You’re Invited Too by Jen Malone and Gail Nall Page B

Grumplepants all day long,” Becca says. “She didn’t even touch her milkshake at lunch, and you know we totes deserved milkshakes after running around all morning with Alexandra Worthington. And then she had nothing to say—nothing!—when Alexandra Worthington called about that Elvis thing.”
    After spending the whole morning visiting every place on the island and the mainland that could possibly sell or order wedding favors, our bride finally picked out bobblehead dolphins. Sadie ordered 120 from the store before Miss Worthington could change her mind. And then she had the nerve to call an hour later and ask if it was possible to move the whole wedding onto a boat so that an Elvis impersonator could parachute in, and whether that would break her budget. Of course it would break her budget, but I was too busy stewing in A Mood to say that.
    Although none of us really said anything until Sadie croaked out, “Well, maybe we could . . . ,” and Becca said, “Elvis is pretty awesomesauce, Alexandra, but what if he landed smack-dab on someone’s head or missed the landing and crashed into the ocean? And if you’ve got everyone on a boat, they might get seasick, and that could get kinda . . . messy. Plus, there are seagulls that could ruin everything.”
    And then, as Miss Worthington actually agreed(!) with Becca, Vi elbowed Sadie, who turned bright red because of the whole seagull-doo-doo/bridesmaid-and-dog-overboard complete disaster of a boat wedding that got her fired from Mrs. Pleffer’s business in the first place. Though that whole thing is what led us to start RSVP, so who knows what brilliant idea an Elvis boat wedding could’ve caused.
    Vi, Becca, and Sadie are still looking at me. Why did my not drinking a milkshake during my scheduled RSVP work time make them so suspicious? Suspicious: to have a distrust . . . oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter anyway.
    â€œSo spill it,” Vi says through a mouthful of cookie.
    I turn away from my friends and toward the ocean. The sun’s just set, and the sky is full of those beautiful dark blues and purples. Plus, there’s a full moon casting a pretty trail of light across the water. Or it would be really pretty if I wasn’t in A Mood.
    â€œLauren, if you don’t say anything, I will,” Sadie says.
    I snuggle deeper into my sweatshirt as the wind picks up. Then I look around to make sure Mom and Dad aren’t here. “Fine. You tell them,” I say to Sadie.
    Sadie takes a deep breath. “Lauren got a . . . bad grade.”
    Becca’s mouth makes a little O, and I think Vi actually gasps.
    â€œDon’t worry, Lo.” Becca reaches an arm around my shoulders. “You can make it up.”
    â€œI got a D on a test last year,” Vi says. “We all get bad grades sometimes.”
    â€œRemember that C I got in PE?” Becca asks. “I mean, who gets a C in gym class ?”
    â€œOnly people who don’t even try to hit the ball,” Sadie says with a grin. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile since the whole Alexandra Worthington thing happened with her mom last weekend.
    â€œSo what was it? Was it that pre-algebra test?” Vi asks.
    I nod. The whole humiliating scene replays itself in my head for the millionth time. Sitting at my desk last period yesterday, trying to keep my eyes open because Zach had showed me this crazy-fun video game where you can create people and build houses for them and get them a job and a family and have them cook turkey for dinner and pretty much invent their whole entire lives. Anyway, I got so into it on Thursday night that I stayed up way too late playing it—ignoring the alarm I’d set to remind myself to go to sleep.
    After we spent forty-five minutes working problems on the whiteboard and then doing group work, Ms. Snyder started handing back our tests. Sadie got