My Best Friend's Exorcism(3)
Gretchen knocked on the stall door.
“Abby? Are you in there?”
Abby sat very, very still and managed to get her crying down to a mild whimper.
“I didn’t want to give you a Children’s Bible,” Gretchen said, through the stall door. “My mom picked it out. I told her not to. I wanted to get you an E.T. thing. They had one where his heart lit up.”
Abby didn’t care. This girl was terrible. Abby heard movement outside the stall, and then Gretchen was sticking her face under the door. Abby was horrified. What was she doing? She was wriggling in! Suddenly, Gretchen was standing in front of the toilet even though the stall door was closed, which meant privacy. Abby’s mind was blown. She stared at this insane girl, waiting to see what she’d do next. Slowly, Gretchen blinked her enormous blue eyes.
“I don’t like horses,” she said. “They smell bad. And I don’t think Margaret Middleton is a nice person.”
That, at least, made some sense to Abby.
“Horses are stupid,” Gretchen continued. “Everyone thinks they’re neat, but their brains are like hamster brains and if you make a loud noise they get scared even though they’re bigger than we are.”
Abby didn’t know what to say to that.
“I don’t know how to skate,” Gretchen said. “But I think people who like horses should buy dogs instead. Dogs are nice and they’re smaller than horses and they’re smart. But not all dogs. We have a dog named Max, but he’s dumb. If he barks while he’s running, he falls down.”
Abby was starting to feel uncomfortable. What if someone came in and saw this weird person standing in the stall with her? She knew she had to say something, but there was only one thing on her mind, so she said it: “I wish you weren’t here.”
“I know,” Gretchen nodded. “My mom wanted me to go to Margaret Middleton’s.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Abby asked.
“You invited me first,” Gretchen said.
A lightning bolt split Abby’s skull in two. Exactly! This was what she had been saying. Her invitation had been first! Everyone should be HERE with HER because she had invited them FIRST and Margaret Middleton COPIED her. This girl had the right idea.
Maybe everything wasn’t ruined. Maybe Abby could show this weirdo how good she was at skating, and she’d tell everyone at school. They’d all want to see, but she’d never have another birthday party again, so they’d never see her skate unless they begged her to do it in front of the whole school, and then she might do it and blow everyone’s minds, but only if they begged her a lot. She had to start by impressing this girl and that wouldn’t be hard. This girl didn’t even know how to skate.
“I’ll teach you how to skate if you want,” Abby said. “I’m really good.”
“You are?” Gretchen asked.
Abby nodded. Someone was finally taking her seriously.
“I’m really good,” she said.
After Abby’s dad rented skates, Abby taught Gretchen how to lace them super tight and helped her walk across the carpet, showing her how to pick up her feet high so she wouldn’t trip. Abby led Gretchen to the baby skate zone and taught her some basic turns, but after a few minutes she was dying to strut her stuff.
“You want to go in the big rink?” Abby asked.
Gretchen shook her head.
“It’s not scary if I stay with you,” Abby said. “I won’t let anything bad happen.”
Gretchen thought about it for a minute.
“Will you hold my hands?”
Abby grabbed Gretchen’s hands and pulled her onto the floor just as the announcer said it was Free Skate, and suddenly the rink was full of teenagers whizzing past them at warp speed. One boy lifted a girl by the waist in the middle of the floor and they spun around and the DJ turned on the mirror ball and stars were gliding over everything, and the whole world was spinning. Gretchen was flinching as speed demons tore past, so Abby turned around and backskated in front of her, pulling her by both soft, sweaty hands, merging them into the flow. They started skating faster, taking the first turn, then faster, and Gretchen lifted one leg off the floor and pushed, and then the other, and then they were actually skating, and that’s when the drums started and Abby’s heart kicked off and the piano and the guitar started banging and “We Got the Beat” came roaring over the PA. The lights hitting the mirror ball pulsed and they were spinning with the crowd, orbiting around the couple in the center of the floor, and they had the beat.
Freedom people marching on their feet Stallone time just walking in the street They won’t go where they don't know But they’re walking in line
We got the beat!
We got the beat!
Abby had the lyrics 100 percent wrong, but it didn’t matter. She knew, more than she had ever known anything in her entire life, that she and Gretchen were the ones the Go-Go’s were singing about. They had the beat! To anyone else watching, they were two kids going around the rink in a slow circle, taking the corners wide while all the other skaters zoomed past, but that’s not what was happening. For Abby, the world was a Day-Glo Electric Wonderland full of hot pink lights, and neon green lights, and turquoise lights, and magenta lights, and they were flashing on and off with every beat of the music and everyone was dancing and they were flying so fast their skates were barely touching the ground, sliding around corners, picking up speed, and their hearts beat with the drums, and Gretchen had come to Abby’s birthday party because Abby had invited her first and Abby had a real E.T. poster and now they could eat the entire cake all by themselves.