not really hanging out as much with Brianna these days,” I replied. “You know I’m…she’s…everyone is so busy with everything.” Even though it was noisy, with tons of other kids racing by us and yelling, it felt like the whole school must have heard me say that out loud.
    â€œOh.” Jody looked at me and seemed curious but didn’t say anything else. I was sure she was dying to ask me about Brianna, since of course she’d noticed what was going on, but didn’t want to seem like the hugest gossip.
    When we walked in, Brianna and Shelley were already there, talking to each other. They had on matching dark skinny jeans and fuzzy boots and hoodies, Shelley’s a pure, snow white with not even a speck of dust or dirt on it; Brianna’s was yellow. Their hair even matched—straight and shiny, each of them sporting a thin braid on one side of their heads. They’d both dyed a streak of their hair purple. They had taken time to coordinate outfits, like Brianna and I used to do.
    They both looked really good.
    Glancing down at my now-awkward-looking black capris and long-sleeved red tee, I felt less like a seventh grader, and more like my little cousin Beth who refuses to leave the house unless she matches her sparkly socks to her sparkly shirt and sparkly headband. I was definitely not by any stretch sophisticated. Or elegant.
    â€œDo you want to go sit down?” I asked Jody, motioning to the bench near where Brianna and Shelley were sitting.
    They looked both of us over as we got closer, and I saw Jody adjusting her shirt, tugging it down over her jeans, and flipping her hair