Tug-of-War by Katy Grant Page B

turned back to paddle past a fallen tree branch sticking up out of the water.
    The lump of charcoal was feeling hotter and hotter. I wasn’t just mad at Devon. There was something else.
    Okay, yeah . . . Devon had made me mad, really mad. But she hadn’t tried to hurt me on purpose. She didn’t even know she was making me mad.
    But . . . but then there was the stuff I’d said. I called her a horrible friend.
Yo soy bilingüe y tu no eres.
I’m bilingual and you’re not.
    â€œWe’re coming up to a bend!” yelled Michelle from the lead canoe. “Remember to stay to the inside.”
    â€œI think we need to move a little more to the port side,” I told Maggie.
    I’d gone out of my way to hurt Devon. I’d made a point of saying something I knew would humiliate her. Telling her that she was only saying “armpits” and “ice cream
.
” My ears felt hot when I thought about it. She must’ve felt so stupid. And if there was one thing Devon hated, it was to feel dumb over something.
    I
knew
that. I’d picked the one thing I could think of at that moment to make her feel bad about herself.
    We’d made it around the bend in the river, and a stretch of calm water was ahead of us. We passed a field with tall green grass where some cows were feeding. One black cow looked up, turning her head to follow us as we drifted past. She chewed thoughtfully the whole time she kept her eyes on us.
    Maggie mooed at her and slapped her paddle playfully against the water.
    â€œHey, Maggie . . . do you think I’m a mean person?”
    Her head turned sideways a little, and I could see she was smiling like she couldn’t believe I’d ask such a crazy question. “Of course not. You don’t have a mean bone in your body.”
    Oh, yeah? How did she know that? The third metatarsal on my left foot was mean. And my tibia could be downright cruel sometimes.
    Yo soy bilingüe y tu no eres.
I’m bilingual and you’re not.
    I’d never done that before. Said something mean in Spanish to someone who spoke only English. Just to make her feel stupid because she wouldn’t know what I was saying.
    â€œWell, what if I did something mean to you. Would you forgive me for it?”
    â€œSure, I guess so. If you apologized and I knew you didn’t really mean it.”
    Apologize.
    Apologies had a way of getting stuck in my throat. They wouldn’t come out. I couldn’t say them. Something about apologizing made me feel like all my skin was being peeled off. I just couldn’t stand to look someone in the eye and say, “I’m sorry. I did something wrong.”
    Maybe I could write a note. Try to make it funny, but still basically say I was sorry.
    But then she’d better be ready to apologize to me, too. I never would’ve said those mean things if she hadn’t been such an
habladora
—chatterbox.
    Because she was the one who started it all. So she should be the first to apologize. Maybe I would say I was sorry if she’d say it first.
    â€œDo you think Devon and I should try to make up?” I asked Maggie.
    â€œWell, in some ways, it’s kind of nice to have Ghosty Girl out of the way,” Maggie admitted. “Can you imagine having her along right now? You’d be back in the stern and she’d be up here with her nose stuck in a magazine. You’d crash right into a rock!”
    I laughed. It felt good to actually laugh about something again. “There is no way Devon would ever have come on a river trip!”
    Maggie had a good point. I hadn’t planned it that way, but fighting with Devon did give me an excuse to spend all my time with Maggie now.
    At least I still had one best friend.

Tuesday, June 24
    â€œOh good, you’re just in time,” Laurel-Ann said when Maggie and I walked into the cabin. “The laundry’s here, and I want everyone to help me sort it, but Boo said to