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walked around saying, for what seemed like weeks on end.
    “Mom, things change. People change,” I’d try to explain.
    “Not
that
much.”
    “Yes, they do. You don’t understand!”
    “Just call her,” my mom would say over and over.“It’s a misunderstanding, that’s all. You don’t stop being friends overnight.”
    The first couple of times I took Mom’s advice and called Cassidy, the only person at her house who wanted to talk to me was her
mom
. She’d go on about how much she missed me, and ask why I hadn’t been to their house lately, but I didn’t want to say, “Because your daughter is being kind of a jerk to me lately.”
    At the same time, my mom was stuck a decade back, wondering why Cassidy and I didn’t wear the same dresses or take ballet anymore.
    Meanwhile, the same thing was happening with Team Tay-Kay, when Kayley decided she wouldn’t do any extra training sessions with Taylor anymore because it “ruined her concentration.” And Olivia and Alexis stopped co-owning the bunny they’d shared for two years because Alexis suddenly decided keeping bunnies as pets was way too juvenile for her.
    Maybe those things wouldn’t have been terrible on their own. People grow apart and all that. But Kayley, Cassidy, and Alexis couldn’t seem to let well enough alone. They had to openly drop us. Repeatedly. In public. They quit riding bikes to school with us, turned the other way when we passed them in the halls, and, worst of all, blocked the chairs around their lunch table when we tried to sit with them the second day of seventh grade. By the time we quit arguing with them about it, we were left with no place to sit, and carriedour lunches to a couple of folding chairs in the corner, by the racks where everyone left their dirty dishes and used trays.
    It was beyond embarrassing.
    So, maybe Poinsettia was right.
    Time for big changes.
    Changes were good.
    I heard a noise like something snorting—a small whale, maybe. I turned from the mirror, and there was Parker, standing in the doorway. “What are you doing in here?” I asked. “You’re supposed to knock fir—”
    “Whoa,” he said, stepping back. “I didn’t know the storm was
that
bad.”
    “What do you mean? The surf?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at the whitecaps in the ocean.
    “No. I mean, it blew your hair away,” he said, laughing.
    “Get out. Out!” I ran over and slammed the door behind him.
    Little brothers should not be seen or heard.
    Maybe I should work on a plan to get
him
out of my life, too, I thought. As soon as possible.

Chapter 6
    “Where did you
get
that adorable cut?” Olivia cried when I walked into the Whale after supper and pulled my umbrella out of the twisting wind. I’d called my friends and asked them to meet me at Olivia’s parents’ restaurant as soon as they were done eating.
    “A new place, on Main Street. Combing Attractions,” I said.
    “It’s really cute!” Olivia ran over to take my raincoat and hang it on the rack just inside the door. “I love it, Madison.” She was already a lot better at talking with her braces.
    Olivia was wearing sparkling silver long-bead earrings. She made all her own jewelry with bead kits, and was always giving us new homemade bracelets and necklaces for presents. I hoped her dangling metal earrings didn’t get caught in her new metal braces. I didn’t know why I thought that, but I did.
    “Never heard of it,” said Taylor. She wore a green Payneston High hoodie, jeans, and blue plaid rain boots that squeaked as she swiveled on the stool. “The color is awesome! So did your mom fix that for you?”
    “I got it fixed myself, actually. At the salon,” I said.
    “Why didn’t you tell us you were going to get your hair cut?” asked Taylor. “We totally would have gone with you.”
    “Yeah, you ran out on me. I didn’t know where you went,” said Olivia.
    “I don’t know.” I walked over to the counter and slid onto a stool next to Taylor.