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people we should invite out. Now that your brothers are gone we should be recruiting new friends. No. Wait. We should be discovering them!” She got out her notebook and started scribbling. “We’ll have a slumber party. It’ll be like sorority rush!”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “Won’t it be weird walking up to people and saying, ‘Here, come to my house so we can ogle you all night’?”
    â€œIt won’t be weird, it’ll be great.” Chloe handed me what she’d written. Meet new friends Friday night at our JUNIOR GIRLS SLUMBER PARTY!!! “I’ll make invites tonight,” she said. “Quit frowning, Brooke, this is going to be fun.”
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    The invitations, which Chloe printed on Pepto-pink paper, made it obvious what the slumber party was really for. Especially when you looked at who got one and who didn’t. Chloe started with our basic group of friends. Then she filled out the guest list with girls she’d seen in the hallways and in class. The main criterion for getting invited was “looks cool.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?” I said as I went over the guest list with her in the commons after school.
    â€œYou know.” She waved at a couple of girls walking past like they were animals at the zoo. “Pretty. Nice clothes. Like that girl from your choir—what’s her name? Kassie?”
    â€œKathryn.”
    â€œRight. Like her.”
    â€œKathryn doesn’t have nice clothes.” Kathryn actually had great clothes. But they weren’t brand names.A lot of her stuff looked handmade—skirts sewn out of vintage fabric, hand-knit sweaters. You couldn’t find stuff like that at the mall.
    â€œShe’s got inner style,” Chloe told me. “It’s a wonder the music freaks haven’t killed it yet.”
    Chloe sat down on a bench and started rummaging through her purse.
    â€œI’m a music freak,” I told her.
    â€œNo, you’re not.” She pulled a big purple pen out of her bag and started adding names to the list. “You’re superinvolved.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?” I bent over and took her notebook away so she’d have to look me in the eye. Chloe knew how much music meant to me.
    She sighed and tossed her razored red hair. “You’re one of those people that does it all. You have to be a little bit into everything. If you weren’t you’d only be a little bit popular.”
    â€œBut I’m not a little bit into music,” I said. “That’s what I do.”
    â€œWell, thank God you do other things, too.” She grabbed the notebook and went back to her list.
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    The original plan was for us to have the party at Chloe’s house. Her stepdad, who was in the middle of running for state representative, had just put in a new hot tub,and she was dying to show it off. But then he invited some big campaign donors over for dinner. Chloe’s mom waited until that morning to tell her our party would be too disruptive, and, by the way, could she please make herself scarce for the rest of the evening?
    I thought it sounded like a great excuse to cancel. But Chloe wanted to have the party more than ever, so we went to plan B. We had it at my place. She had Dina Mendoza text out the new plans, conveniently neglecting to mention that my mom would be working late. Not that it really mattered. Even when Mom was around, she always pretty much let the twins do whatever they wanted, and that extended to me, too.
    â€œEasy on the onions!” Chloe shouted. She swooped down on Angela Van Zant, who was making chili at the stove in my kitchen. “Seriously, An! We don’t want our breath to reek while we’re talking to people.”
    â€œSorry,” said Angela, and she started scooping onions out of the pot.
    I hoisted myself onto the counter and stole a carrot from the veggie tray. “Why