chapter one Fourteen Weeks Four Days It was the first day of fifth grade and I had a promise to keep Ever since spring break I’d woken up with an ache inside of me like I’d been swallowing rocks all night But today I felt a hundred times lighter Instead of rocks in my stomach today I felt the fluttering of butterfly wings I glanced down at my necklace the one with half a heart and the words Best Friends written across it I jumped out of bed and grabbed the scissors on my dresser Most people would think I was nuts but I knew what I had to do I gathered up my hair in a ponytail opened up the scissors and began to cut My hair didn’t fall to the ground with one snip the way Anna’s had at Shear Magic Salon back in March I felt like
2 Extraordinary I was sawing through my stack of American Girl magazines but I kept on cutting Finally my ponytail dropped from my hand and fell to the floor with a thump I stared down at the pile of hair I closed my eyes then opened them again The ponytail was still on the floor My eyes traveled up to the mirror My long hair was gone Staring back at me was a girl with much shorter hair bigger eyes and a longer neck I looked different and I knew that inside I’d become a different person too I turned away from the mirror and pulled out my spe cial box from my bottom dresser drawer I had covered the box in pink construction paper decorated it with hearts and written the word Anna on it with glitter markers I picked up a photo taken a few weeks before Anna went to camp last spring without me right after we promised each other we’d cut our hair for Locks of Love Short-haired Anna peered back at me her eyes shining as a big smile stretched across her face We were outside Shear Magic Salon and Anna had her arm around my shoulder hidden under the long hair that fell halfway down my back I flipped through the other photos Anna and I dressed up as salt and pepper shakers for Halloween Hanging up side down from the jungle gym Holding onto the same boogie board as the waves crash around us I lingered on my favorite from last summer on the Fourth of July We wore red white and blue hats with sparkly tassels sticking
Miriam Spitzer Franklin 3 out of the top and we had our arms around each other making silly faces Pulling my eyes away from the photos I stared into the mirror thinking about how I could magically transform into the kind of person I wanted to be This year I had to become all the things I’d never been before Brave Daring Smart Talented Extraordinary in every way like Anna I had to become extraordinary because yesterday I heard the most amazing news Anna was going to have surgery in a few months that could fix her brain and turn her back into the person I used to know And when she woke up in the hospital and saw me again for the first time I was going to be the best friend she could ever have If I turned into an extraordinary person then Anna had to forgive me for all the promises I’d broken And she’d have to forget about the huge fight we had right before she went to sleep-away camp over spring break the fight that ended when Anna asked me to leave and slammed the door behind me The next time I saw her was in the hospital Anna couldn’t talk she couldn’t understand what people were saying and she didn’t act like she knew me at all And if she remembered the fight I sure couldn’t tell Pansy Time for breakfast Mom called I shook the memory of Hospital Anna right out of my head and ran down the stairs two at a time
