For Jeannie Mobley with thanks for the joy of writing in your sunroom together
one BAM BOOM KAPOW Vera Vance let go of her bowling ball hop ing this time to hear ten pins exploding into the air But her ball rolled so slowly and crook edly down the lane again that only one pin on the far left wobbled for a second before top pling over Hooray Nixie Ness shouted pumping her fi st Vera didn’t have a lot of friends yet She and her mother had moved to Longwood for her mother’s new job right before school be gan two months ago But she and Nixie had just fi nished being in an after-school cooking camp together and now Nixie had invited her to come bowling on Saturday afternoon Vera stared at Nixie Hooray 1
You got a point Your first point You’re starting to figure it out Nixie’s fa ther chimed in sounding almost as enthusias tic as Nixie herself Vera couldn’t help laughing So far the only thing she had figured out in her first time ever bowling was that she was terrible at it Nixie was almost as bad at bowling as Vera The dif ference between Vera and Nixie was that when Nixie knocked down a single pin she started talking about how she was going to be the third-grade bowling champion of the world Vera just saw the other nine pins still standing Roll again Nixie’s father told her You have another roll coming to you This time to Vera’s astonishment four more pins went down See Nixie squealed Didn’t I tell you you’d be great at bowling Vera felt herself beaming She could imag ine drawing a comic of the bowling pins flying into the air with surprised expressions on their faces All Vera could think about these days was making comics on Monday the After-School Superstars program she 2
and Nixie attended was starting a four-week comic-book camp As Nixie readied herself for her next turn Vera wondered whether the bowling pins should look sad instead of surprised when they got smashed by the bowling ball It was hard not to feel sorry for the poor bowling pins standing up straight and proud one moment then clobbered the next No Vera decided Right this minute bowling with Nixie and looking forward to comic-book camp together she wasn’t going to think sad thoughts about anything The next day Nixie came over to Vera’s house after lunch They had never had a play date before and now they were having two in the same weekend Once Nixie’s family had in vited Vera to go bowling Vera’s mother had im mediately issued an invitation of their own to Nixie She called it reciprocating Vera knew her mother liked to get reciprocating over with as soon as possible What do you want to do Vera asked as soon as her mother had welcomed Nixie and 3
