I lay flopped on my back, outstretched on my bed, the earphones to my ipod in my ears. I rotated my thumb, scrolling through my songs on my ipod. May I mention that its a totally sweet ipod nano? Sky-blue, eight gigs, and still not a scratch on it! Which is pretty good considering its been lost twice, dropped once, and been slobbered on by Sarah's baby brother.
Humming along with "I'm A Believer" by Smashmouth, I got up and walked to my computer. I jiggled the mouse to exit the screen saver, and pulled up my email. A quick glance showed me that I had four new messages in my inbox. A reasonable amount, considering I check it pretty often. I opened my inbox. Two of the messages were from Dylan, another one from Sarah, and the remaining was a spam email from hotmail.com. After deleting the spam mail, I clicked on Sarah's message. It was a reply to an email I'd sent a couple days earlier.
From:kittyluvr4@hotmail.com
To:sarahldolphinluverr@gmail.com
hey, wat up Sarah? im SO excited about NY aren't u!!!! i took dylan's advise and rented stardust on my ipod. though i must say, it doesnt look very promising. ttyl!
To: kittyluvr4@hotmail.com
From: sarahldolphinluverr@gmail.com
help!!!!!! emma you've gotta help me!!! i forgot!! my grandparents aniversary is the day we leave for nyc! and my parents are talking about not letting me come!!! AAAAH!!! call me first chance u get!
ur bff
I stared, dumbfounded, at Sarah's message. What? Her parents were talking about not letting her come to New York? No! She had to come! Emma bolted into action and opened a fresh email.
To: sarahldolphinluverr@gmail.com
From: kittyluvr4@hotmail.com
sarah--don't worry--im working on it. can u meet me at the library in 15 minutes? my family is going and ill c if dylan and lila can meet us there 2. if ur not there, ill assume you werent able to come, but try!! we gotta figure something out!! u HAVE to come! =)
I punched send and jumped out of my chair. Racing to my doorway and gripping the frame, I shouted down the stairs, in the direction of my parent's bedroom.
"Mom," I yelled, ears perked for an answer, "can we make it to the library in fifteen minutes?"
"Fifteen minutes?" Mom's shout sounded muffled behind the closed door. "Have you rounded up all your library books?"
"What?" I'd missed the latter part.
"I said have you rounded up your library books!" Mom yelled a bit louder.
"Oh," I called back, "yes!"
"Then put them in the car with the others!"
"What?" I said again.
"COME DOWN HERE AND QUIT SHOUTING!"
I thundered down the stairs and turned the corner, reaching my Mom and Dad's bedroom. Opening the door, I saw Mom at her computer desk, typing so fast I couldn't distinguish the individual clicking sounds the keys made as she pushed them. She was sharing glances between the monitor and some sheets of paper.
"What did you say?" I repeated, walking closer and leaning against her desk. I picked up a clay dish full of paper clips. Selecting a green clip and a pink one, I hooked them together.
"I said to put your books in the trunk with the other books," she half-laughed, shaking her head.
"Ah," I said, connecting two more paper clips. "Okay."
I started walking toward the door, when Mom's voice stopped.
"Emma?"
I turned around to face her amused look.
"Yes, ma'm?"
"I'll need those paper clips," she smiled.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, I was slouched in one of the library's comfortable arm chairs, reading a book I'd found. From my position, I could barely see Mom, browsing through the shelves in the adult section, and Jason, checking out the young adult shelves. Andrew was out of sight among the kid books, and Dad was on the other side of the building on the library computers. I sighed and wondered what time it was. I didn't have a watch, as my cell phone usually served the purpose of telling me the time (I'd left my purse at home), but I was pretty sure it was about the time Sarah, Dylan, and Lila were supposed to show up. I'd texted Lila and Dylan, so they knew what was going on.
Suddenly, I spotted Lila walking through the automatic doors at the front of the library. I stifled a shout, remembering where I was, and quickly got up and weaved through the many shelves. I reached Lila, who jumped when I said her name.
"Lila!"
Startled, she looked around and spotted me.
"Oh, hi, Emma, I didn't see you," she said, grinning at me. I motioned for her to follow me, and we made our way back to my chair. Plopping down in the chair next to me, she pulled out her cell phone.
"I guess Dylan and Sarah aren't here?" she asked.
"Nope," I shook my head, "but they should be here any minute."
"Well, I'm still going to text Sarah," Lila said, and a second later I heard a rapid series of beeps as she sent a text message to Sarah's phone.
"There," she stated a second later, flipping her phone closed with a snap, "I've asked her where she is."
"Hopefully on her way here," I said anxiously. "We really need to get a plan together."
"Don't worry," said Lila matter-of-factly, "we'll figure something out."
A few minutes passed by while Lila got up and meandered over to the book shelves. Idly glancing at the rows of books, she pulled out a thin novel and read the back. I heaved a sigh and picked up the book I was reading, a completely uninteresting story about a group of talking field mice. The only reason I'd taken it off the shelf was because I thought the author sounded familiar. Now I knew I had been wrong. Just as I was leafing through the first chapter, I heard a beep-da-beep from Lila's phone, a slim bulk in her pocket. She hurridly tried to shove the book she was looking at back on its place on the shelf, gave up, placed it on top of some books, and dug her cell phone out of her pocket. In a flash, I had dropped my book and was looking over her shoulder. Lila went to the 'view now' option from the new text message screen and we both read Sarah's text.
guys (I could practically sense the exasperation)! we're at the other end of the library!!!!!
Lila and I stared gultily at each other.
"Oops," I said. We didn't bother to read the rest of the message. Instead, we walked as quickly as we could, past the ends of numerous shelves, to the very last set of armchairs and a table. Slouched in the armchairs, looking thoroughly annoyed, were Dylan and Sarah.
"You're kidding me!" I almost shouted as Lila and I reached them. "We've been waiting and waiting for who knows how long, and here you are cooling off in chairs at the other end of the room!"
I was ticked.
"Hey," said Dylan, her arms crossed, "we walked around looking for ya'll, but didn't see you. We thought you weren't here yet."
"There is no way you could have missed us!" I snorted. "We were right there!"
Dylan shrugged, looking bad-tempered, and turned her back to me.
"Guys," Lila rolled her eyes, irritated, "let's just sit down and figure something out. Please?"
Still slightly vexed, I sat down with the others at the light-wooded table. The stiff, high-backed, uncomfortable chairs weren't helping my mood. I struggled to shake off my exasperation and glanced around at everyone. Well, maybe I didn't quite look at Dylan, but you get the point.
"Okay," began Sarah in her crisp british accent, looking, as usual, unruffled, "so, uh, you all know that my grandparents' anniversary is the day of the New York trip. Now that would all be posh and all (I know--posh? It's a british thing) if it weren't for the fact that my mum and dad are planning a surprise thingmabobby for them."
"A surprise thingmabobby?" I inquired.
"Like, they're planning this fancy dinner, and they even called up all my grandparents old friends who are still, you know, alive."
Lila, Dylan, and I nodded. Sarah continued, looking thoroughly depressed.
"They say their granddaughter should be there to celebrate with them, and I agree with them, but--" Sarah broke off, looking lost.
"It's New York," finished Dylan quietly. Sarah nodded miserably. I sighed.
"Well, this is quite a pickle," contemplated Lila.
"You can say that again," I said dully. A hundred crazy ideas were racing through my head, like hiding Sarah at my house and telling her parents she'd been kidnapped, then sneaking off to New York. Or having Sarah pretend to fall into a depression, and telling her parents with a casual, hopeless sort of sadness, that the only way to cure her would be to let her go to New York. Or we could always pretend to be unknown people living in Alaska, and blackmail Sarah's parents until they relented. Even as these insane thoughts filed through my head, I knew they were ridiculous and no good.
"Why don't we just march into Sarah's house and ask her parents to call off the party," said Dylan. Normally, I would have rolled my eyes at her, but in the light of recent events, I contented myself with staring at her stonily before facing Lila and Sarah.
"We need to come up with a plain, sensible plan," I said professionally.
"No, duh," whispered Lila, giggling. I glared at her before continuing.
"Which, I'm afraid to say, does not including storming into Sarah's house and demanding her parents call off foreplanned parties." I said this pointedly to Dylan, who stuck her tongue out at me. Sarah cleared her throat.
"What we need," she looked meaningfully at all of us, "is to come up with a little something of our own. A surprise something," she added, seeing the blank looks on our faces.
"Er--what did you have in mind?" Dylan asked. Sarah looked like she was restraining herself from rolling her eyes with difficulty. Lila giggled, and I looked at her.
"It's just," snickered Lila, "that we were the ones who were going to try and help Sarah. Now who's coming up with the ideas?"
Dylan and I both whacked her at the same time.
"Ow!" She cried, laughing.
"Sarah, I think I know where you're going, but how?" I said.
"Yeah, and what in the world would we do?" Dylan snorted, spreading her hands out.
"Well, here's what I thought..." Sarah leaned forward, lowering her voice...
To Be Continued (it's long enough)...
§Emma§
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