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parents think that’s fine, so she was the only one of us not out in the sun, sweating her butt off four afternoons a week.
    The boys on the soccer team were doing suicide sprints on the field next to us. We watched them as we jogged by. I think Luke flashed me a smile as he was turning around, but maybe he was just grimacing.
    As Kirstyn and I rounded the far end of the track, away from Coach P, I got my chance. “What’s the deal?” I asked her. “You didn’t invite Ann or Zhara?”
    “More running, less chatting, Pretty Girls,” Coach P yelled. She always calls me and Kirstyn “Pretty Girls” and it is not a compliment. We don’t care.
    “It’s not a party,” Kirstyn whispered. “It’s just a sleepover and my mother is practically psychotic lately as it is, planning our party. Ann and Zhara would put her over the edge. You know how they are.”
    I shrugged. I thought they were pretty much the same as us. Apparently not. “What’s wrong with them?”
    Kirstyn gave me a shove like I was joking around.
    Gabrielle passed us, lapping us, and slowed down a little when I grabbed the back of her shirt.
    “Hi, speedy,” I said.
    “Hi, slowpoke,” she said. Even though she’s way prettier than me and Kirstyn, she’s also a better runner; Coach P calls her “Bullet.”
    We all jogged together a few steps, before Kirstyn said, “Do you think we should get enough invitations to actually invite some of the tenth and eleventh graders, or just kind of, you know, let them crash?”
    Gabrielle shrugged, speeding up. We sped up with her.
    “Are we even sure we want them to?” I asked, trying to breathe deep and slow, like Coach P taught us. “I mean, there’s something cool about it just being us, right?”
    “Something pathetic,” Kirstyn said.
    “You think?” I sped up to stay in step with them. Was this a race all of a sudden?
    “I’m so stupid,” Kirstyn said. “I thought for a second you were serious.”
    I was being serious, but I had no breath to argue. I was concentrating on pumping my legs faster, faster.
    “Hey, but seriously,” Kirstyn said. “I say we go with the Sandra Pennington Photographers who always do such a nice job, and we’ll each get a cute little album after. My mother already negotiated that with her. If we’re doing this, let’s do it right. Right?”
    “Right,” I said, because I had to, and because I couldn’t say much more. I was sweating like a pig and totally out of breath as we rounded the corner past Coach P, who, for the first time ever, smiled at us.
    “Whatever,” Gabrielle said. “My mother says whatever everybody wants is fine, so let’s do it up.”
    I glanced at her. She was barely sweating, her dark hair still neat in its perfect loose braid, her legs not pounding the track like mine but moving in smooth circles. She could have been pedaling a bike downhill.
    “Exactly. And if some families can’t pay for it,” Kirstyncontinued, looking straight ahead, “or don’t want to pay for it, fine. My mother says it doesn’t matter, we shouldn’t make anybody feel insecure or whatever. She’s like, we’ll pay the extra. We like to do it nicely, so, it’s just not a big deal. She said she’ll call your parents today and discuss it.”
    “Little albums?” Gabrielle asked dubiously.
    “They’re really cute,” Kirstyn said, but checking Gabrielle’s expression, rolled her eyes. “It’s for our mothers anyway.” She shrugged like she really couldn’t care less.
    I was totally out of breath. Keep running. Right, left, don’t fall down. Don’t think about if mine is one of the families who won’t be able to afford…
    “Phoebe’s the one who’ll look at it every day,” Kirstyn said, shoving me into Gabrielle. I had to take a bunch of little steps to stay up and untangled. “Right?”
    “Absolutely,” I managed. “I’m just…getting…a cramp!”
    They both slowed down with me, until we were walking. I raised one hand over my head and