My Worst Best Friend by Dyan Sheldon Read Free Book Online Page A

things that could have happened to make Savanna so late, I’d wind up calling Mrs Zindle and maybe upsetting her. So I decided that if something had happened to her it was probably something extraordinary. That was more likely anyway. Extraordinary things never happened to me, of course, but they happened to Savanna a lot. Like the time she had to run out of the store practically in her underwear because there was a bomb scare. And the time she set the dryer on fire with her synthetic bra. And the time she was putting money in her Christmas Club and someone robbed the bank. And the time she found the ferret in the garage. And who could forget the runaway sheep? It was like she was some kind of magnet for chaos, excitement and weird events. Which was one more thing I loved about her. Being so predictable and dull myself.
    I stared down at a photograph of some celebrity getting out of rehab again.
    Maybe drug addicts broke into the office and took Dentist Tim and his patients prisoner… Maybe there were unexpected complications… Dentist Tim had to knock Savanna out to do some major emergency surgery… Or she passed out from the pain…
    Any of those options would explain why she wasn’t answering. The thieves would have taken everyone’s phones and now Savanna would be locked in the bathroom with Dentist Tim and the others while they made their escape. Or she would have turned off her ringtone when she got to the office – you couldn’t have this bored voice inside your bag saying
Your phone is so ringing… Yo, like answer the phone, girl…
in the middle of the waiting room – and now Savanna would be unconscious in the chair and couldn’t put it back on. Maybe I should have gone with her or met her at Dentist Tim’s. So I’d know she was all right.
    I started playing a game with myself to occupy my mind and pass the time. After five girls with dark hair had gone by the window, Savanna would be the sixth. After seven women with screaming children had passed, Savanna would appear from the dark blob of shoppers like the sun coming out from the clouds. After ten boys wearing baseball caps had slouched past, Savanna would suddenly burst through the door and everybody would turn to look at her the way they did – but I’d be the only one who waved.
    I was watching the fifteenth baseball-cap-wearing boy shamble past Java when someone shouted, “Hey, Gracie!” I didn’t know anyone else with that name. So I looked over.
    Some weirdo was standing in the doorway. He was wearing a tweed suit, a green hat with a crow’s feather stuck in the brim and yellow-framed shades. He looked like he’d just stepped out of his time machine. You could tell from the way the other customers were eyeing him that they thought so, too.
    “Hi, Gracie.” He smiled.
    I peered over the tops of my reading glasses. “Cooper? Is that you?” He looked different. This may sound strange, but I’d never really seen him away from the others before. Or outside school. The rest of us sometimes did things together, but Cooper never joined in. And the shades kind of made him look like an owl.
    He came over to my table. “You didn’t recognize me because I don’t really dress up for school. You’ve never seen me at my sartorial best.” You didn’t want to imagine what his sartorial worst could be. “And anyway, that makes us even,” said Cooper. “I almost didn’t recognize you because I’ve never really seen you without Savanna before. Where is she?” He pretended to look under the table. “Don’t tell me you’re travelling solo today – striding out to explore the rich tapestry that is life with only a backpack and a cell phone.”
    “Excuse me…” I was still coming to terms with Cooper being in Java. It wasn’t exactly his kind of place. Unless, of course, he was staging a one-man picket because they didn’t serve fair-trade coffee, or something like that. “What are
you
doing here?”
    “I’m on my way to the Meeting