Kiera glances at the puberty guidebook. “Wow, Sweet Pea.” Her voice is flat and unimpressed. Then under her breath she says, “I’m pretty sure she needs this more than I do.”

“What do you say, Kiera?” asks Mrs. Bryant.

“Thanks,” she drawls. “I guess.”

Oscar’s knee knocks against mine. “That was hilarious,” he says even though I can tell he doesn’t totally mean it. “You really got her good.”

Kiera opens the rest of her gifts, and she gets things like funny T-shirts, sparkly lip gloss, gift cards, and a few video games.

“All right!” says Mr. Kapoor. “Now that we’ve celebrated with cake, pizza, and presents, let’s get to jumping!”

For a brief moment, my present debacle is forgotten as we race out to the basic trampolines. “How about we add some foam to this mix?” calls Mr. Kapoor over the speakers.

The whole party shrieks their approval.

The lights go out, and it’s pitch black for a short second before we’re all awash in black lights and everyone is glowing, especially anyone wearing lighter colors.

“Your teeth!” I shout to Oscar over the music. “They’re glowing!”

“Yours are too!”

We clasp hands and jump up and down as pink and blue foam shoots out of a machine just off to the side of the trampolines. This is pretty awesome. Maybe crashing Kiera’s birthday party and looking like a total dweeb was worth it.

Greg throws a handful of foam at my face, and I get him back, but he turns just in time so that it hits the back of his head.

I squeal as he lunges for more foam to launch at me and I’m having so much fun that I’m almost dizzy with it. Just then my stomach lurches and—oh no. It hits me. This isn’t like the nerves I get when I have to talk in front of the whole class or the butterflies I’ve felt in my stomach every time I talk to Greg. It starts like a wave at the pit of my stomach, but then it turns into a volcano.

I don’t feel so good.

My body doesn’t even give me a second to try to hold it in.

I puke. Barf. Yak. Upchuck. Lose my lunch. Blow chunks. Whatever you want to call it. I vomit everywhere. And the first thing I can think is who in the heck had the genius idea to serve us cake and pizza before we jumped ourselves silly under black lights? Isn’t this what adults are for? To predict all the ways something can go totally and completely awfully wrong? If I have to wait an hour after I eat to swim, what adult in their right mind would pump me full of food and soda and then send me to bounce my face off in a trampoline park?

It takes a second for the people around me to notice that what they’ve just been sprayed with was definitely not foam.

I can feel the mortification setting in. I can already see how this moment will follow me for the rest of my life. All the way to high school graduation. I’ll have to get far away from this town and everyone in it to escape this exact moment defining me in college and adulthood.