Best Friends Forever?

Chapter 6: You're My New Best Friend

Of course, the same day Marissa S. was there, my grandma passed away. Dana was very sorry, and she felt sad because she knew I loved my grandma very much. So it was kind of hard for me and Brienna to practice for our first dance competition but we got through it. We actually had fun, and I made sure to tell Dana all about it. I told her about the song, Slow Down by Selena Gomez, and how Mrs. Scarletissa was our dance teacher.

Dana got an imaginary dance team, too. Her two friends Carolyn and Laura were her teammates and her dance teacher was Mrs. Madison. (Funny, now I have an imaginary dance teacher named Ms. Madison who works with Ms. Scarletissa.) Dana and I would talk about our dancing and everything, and when our competitions would be. We planned to have them on the same date, and we were super excited.

Our dance team was called the Dazzling Dancers, and Dana's dance team was called the Dynamic Dancers. She wanted her team name to be almost the same as ours. We sure had a lot in common!!

The first day of Spring Break, we went to a really nice place called the Opryland Hotel. There were tress, plants, and flowers everywhere. Some of us even went on a boat ride in an indoor lake, where we saw waterfalls and fountains and trees, and I just couldn't wait to tell Dana all about it!!

I smiled when I woke up one morning to a super long message from her, because now that I was on Spring Break, I could type long ones back! We sure sent each other long messages and I enjoyed it. (We were especially excited for the summer, because we could type long messages all summer long. It was supposed to be a really long summer for me and my imaginary siblings and imaginary friends who went to our school, too.)

Dana and I were pumped up for our dance competitions...but unfortunately the day of the dance competition was the day my mom got her first DUI, and none of us really felt like dancing after that. We postponed it to the next day. This was about the time when Dana was really becoming my best friend. I could honestly tell her anything, and she was like a sister. My mom had told me not to tell anyone about her trouble, but internet friends that she didn't even know I had didn't count, right? Besides, I couldn't not tell Dana. There was nothing I couldn't tell her.

Another one of my look-alike cousins, Felicia, came that month, and she was supposedly really mean, but she actually got along with Dana. They talked all day like Dana and Marissa S. had. I knew Dana was happy to have met a new friend.

That Sunday, I went to church with my mom, siblings, and some friends, and there were such rotten kids there! They weren't dressed nicely, kept sleeping, weren't paying attention, had earbuds in... When I told Dana about that, she said her mom would wash her mouth out with soap if she ever did that.

That week, back at school, was a funny week for us. Madeline and I came up with the funniest inside joke about the boy who smelled bad and who always sat by us in Bible class. (We went to a private Christian school.) Madeline and I wrote notes to each other all day about him in our little notebook we always used to pass the time during school. We started secretly calling him "Nasty Nate", and I could NOT wait to share our joke with Dana. I told her during lunch. Madeline would have sat with me and helped me tell her, but she said it wasn't a good idea to sit together because one of us would start giggling and so would the other. It was bad enough we couldn't look at Nate without laughing- we couldn't even look at each other without laughing!

Of course, Dana thought the joke was super hilarious, too, and that she had busted out laughing and her classmates had all turned to look at her. I'm surprised no one asked me what was so hysterical. That would've been funny if the teachers had to stop class to ask what I was laughing so hard at. This was literally all week. Dana said she'd busted out laughing over it when she had Mrs. Madison over for dinner, and Mrs. Madison had asked her, "What are you laughing at, dear?" Dana hadn't wanted to tell her about Nasty Nate, so she said, "Oh, just something that happened at school."

Dana also thought it was funny how my friends, sisters, and I were always picking on Lynn, who was two years younger than us in my sister Sheyenne's class. After Chapel one day, Brienna said, "Mady! Push Lynn down!" and Madeline did. At the time, Lynn wasn't getting along with any of us, and Dana hated her, too. She supported us in being mean to her, even though I feel awful about it now because Lynn is now one of our best friends.

That was the weekend of Grandma's funeral. Madeline, Anabelle, Marina, her sister Marybeth, and Mrs. Scarletissa were there with us and were so supportive. (Yes, Marina was starting to be nice now.) Madeline stood by me the entire funeral, and Dana told me later that Madeline was a true angel for doing that. I'd always called Madeline my guardian angel, and Dana agreed.