Laura is still my best friend and we spend a lot of time together. She comes over to my house more than I go to hers because she’s got more brothers and sisters and she has to share a bedroom with one of her sisters and it’s more private like, at my place. Besides, she likes to play with my piglets and do beading. Sometimes though, we ride our bicycles over to her place even though Mom says we’re crazy to ride our bikes in this cold weather and they’ll have to be put away soon as we have the first snowfall. The snow is late coming this year, everyone says.
Laura’s mother is really, really nice. She says she likes me to come over and be with Laura because, she said, she likes me better than some of Laura’s other friends, and I’ll just bet she means Sally. Laura told me she’s had Sally over and her mother thinks Sally talks too much. I’m still thinking of yesterday when I went over to Laura’s after school and she told me about Sally and me.
“Sally’s mother thinks you’re a hippy”, Laura said to me and was I ever surprised. Me, a hippy? Crap! I’m not even fourteen yet!
“Why did she say that?” I asked her and maybe I sounded a little mad.
“It’s the way you wear your hair, I guess”, Laura said. “Mrs. Clung said she can’t make up her mind whether you’re more of a Gypsy or a hippy.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound very nice of her”, I said, feeling kind of hurt. Although really, I don’t see what’s wrong with either hippies or Gypsies. They’re kind of romantic. “Did you say anything?" I asked her, and what I meant was, did she defend me or anything like that - and she knew it.
“Say anything?” she repeated innocently. “What was I supposed to say? I didn’t say you looked like a hippy. Or a Gypsy.”
“Well, do you think I do?”
“Noooo, not really. You’re just awfully messy looking sometimes.”
Oboy, my best friend. Well, I told myself, that’s what friends are for, to tell you the truth.
“And that’s not all”, she said, looking straight at me.
“Okay, what else?” I asked, not really wanting to know, but I knew she meant to tell me anyway, so I thought I might as well give her the satisfaction of me asking.
“She said”, and she lowered her eyes, kind of, not looking at me. “She said she doesn’t think much of your parents.”
“My parents! Are you kidding? She doesn’t even know my parents!”
“Well, I can’t help that”, Laura shrugged her shoulders at me. “I’m only telling you what she told me.”
Well, I wondered, why was she telling me? I didn’t want to know if the mother of some kid who I don’t even really like doesn’t like my looks or if she thinks my parents aren’t nice or something.
“Laura, you know my parents. You’re over all the time. My father is always nice to you, and my mother always gives you stuff to eat and like that. Aren’t they always nice to you?”
“Well sure, Jen, of course they are. Hey, I didn’t say anything about your parents. I think they’re nice. I’m only telling you what Mrs. Clung said.”
“Didn’t you say anything at all, like you know them and they’re nice?”
“How could I Jen? I’ve been taught to respect older people, not to contradict them.”
“Well, how can you respect someone who says they don’t like someone they don’t even know!"
“I don’t know. You’re making too much out of it. She probably said that because she thinks they let you go around looking like a hippy.”
There we go again, a hippy. As if Mom isn’t always after me to comb my hair or put it in a ponytail or something. As if Mom doesn’t always nag me to wear a skirt instead of jeans. My own mother respects my wishes to wear what I like, even if she doesn’t like it, and here this lady who swears at her kids and fights with her husband sees her kid is dressed like a… what’s that word Mom used … a tart, and she says my parents are no good. What a nerve!
“Why did you bother telling me all that anyway, Laura?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might want to know. I’m your friend, aren’t I?”
“I don’t know”, I said, feeling kind of mad at her. “Are you?”
“Why, how can you ask me that?” Laura said, getting mad herself.
“Well, I kind of think you’re an ingrate, Laura. Here my parents have been so nice to you and you let them be talked about nastily by someone you tell me isn’t nice at all. And for that matter, how about when the bunch of you were over at my place last week and after I gave you all chocolate bars and milk, Sally and Donna left their wrappers just lying around and my mother cleaned up after them. Sally thinks my place is a big garbage can, but my house is always neat and clean. How about that, when you told me their place is a big mess!”
“What’s that got to do with anything? Anyway, Mrs. Clung is too, nice. She took me out with Sally and her brothers to MacDonald’s for dinner last week.”
“Okay, Laura, you’re a fair-weather friend.”
“I am not! And if that’s the way you think about me, I wonder why I bother at all trying to be your friend!”
So what am I supposed to think? That’s not the way I think a friend is supposed to be like. Like, I’m sure I’d defend a friend of mine and I’m sure I wouldn’t want to listen to anyone saying mean things about their parents if I knew them and they were nice. People sure are funny.
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