As Annabelle walked to the locker room, she felt so good that she didn’t even need to remind herself to hold her head up and her shoulders back. Until she saw Mia.

Mia stood over by the snack bar tables, with Jeremy next to her. She had her hands on her hips and her lips twisted to one side.

Oh no.

Annabelle had meant to call Mia last night to tell her about switching to the high school team, but then she’d seen the letter from Dad. She’d completely forgotten.

“You’re not swimming with us anymore?” Mia asked, and it wasn’t her lacrosse-girl voice she used right now. Mia could shrug off a lot of things that would have bothered Annabelle, but when something upset her, it really upset her. And right now she sounded as upset as she had last winter when her dad had gotten stuck in Chicago on her birthday because of a snowstorm, so they’d had to postpone the special dad-and-daughter birthday breakfast they had every year.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you,” Annabelle said. “It all happened really fast. But I’ll still see you guys all the time! I’ll cheer you on at meets and stuff.”

“Okay. Yeah, that definitely makes up for ditching us and not even saying anything about it.”

And now the lacrosse-girl voice was back, but extra loud and low and with a really, really sharp edge. As sharp as one of the X-Acto knives they weren’t allowed to use without supervision in the art room.

Next to Mia, Jeremy stared down at his flip-flops, which were getting a little too small. His big toes reached the very end. Annabelle tried to catch his eye to figure out if he’d told Mia that he already knew she was moving up to the high school team, but he wouldn’t look up.

Annabelle took her three breaths. Mia was jealous, she told herself.

She was probably as jealous as Annabelle had been when their Spanish teacher had asked Mia to be a peer tutor, since her accent was so good. Or when Jeremy had gotten to move up to ninth-grade math when they were only seventh graders.

And it probably hurt Mia’s feelings that Annabelle hadn’t said anything to her about the high school team the way it had hurt Annabelle’s feelings that time Reagan said something about Mia’s crush on that eighth grader Alex Jones before Annabelle had known about it. Or else Mia was disappointed because, even though she didn’t always act like it, she’d been looking forward to hanging out with Annabelle all summer, too.

Annabelle could make her feel better, though. She could make things right again if she could figure out the right thing to say.

“Um, Mitch can’t pick me up for a while. Maybe I can stick around while you guys practice and then get him to take us all to the Creamery.”

“Sounds good to me,” Jeremy said, and Mia shrugged.

“I bet he’ll get us half-price cookies to take home, too,” Annabelle added. “And maybe that guy will be working. The one Reagan said was flirting with you last time you guys went?”