I was looking good. Like, totally. I was in a pink dress with puffy sleeves. I had my mom do my hair, and she piled it up in a bun and topped it with a shiny bow. My shoes were high heels–silver with pink and purple decorations. I wore a necklace and rings and big earrings. My looks were important, too. This was the day of my thirteenth birthday party, and I was prepared to have a blast with my friends. It was going to be so fun to hang out with Sandra and Brittany and Lisa. Of course, there would be other people coming too. My mom made me invite the whole entire class to the party. I was so mad at her for that! She said that she didn’t want any kids to be left out. I said what did it matter–it wasn’t like I would climb to the top of the school and yell out who was coming to my party! I said so, too. And do you know what she said? She said, “Olivia, it would be the polite thing to do.” And without even asking me if it was okay, she went ahead and invited everybody from my class. I guess asking the boys to come was okay, especially the cute ones. But then she invited everybody else. She invited Audrey.

Audrey and I have never gotten along, ever since the fifth grade when she moved into our town. We were sitting in Mrs. Brown’s class studying fractions. Audrey was sitting next to me. I’m working out my problem and thinking about all the fun stuff I was going to do with my friends that afternoon when Audrey’s hand comes snaking onto my desk, and the fist thing I noticed was that her fingernails had small specks of dirt on the edges. Like, gross! They weren’t even painted, and let me tell you that there was a time when none of my friends had a single fingernail or toenail without paint. But then her gross-dirty-disgusting hand starts pointing at the problem I just did, and her voice is in my ear. I mean–right in my ear! And then she’s whispering, “Hey.”

I had no idea what to think and so I give her my “shut up” face but she doesn’t get it and that’s making me nervous because I don’t know how to categorize her and her dirty fingers are on my papers again and my “shut up” face isn’t working. “Hey,” she said again. “You’ve gotta multiply with the reciprocal.” And then she, like, grabs my sparkly pink pencil and starts to write all these numbers and lines and weird stuff on my paper. “See?” she asks. “You gotta do this so it turns out right because otherwise you’re not dividing. You’re multiplying. Okay?” I just kind of sit there because I do not, not, not, want to hang out with her and she should totally get the message. But then she makes it even worse and leans over and says quietly because Mrs. Brown is looking, “If you need any help you can just ask me okay?”

I looked down at my paper. “It looks weird. But I guess that’s perfect for a weirdo like you.” And I don’t regret the words.

Audrey nods like she totally understands. “Okay,” she says and smiles at me. How clueless could you get? Whatever the limit was, Audrey had hit it.

That started the three-year campaign against Audrey Patterson. Lisa, Sandra, Brittany and I left strange notes in her locker, saying stuff like, “Farmer Audrey can’t grow any friends.” We weren’t being mean. We were just being funny. Then, we did other stuff. We erased all the big words in her spelling papers and wrote them wrong in the blank spaces. We glued a cow bell to a ribbon and hung it on her backpack. We dripped black glitter glue in her hair. Totally fun and lighthearted stuff. Besides, she didn’t seem to mind. We just kept pranking her, and she kept offering to help me on my math or science or English. We didn’t prank every day, just a few times a month now and then. We became experts, and soon it just felt like a routine. Her name disappeared from my life and my memory. I didn’t sit next to her anymore. She stopped offering to help. And we haven’t pranked her in the last couple of months. But then, she arrived dressed in camouflage pants and a faded red T-shirt at my front door for my party, right when I least wanted her.

I couldn’t believe this was happening.

View part 2 of this dramatic story here:

Out of Sync–Part 2