Description: From Best Friends for Never "Piper?" I ask tentatively when she answers the phone. "It's Hattie.""Hattie?" she asks, the same blank voice as this morning."Yes. Hattie," I say firmly. "Your best friend.""I'm sorry, I ...""You know me, Piper. Remember, we met at the town pond in August? You bought me a purple popsicle and your little sister took a giant bite of it when I sat down on your beach towel." Piper laughs. "That's totally something Peanut would do, but I don't really remember ..." "I'm tall, Piper, and I have short curly hair and I wear glasses and I'm afraid of bugs with more than six legs and I help you with math and you help me Spanish and ..." "Wait!" I stop talking, hold my breath. "Are you the new girl from lunch today at school?" "You remember me?" "Yeah, you sat down next to me and started bawling. Are you okay?" I frantically scan my room, looking for something my eyes can rest on that will calm me, and I catch sight of the strip of photo booth pictures we took at the Festival. "Piper?" I ask, my voice shaking. "Yeah?" "What did you do on Saturday?" I walk slowly toward my mirror. Rain bats against the window. "I went to the Festival, why?" I slip the strip of photos out from the mirror frame and stare at them. "Who did you go with?" "Who did I go with to the Festival? My friends Celeste and Fee. Why?" "No reason," I say softly, already hanging up the phone up. I stare hard at the pictures. In them, I am alone.

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