The Secret Cookie Club by Martha Freeman Page B

declared. “That’s for little kids.”
    â€œI’m not too old!” Deirdre said. “I’m going as a Greek goddess!”
    â€œSeriously?” I said.
    Shoshi mimicked me, “ Seriously? That’s what you always say, Grace.”
    â€œSeriously?” I repeated, and everybody laughed.
    After that, things were going so well that I asked the question that had bugged me all year. “Do you guys talk every night and plan what you’re going to wear?”
    There was a pause, and I thought, uh-oh, now I’ve done it, lunchtime exile forever. But then Nell said, “We don’t have to.”
    And Deirdre shrugged. “Yeah, like I wore jeans on Friday? And I’m going to wear leggings tomorrow? So I have to wear khakis today. There aren’t that many choices of okay clothes to wear, you know? And after a while everybody is on the same schedule. See?”
    â€œWhat are you wearing tomorrow, Grace?” Shoshi asked. “Do you want to coordinate with us?”
    â€œOh—I didn’t ask because of that,” I said truthfully.
    â€œSo”—Deirdre shrugged—“it’s okay if you do.”
    I thought fast. “I don’t think about what I’m going to wear in advance. I just grab what I grab.”
    This was a fib. I do plan what I’m going to wear. Tomorrow would be skinny jeans and a hoodie. But dressing the same as three other girls in my class? Even if we actually became friends? I don’t know why, but the idea seemed just too strange.
    *  *  *
    If Shoshi was surprised by my clean room that afternoon, she didn’t say so. What she did say was “thank you” five times to my mom for picking us up and driving us. “It sure beats walking,” she added.
    I didn’t have piano that day, so my mom was working from home. Now I was terrified she’d say something like, “Who would allow their child to walk such a long distance?” Luckily, she just said, “You are very welcome.”
    The project was due Wednesday, and we didn’t have that much left to finish. I moved my old stuffed animals off my armchair, and Shoshi sat at my desk, and weread over each other’s writing. Because I am not a good artist, I had printed out images of each of the Walden thinkers, then put brown construction-paper frames around them. For me, that’s creative, and Shoshi said it looked good.
    I was adding a comma to a run-on sentence when I happened to glance up and notice Shoshi looking at my bulletin board. I looked back down at Shoshi’s sentence, and then it hit me: Oh no!
    Hopelessly, I jumped up as if I could tear down the Shoshi monsters before Shoshi live-and-in-the flesh saw them, but of course it was too late. Shoshi swiveled the desk chair to look at me, her forehead creased in puzzlement. “What are those supposed to mean?”

CHAPTER 18

    Grace
    I could tell my cheeks were red, and my stomach had started to churn. I forced myself to speak: “Nothing.”
    â€œWell, obviously that’s not true,” Shoshi said. “Do you think I’m a monster?”
    I sighed. Lying wasn’t going to get me out of this. Neither was being overly polite and apologetic. Probably, my best option was the plain old truth. “Not anymore,” I said.
    â€œBut you used to,” Shoshi said, and the weird part was she didn’t seem that offended. Was it possible she liked herself so much she didn’t need everyone else to like her?
    â€œSo who drew these?” she asked.
    It was a lot to explain—Lucy, the kids she babysits, the cookies, camp—but I tried. Maybe I tried too hard. I was explaining about Hannah and f-l-o-u-r power when Shoshi interrupted: “But why did you think I was a monster?”
    â€œBecause you and Nell and Deirdre laughed at me behind my back.” There. I said it.
    Shoshi shrugged. “Only sometimes. And only because you