I knew they wouldn’t, but I didn’t want to focus on that right now. “So we won’t tell them. We’ll tell them we’re sleeping over at Teri’s. And we will sleep over there—we’ll just go into the city first.”

Stevie frowned, and I could practically hear her thoughts whirring, looking for the hole in the case. “What if my dad mentions something to my mom about the dinner?” she finally asked.

“Do they ever really talk that much anymore?” I asked, as gently as possible. Stevie shook her head. “I just think,” I said, leaning forward, “that we shouldn’t let our Friday be wrecked like this. Your dad has to work and Mr. Campbell is rethinking the casting, but so what? We can still have a great night, right?”

“You would do that for me?” she asked, her eyes a bit brighter than usual. “Go into the city with me to celebrate my birthday?”

I smiled at her. There was more to it, of course, but Stevie didn’t need to know it this very minute. Like with Six Flags, when she was asking things like why we weren’t getting coffee, why we were getting on the highway, where we were going, I’d just said New Jersey. Stevie handled things best in steps, and in the end, she’d loved Six Flags. We’d returned home happy and sunburned, Stevie’s new gigantic stuffed unicorn (she’d named it Travis) taking up most of the backseat. And I knew eventually she’d love this plan too. “Of course! We need to give you a proper celebration. It’s going to be great.”

“And you really, really think we should do this?” Stevie asked, and I looked her straight in the eye. It was like I could see her teetering between caution and excitement, and I knew all she would need was a tiny nudge to bring her over to my side.

I smiled, and when I spoke, my voice was full of confidence. “Absolutely.”

CHAPTER 4

There were several ironclad, unimpeachable rules you had to follow when lying to your parents.

Rule #1: Cover your bases. All the bases. The reason that neither Stevie or I had ever been caught was that we planned. We thought ahead. We tied up loose ends. We had learned long ago from Friends that you always had to think about the trail, and we always did. So the first thing we did was get Teri onboard, before my dad could call her parents, who would have no idea what he was talking about and would blow the whole operation.