Wish Upon a Sleepover Page 4

  The snow didn’t stick around, which is pretty typical for Seattle. I look up at the sky. There’s no moon tonight, just a bunch of dark clouds. Good thing I’m not trying to make sleepover soup.

  Tutu makes up the weirdest stories.

  9

  The Wrong List

  When I get home from school the next day, I look over my shoulder to make sure William isn’t coming down the street. But even if he gets into the elevator and even if he ignores me, it won’t ruin my mood. I’m excited because I’m going to mail my invitations. I’m not even upset that the Haileys all wore red sweaters today and, even with my eavesdropping, I’d somehow missed this plan. Soon I’ll be included in all their conversations.

  Tutu is sitting at the kitchen table, eating an orange. Her lips glisten with juice. She nods at me.

  “Hi, Tutu. Did you get the envelopes?” If I write the addresses on them real quick, I can run downstairs and get them in the slot before the 4:15 p.m. pickup.

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Thanks. Where are they?”

  “I mailed them.” She tears off another slice. Juice sprays across the table.

  “You mailed them?” I freeze.

  “Yes. I mailed them.” She says this loudly, as if I can’t hear very well.

  “Really? You used my list?”

  “Yes, the list. What’s the big deal? I know how to look up an address and mail a letter. I’m not that old.”

  I dump my backpack onto the floor, then rush into the living room. Four pineapple invitations sit on the coffee table. “Tutu?” I pick them up and hurry back to the kitchen. “How come four didn’t get mailed? I made seven invitations. One for each guest.”

  “No,” she says.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “Three guests. Three invitations.”

  Three guests? Maybe she hadn’t worn her glasses.

  “I delivered one in person. Why waste a stamp when the address is downstairs?”

  “Downstairs?” I’m starting to get a weird feeling in my stomach, like I swallowed a rock. “You mean across the street, right? Hailey Chun lives in the condo across the street.”

  “No.” Tutu finishes the orange, then gets up to wipe her hands on a dish towel. “I put two in the mailbox and took one downstairs to the third floor.”

  Third floor?

  “When I was a little girl, we had only one mail truck. It took a week to get a letter from one end of the island to the other. You could deliver it faster by walking.”

  Third floor!

  “You want some apple juice?” She opens the refrigerator.

  I dart back into the living room, and that’s when I find it, lying on the sofa, next to Tutu’s cat-eye glasses. The “DO NOT invite” list with three names. “Tutu, what did you do?” I cry.

  There’s no time to wait for the elevator. I run down the stairs as fast as I can. “No, no, no,” I chant the whole way. All my hard work. My plans. What if Todd and Manga Girl and William get those invitations? No, that isn’t going to happen. I can still save my sleepover. “No, no, no.” But it’s too late. The mail lady came early. I run outside and look up and down the sidewalk, just in case she’s still around. She isn’t.

  AHHHHHHH!

  I run back upstairs. When I burst into the kitchen, I can barely breathe. Mom is pouring a cup of coffee. “Leilani?” she gasps. “Your face is all red. What’s going on? What’s happened?”

  “Tutu…” I can’t get the words out. “Tutu…”

  Tutu scowls at me.

  “Tutu … Tutu sent the invitations to the wrong people!” I hold the list up to Mom’s face. “This is my ‘DO NOT invite’ list!”

  “Leilani, calm down. I can’t read it when it’s pressed against my nose. Give me that.” She takes it from me. “I don’t understand. Why would you make a ‘DO NOT invite’ list? That seems so mean.”

  “It’s not mean. No one was going to see it.” I grab the “DO invite” list off the coffee table. “This is the right list. See? It says ‘DO invite.’ That one says ‘DO NOT invite.’ NOT!”

  Tutu is seated at the table again, drinking juice. She shrugs. “One little word.”

  “But it’s an important word. It’s one of the most important words ever. It completely changes a sentence!” Does Tutu need to go to Reading Lab? I pace back and forth, my heart pounding in my ears. “There’s no way to get the invitations back. They’re gone. What am I going to do?”

  Mom isn’t freaking out. She doesn’t even seem concerned. “I’m sure it will be okay,” she says as she stirs milk into her coffee.

  “Okay?” I’m starting to spit. Starting to froth at the mouth like a crazy person. “We’re talking about Todd. And Manga Girl. And that boy from the third floor. It won’t be okay!”

  “Leilani,” Mom says, “stop shouting at us. Now sit down and take a deep breath.”

  I stop pacing. I sit. I take a deep breath. But oxygen never solves anything. It only makes me dizzy. “I’ll have to uninvite them.”

  Mom frowns at me. “You can’t do that, Leilani. You can’t uninvite people. That would be rude.”

  “Then I’ll tell them it’s canceled. I’ll—”

  Someone knocks on the door. Whoever it is, please go away. I’m in the middle of a crisis.

  Mom answers the door. “Oh, hello,” she says. Though I can’t see William’s face, I catch a glimpse of his plaid coat. I don’t want to talk to him, so I dart behind the door. “You’re the boy from the third floor, right?” Mom asks. Of course, he doesn’t say anything. “I’m sorry, but I can’t remember your name.”

  “William,” Tutu tells her. Then she shuffles back to the living room to watch TV.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, William. Are you here to see Leilani?”

  I stay behind the door. Why is he here? Maybe he’s going to tell us that he can’t come to the sleepover. That would be great.

  But William doesn’t say anything. His footsteps echo as he walks away. “Uh, okay, good-bye,” my mom calls down the hall. Then she closes the door. She’s holding a piece of paper. “He left you this note.”

  The piece of paper is folded four times, with my name on the front in very tidy handwriting. I unfold it.

  Dear Leilani,

  Thank you for inviting me to your sleepover.

  I have never been to a sleepover before.

  I would be very happy to come.

  Sincerely,

  William Worth

  P.S. I have selective mutism.

  “He’s a mutant? Well, that explains everything.”

  Mom takes the note and reads it. “Not mutant, Leilani. Mutism. That means he doesn’t talk.”

  “But I’ve heard him talk. He whispers when the elevator doors are closing.”

  “Selective mutism means he can’t talk in certain situations.”

  “Why not?” I ask. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not a psychiatrist. But you’ll need to explain this to your other guests so William won’t feel uncomfortable.”

  “What? No way. There won’t be any guests because I’m not having this party.”

  Mom puts her hands on her hips and gives me that look that makes me feel bad about myself. “Leilani, I raised you to be kind.”

  “But—”

  She keeps looking at me.

  I groan.

  10

  Cancellation Policy

  I stay inside all day Saturday, watching TV with Tutu and not doing much else. At noon, Autumn goes to Bellingham to visit her dad. Hailey Chun leaves at two fifty-five for the barbecue sleepover. It’s a long day.

  On Sunday, Mom and I take Tutu to get a pedicure. The lady files all the dead skin off Tutu’s heels, then paints her toenails pink. “In Hawaii, my feet were always so pretty,” Tutu says. “But now I have to wear socks, and I get ugly winter feet.”

  The lady tells us about a place in Japan where you stick your feet into a pool and tiny fish
eat the dead skin right off your heels and toes.

  “Let’s get some of those fish,” Tutu suggests.

  “And where would we put them?” Mom asks.

  “In the bathtub. Then I can have nice feet all the time.”

  Mom says she’ll look into it, then she winks at me.

  Yep, this is my exciting Sunday, talking about feet. But at least it’s better than what’s going to happen next weekend at my sleepover. The. End. Of. The. World.

  On Monday at lunch, Autumn sips her juice box and calmly reminds me, “The world isn’t coming to an end. Why don’t you just cancel the sleepover?”

  “Mom won’t let me cancel. She said it would be rude. She said Todd is having a hard time and I should be nice to him.”

  Autumn stops sipping. Her eyes get even bigger. “What kind of hard time?”

  “I don’t know.” I glance over at the basketball team’s table and start to think about what might be wrong. He doesn’t look sick. He doesn’t look sad. In fact, he’s laughing. Maybe he’s getting bad grades. That wouldn’t surprise me. It’s possible that the trouble-with-reading gene runs in our family. I hope he doesn’t end up in Reading Lab with me, because that room is super small.

  Back to my sleepover issues. “I can’t cancel the party by pretending to be sick, because Mom always knows when I’m faking.”

  “You could get an actual sickness,” Autumn says. “The average flu virus only takes one to two days to spread. The common cold takes a bit longer, maybe three days. But that’s still enough time.” She starts chewing on her straw.

  “How am I supposed to actually get sick?”

  “You could inhale deeply after someone sneezes. Or touch public handrails and doorknobs and then pick your nose. Those are sure ways for a virus to enter your body.”

  “Sick for real?” It’s an idea. How much do I want to avoid this sleepover? Is it worth snot running down the back of my throat, phlegm balls, and fever sweats?

  Yes, it is!

  Autumn tucks a curl behind her ear. “On second thought, there’s the possibility that you could catch something terrible, like tuberculosis or Ebola, and those things can be lethal.”

  No, it isn’t!

  I’m eating the day’s cafeteria special—chicken strips and french fries. I jab my fork into one of the strips. “There has to be a way to cancel the sleepover without a trip to the emergency room.”

  “Too bad you didn’t include a cancellation policy on your invitation,” Autumn says. “Something like, if unforeseen circumstances should occur, like Tutu mailing my invitations to the wrong list, then I reserve the right to cancel without further explanation.” She giggles. But I’m not laughing. “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” she says sweetly.

  “Not so bad? You couldn’t find weirder guests if you tried. A girl who thinks she’s living in a comic book, a boy who farts on command, and another boy who doesn’t talk because he’s got…” I try to remember what it’s called.

  “He’s mute?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. It’s called … selective mutism.”

  Autumn gasps. “Wow, really? Selective? So that means he’s not mute all the time, which rules out a physical cause. But even though he can talk, he doesn’t talk in certain situations. What kind of situations?”

  I think about it. “Well, he doesn’t talk to me face-to-face. He only whispers if he’s far away and I can’t see him.”

  “How interesting. I want to read about that.”

  “My mom said she’d get us tickets.” The happy voice belongs to Haighley Brown, over at the big round table. My ears prickle and I lean sideways. “The concert is next month.”

  “I’ve never been to a real concert,” Heeyley Kerrigan says.

  “Me neither,” says Heyley MacDonald. “This is going to be so much fun!”

  “Our first rock concert,” Hailey Chun squeals. “Together!” They all high-five.

  I’m so totally bummed, I stop eavesdropping. Autumn starts nibbling around the edges of her crustless cheese sandwich. I’m not enjoying lunch because my stomach is churning. How do I cancel my sleepover without disappointing my mom and without hurting feelings?

  “Hey, maybe I can go to Todd’s and Manga Girl’s houses and get their mail before they get it.”

  “That’s called mail tampering, and it’s a federal offense.” Autumn dabs her mouth with a napkin. “Besides, it only takes a day to deliver a letter within the city. They probably got the invites on Saturday.”

  “But Todd and Manga Girl haven’t RSVP’d.” I sit up straight. “Wait a minute, what if they can’t come? How great would that be? Then all I’d have to do is tell William that I’ve canceled, but I’ll tell Mom that William canceled on me. She’ll never know the truth because he doesn’t talk.” Brilliant!

  “I don’t know,” Autumn says. “You’re not very good at lying.”

  This is true. Mom always says that I wear my emotions on my sleeve. That’s a weird saying. I imagine a big frowning emoticon stuck to my shoulder.

  “Would you like to go to the science center’s human brain exhibit with me next week?” Autumn asks. “My mom said she’d get us tickets. They have actual brains on display, and you can take tests that measure your IQ and—”

  “Hey, cuz.” Todd stops at the table. He crushes his milk carton with one hand, then tosses it at the recycling bin. Perfect shot. “I got your invite. Sounds like fun. Gotta admit I’m surprised. I thought you didn’t like me.”

  “What?” I fake shock. If I tell him the truth, he’ll tell his mom and she’ll tell my mom, and I’ll get another lecture about being kind. “Why would you say that?”

  He shrugs. “Just a feeling, I guess.” He smiles at Autumn. “Hey, Autumn. Are you going to Leilani’s sleepover?”

  She turns red, nods, then starts nibbling real fast.

  “Cool. See you Saturday.” As he walks away, Autumn watches, her eyes as round as planets.

  “Crud,” I grumble.

  “Whoosh.” It’s Manga Girl. She’s left her corner and is standing in the exact spot where Todd was just standing. She tucks her sketchbook under her cape. “My dad said I have to go to your sleepover even though I don’t want to. He said I need to work on my social skills.” I don’t know how she makes her cat ears wiggle, but she does. Then she darts away.

  I slump in my chair. How could things get worse?

  “I’m not doing anything this Saturday.” This time it’s Hayley Ranson who’s talking.

  “Me neither,” says Heyley MacDonald.

  I can’t believe it. They have no plans. That means that if they’d gotten my invitations, they would have said yes!

  Autumn leans close to me and whispers, “You could still give them invites.”

  Autumn is usually brilliant, but I only need a nanosecond to realize that this is a terrible idea. “I can’t have them come to a party with William, Todd, and Manga Girl. They’ll think I have weird friends. They’ll think I’m weird.”

  Autumn shrugs. “Everybody’s a little weird.”

  “The Haileys aren’t weird,” I whisper back. “They’re totally normal.”

  Over at the big round table, Hailey Chun makes an announcement. “Since there’s nothing else going on, let’s do a sleepover this Saturday,” she says. “At my house.”

  The Haileys cheer.

  Autumn pushes her lunch aside and gives me a hug.

  11

  Friday Night

  It’s Friday night, less than twenty-four hours before doomsday. “What are you doing in bed already?” Mom asks.

  “I’m sick.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I can tell by her tone she isn’t buying my lie. But I figure I might as well give it a try. What do I have to lose? “My stomach hurts. And my head hurts. My back hurts, too. We had to play crab hockey in gym, so I think I pulled a bunch of muscles.” The crab hockey part is true. Autumn and I and the rest of the class had been forced to scuttle sideways on the disgusting gym floor
. “I got kicked in the knees, like, a million times. I’m so sore there’s no way I can do a sleepover.”

  Mom raises an eyebrow.

  I sense I’m going to lose this battle. I cross my arms. “This is all Tutu’s fault.”

  “Maybe,” Mom says. She sits on my bed and lowers her voice. “But we have to understand that Tutu is getting old, and sometimes she gets confused. She’d never hurt you on purpose. She loves you very much. When your dad died, she was the first to fly from Hawaii. She held you during the entire funeral.”

  I’d never heard that before. “I know she loves me. But this is still her fault.”

  “Well, maybe you should recognize that it’s also your fault. Maybe you shouldn’t have made that list.”

  We both go quiet for a moment. “Yeah, maybe you’re right about that.” I would feel pretty bad if someone put my name on a “DO NOT invite” list.

  She sighs. “I spoke with William’s mother yesterday. She’s a very nice lady. Did you know you two have something in common?”

  I shake my head. What could we possibly have in common? I don’t own a giant plaid coat. I don’t carry a cat around in a cat carrier. And I like talking to people face-to-face. In fact, my teachers often say that I talk too much.

  “His father died when he was a baby.”

  I grimace. That’s a cruddy thing to have in common.

  “She told me that William’s been homeschooled because of his mutism. He’s had trouble making friends. She said he was starting to show some improvements, but then recently, something set him back.”

  Is she trying to make me feel sorry for William? Well, I am sorry that he lost his dad, and I am sorry that he can’t talk. But when it comes right down to it, everyone has problems. Including me. I only have one friend, and even though she’s my best friend and I don’t want to trade her, I’d like to have a few more friends. Hailey friends.

  “William’s mom thinks the sleepover will be good for him. To be with other kids.”

  I tighten my arms and clench my jaw. My mom is real good at the whole guilt thing. I wonder if William actually wants to come to my sleepover, or if his mom is just like my mom and is making him do it. Something else we’d have in common.