The Battle of Darcy Lane by Tara Altebrando

who say things like that? They’re not real friends.”
    â€œBut Taylor’s my best friend !”
    She looked a little crazed then, in her eyes, and it scared me a little. Like I’d made a big mistake bringing her into this. “Is she?”
    â€œOf course she is.” I wiped my nose.
    She huffed and seemed to literally bite her tongue. “Is this how best friends treat each other?”
    I didn’t want to hear anything she was saying. Taylorhad to be my best friend. Because if not her, then who? Wendy? No way. Apart from that time when I stashed her photo in a drawer, I hadn’t really thought about her since school let out. Didn’t that mean something? That I didn’t miss her? It had to.
    â€œWhy doesn’t she like me?” I asked. “Alyssa, I mean.”
    Mom shook her head. “You can’t do anything about whether people like you or not. Except the obvious things, like not being mean or intentionally hurting someone.”
    It sounded like a question. “I’m not! I didn’t!”
    â€œOkay then,” she said.
    â€œBut what am I going to do?”
    â€œYou’re going to think about the fact that maybe you don’t like her .” She stood and went to my mirror, pushed her hair behind her ears and studied herself. “Maybe you don’t even really like Taylor all that much either.”
    â€œOf course I do!” I shouted.
    But I wasn’t so sure anymore, not after the way she’d been siding with Alyssa so much. Thinking back on how things used to be, it was hard to believe that Taylor was still the same person I’d had sleepovers with over winter break, and told all my secrets, like how I once tried to practice kissing using my own hand. It wasn’t that simple, though. “They live on our street .”
    She nodded. “And I don’t really like Mrs. Chamberlain, but we still live on the same street and are civil and don’tpretend we’re anything more than neighbors. I’m not really friends with Taylor’s mom, either. I mean I help her out with Taylor when she has work stuff and she’s helped me, too, but it’s not like we talk about important things.”
    It was true that Mom really didn’t like Mrs. Chamberlain, who was also saying weird things about our house or yard, like “I see you’re going for the wild look with the lawn!” It was also true that Mom and Taylor’s mother never really spoke for more than a few minutes. It was always just about us girls, or stuff happening on the block.
    â€œWhy aren’t you friends with Taylor’s mom?”
    She looked caught out in her reflection in the mirror. “We just don’t have a lot in common.” She untucked her hair from her ears and turned back to me. “When you start school again it won’t matter as much as it does now.”
    â€œBut summer’s another five weeks!”
    â€œWell, you’ll have camp starting next week.” She seemed ready to be done with this conversation; I felt the same. “This week, why don’t you have Wendy over?”
    I would not invite Wendy over if I could avoid it. “Maybe.”
    We went downstairs, and I helped her clean up dinner. When we were done, she walked over to the phone and plugged it back in. It started ringing before she’d even let go of the wire.
    â€œThat’s it,” she snapped. “I’ve had it.”
    She opened and closed a few kitchen drawers. Shepulled something out of the back of the junk drawer—a whistle I’d gotten in a birthday goodie bag a few years ago—and propped it by her lips. Picking up the phone mid-ring, she blew that whistle so hard—it was louder than that whole party had been—that her face turned red. I covered my ears.
    â€œWhat on earth?” Dad said from the other room.
    â€œCome on.” Mom unplugged the phone again, grabbed her car keys off the