“I know. Mine was too,” Jessi said. “All I could think about was Oliver. What he was doing, if he was sleeping. Remember how freaked out I was at first when I found out my mom was having a baby? I was miserable!”

  I nodded. “Yep, and when you had to give up your room.”

  Jessi had had to move from her room on the second floor with her parents to a smaller room on the first floor. She had not been happy about it.

  “I wasn’t excited to be a big sister at all. But seeing him, and holding him, I can’t believe how much I love him. It kicked in right away. I never thought of myself as a baby person before,” she said.

  “And you are now?” I asked.

  “I am a one-baby person,” she replied. “Oliver. He’s special. And I’m going to look out for him.”

  I smiled. “He is so lucky to have you as a big sister.”

  “True,” Jessi said with a grin. “But anyway, Oliver is why I couldn’t concentrate at practice. It doesn’t explain why Devin, who has a soccer ball for a brain, couldn’t concentrate.”

  “Maybe I was still jet-lagged,” I said. “And I don’t like it that things are weird between me and Kara. Plus, I have something else on my mind …” I trailed off.

  “What is it? Come on, Devin. You can tell me.” Jessi had her hands on her hips, and I knew I wouldn’t get out of there without spilling it.

  So I told her about overhearing my dad on the phone at the hotel, and how I thought we might have to move back to Connecticut.

  Jessi’s eyes grew wide. “No way! That would stink so bad. I can’t even!”

  “I know. Me too. I love you guys and I don’t want to leave,” I told Jessi.

  “You can stay here with us. I know my bedroom is really small, but we can make it work,” Jessi said.

  “I don’t think my parents would want that,” I said. “But thanks. I appreciate it.”

  Jessi looked sad. “I need you! I don’t want you to go.”

  “I don’t want to go either,” I said.

  Jessi bit her lip, thinking. “Maybe it won’t happen. Or maybe you heard wrong.”

  I had thought that was possible too. “You could be right,” I said, just as my phone beeped that I had a text. It was my dad, who was waiting for me outside.

  “I gotta go,” I told Jessi. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And you’re right, Oliver is a very special baby. He is a whole new level of cuteness.”

  “He gets it from his big sister.” Jessi laughed.

  * * *

  When I got home, I raced upstairs to my bedroom. Kara and I had a weekly video chat every Tuesday at this time, and I didn’t want to be late.

  I logged in to the video chat software. It rang and rang, but Kara never picked up the call.

  That’s weird, I thought. If she ever has to miss a call, she lets me know. My next thought made my whole stomach sink. What if she saw it was me calling and didn’t pick up because she didn’t want to talk to me?

  Troubled, I went downstairs to set the table for dinner, one of my daily chores. Dad usually did the cooking, but tonight Mom was in the kitchen, whirring something in the food processor.

  “Hey, Devin,” she said as she added some artichokes to the mixture. “How’s little Oliver doing?”

  I shrugged, unable to say anything. I felt like I might burst into tears. I was confused and upset about everything.

  “Aw, sweetie.” My mom shut off the food processor and wrapped her arms around me. “What’s the matter?”

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.

  “I think Kara hates me!” I blurted out.

  “Come, sit down.” Mom guided me to the kitchen table, and I took a seat. She sat next to me and held my hand. “Tell me about it.”

  “Kara was just really different when I saw her. She kept getting mad at me. And she has this new friend who doesn’t like me. It was all very strange, and I felt like I didn’t belong there anymore. And how can I move back to Connecticut if Kara won’t be my friend? All my other friends have changed. It’s not the same.”

  My mom looked at me, surprise registering on her face.

  “What makes you think we’re moving to Connecticut?” she asked.

  “I heard Dad talking on the phone at the hotel,” I admitted. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. I just couldn’t help hearing what he was saying.”

  Mom patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry. I know you wouldn’t eavesdrop, Devin. But overhearing parts of other people’s conversations can cause problems and confusion. You should have said something to me or your dad.”

  “I was too afraid. When we first got here, part of me kind of wanted to move back home. But now, after all these months, and as things got worse and worse with Kara, I got scared that we would move. And that maybe it would be terrible.”

  “Oh, you poor thing,” Mom said. “Carrying all that around inside you. Well, let me tell you, we are not moving back to Connecticut. Your dad was offered an opportunity to transfer. We discussed it and decided that we were happy here and things were working out well for us and you girls. And we’ve both fallen in love with Southern California, so we are staying put.”

  I felt my shoulders relax as a wave of relief passed through my body. I didn’t realize until then how tense and tight every muscle had been.

  “I love it here too,” I said. “I’m glad we’re staying. But I still want to patch things up between me and Kara. How can I do that if I don’t even know what went wrong in the first place?”

  “You have to talk to her and be honest about what you’re feeling,” Mom said. “I know it’s scary to do that, but you’ll feel so much better when you get everything out in the open.”

  I nodded. My mom was right. But how could I fix things with Kara if she wouldn’t even talk to me?

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning I was still feeling down about Kara. It wasn’t like her to ignore me when I tried to contact her, even when we were mad at each other. We’d fought a bunch of times before, but we’d always talked it out.

  Kara’s behavior was a real mystery, but what I didn’t know was that detective Frida was on the case. At lunch time I learned all about it.

  Frida plopped her tray down next to me at our cafeteria table and took a seat.

  “Devin, we need to talk,” she said. “I have some very important information for you.”

  “Um, okay,” I said, a little bit nervously. Frida sounded super serious!

  “That friend of Kara’s has been spreading misinformation about you on social media, and I have the proof!” she said.

  “Wait, what?” I asked. “You mean Sienna?”

  Frida nodded. “Yes, Sienna. And I can promise you, this is going to be shocking.”

  “Oooooh!” Emma squealed. “This sounds juicy.”

  “Definitely!” Zoe agreed, leaning across the table.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “but we’re talking about my life here. This is not some reality show.”

  “Sorry,” Emma said. “It’s just, Frida makes everything sound so exciting.”

  Jessi nodded. “She does. Frida would be great on a reality show.”

  Frida sniffed. “Reality shows are an insult to the craft of acting. There’s no way I would do a reality show.”

  “What about competition shows?” Zoe said. “Those are fun, and they show off people’s skills. I’d love to do a fashion design show, maybe, if I get better at sewing.”

  I thought my head was going to explode. “Can we please get back to Frida’s news?” I asked. “I’m dying of curiosity.”

  “Okay, okay,” Frida said. “Let me start at the beginning. Do you remember Diana Diego?”

  I frowned. “Diana Diego? I don’t think so.”

  Frida held up her phone and showed me a picture of a girl with brown hair in two braids and black-framed eyeglasses. It came back to me.

  “That’s the disguise you used when we were trying to prove that the Rams had sabotaged us!” I cried.

  Emma scooted around the table to look. “Let me see!”

  “I remember that,” Jessi chimed in. “Frida pretended to be a new student who wanted to join the Rams, and she got one of the players to admit to the sabotage.”

  That was all true. In the fall season the Rams had done stuff like poking holes in our soccer balls and defacing our team banner. Their team captain had been under a lot of pressure to win, and she had orchestrated it all. Frida’s disguise had uncovered their final plan: to make it look like we had spray painted “Kicks Rule” on our own field, which would have made us forfeit the game. Thanks to Frida, we were able to stop the Rams, and we went on to win the game.

  “What does Diana Diego have to do with Sienna?” I asked.

  “When I became Diana Diego, I created a Snapface account,” Frida explained. “I requested Sienna as a friend on Snapface, and she accepted right away. I started scrolling through her posts, and I found this one from three days ago.”

  Frida handed me her phone, and I looked at a post from Sienna that she’d made on the day I flew back to California. It was one of those posts that was cryptic unless you knew who the person was talking about.

  Sad when your friend’s friend talks behind her back and you can’t do anything about it.

  There were a few replies from girls with question marks, or basic statements of agreement. Then I saw a reply from Kara.

  Wait, which friend?

  You, Sienna replied.

  The back-and-forth went like this:

  Kara: You mean Devin?

  Sienna: Yes.

  Kara: What do you mean? What did she say?

  Sienna: I don’t want to hurt ur feelings.

  Kara: Tell me!

  Sienna: At the practice. She told me she liked her friends back home more than u.

  Kara: She didn’t!

  Sienna: I was shocked.

  Kara:

  “I never said that!” I cried.

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” Frida said.

  “I barely even talked to her at the practice,” I said. “I mean, we talked for a little bit, but I never said that I liked you guys better than I like Kara. You know that I love you all equally.”

  “Well, you like me a little better than everyone else, but that’s understandable,” Jessi joked, and I nudged her.

  “No wonder Kara doesn’t want to talk to me,” I said. “If Sienna made up this lie on Snapface, who knows what else she’s been telling Kara?”

  “Exactly!” Frida said, and then pounded her fist on the table for emphasis.

  “Can you screen shot that for me?” I asked.

  “Already done,” Frida said. “I’m sending it to you now.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “That’s weird, that Sienna would try to sabotage your friendship with Kara like that,” Zoe remarked.

  “She must be really insecure about her relationship with Kara,” Emma guessed.

  “Maybe,” I said thoughtfully. Sienna’s lie explained a lot. But something was bugging me. Why was Kara so ready to believe her?

  “Well, anyway. Thanks, Detective Frida!” I said.

  “No problem,” she replied.

  “I’m glad Frida figured this out, because we need your head in the game on Saturday,” Jessi said. “Our first playoff game!”

  “I still have to talk to Kara,” I said. “But don’t worry. I’m psyched for the playoffs.”

  Jessi grinned. “Let’s kill it at practice today, okay?”

  “Definitely,” I said. “No more excuses!”

  And when it came time for practice that afternoon, I kept my promise. I pushed the Kara problem out of my mind and gave my all to every drill. During the scrimmage I managed to steal the ball twice, and I scored three goals. I was on fire!

  “Looking good out there today, Dev,” said Grace as we all walked off the field after practice. “If you play like that on Saturday, the Eagles won’t know what hit them.”

  “Can you pass some of that energy on to the rest of us?” teased Megan.

  I grinned. “You don’t need mine. We’re all going to bring it on Saturday.”

  “We’re going to need to,” Grace said. “We haven’t beaten the Eagles yet.”

  Jessi chimed in. “Yeah, you keep saying that. You’re going to jinx us!”

  I was kind of glad Jessi mentioned it. Grace usually wasn’t a negative person. I got the feeling that she wanted to win the playoffs badly, and the Eagles thing was psyching her out.

  “I’m just stating a fact, Jessi,” Grace said.

  “We’ll be on our home field this time, so that should help,” Megan pointed out.

  “Yeah, but I hear their defense has gotten even better,” Grace countered.

  “Maybe, but we came out of the season with a better record than them,” Megan argued. “We’ve got this.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Grace said, and she sounded a little unsure.

  By now every other member of the team had quieted down and was listening to Grace and Megan. Grace noticed.

  “But, hey, there’s nothing to worry about!” she said. “We’re going to beat the Eagles this time. We’re going to move forward in the playoffs.”

  “YEAH!” Jessi called out loudly, leading us all to burst out in a spontaneous cheer.

  “Goooooooo, Kicks!”

  But everyone walked off the field more slowly than usual, and I could tell that Grace’s fears had gotten everyone a little rattled.

  * * *

  On the way home from practice, I texted Kara.

  Home in 20 minutes. Can we video chat? Please? It’s really important!

  I waited a good ten minutes for Kara to reply, and all I got was: K.

  That was enough! When I got home, I bolted up the stairs and turned on my laptop. I listened to the beeps as I waited for Kara to pick up. Would she do it, or would she ignore me again?

  To my relief, the screen opened up and I saw her face.

  “Kara, Sienna lied to you!” I blurted out.

  Kara frowned. “If you’re just going to bash Sienna—”

  “No. I said this was important.” I held up my phone with the screen shot and showed her. “I never, ever said that I liked my California friends better than you. I would never say that! You know how it is. I love you all in different ways.”

  “What, you’re snooping on Sienna’s profile now?” Kara asked.

  “Not me. Frida,” I said.

  “That’s right. Your new friend Frida,” Kara said, pouting.

  I sighed. “Come on, Kara. You’ve got to believe me. I would never say anything like that about you. You know that.”

  Kara hesitated. “I guess.”

  “You and I have been best friends forever,” I went on. “Since pre-K, when we painted each other’s faces and Miss Horner freaked out. Since that Halloween when we both dressed up as Belle and told everybody we were twins. Since that day I got stung by a bee at your house and you held my hand until it felt better. That’s all real, Kara, and nobody can take that away from us.”

  Kara’s face softened. She smiled. “Miss Horner was so mad. I just wanted to give you a cat face like I’d gotten at the carnival.”

  “See?” I said. “We’ve got history, Kara. And that will never change. No matter where I live, or how many other friends I make. You will always be my Kara.”

  “And you’ll always be my Devin,” she said.

  We were both quiet for a minute, and then Kara spoke up.

  “But you need to stop trash-talking Sienna,” she said. “She’s my friend now.”

  I nodded. “I get it,” I said. Then I held up the phone again. “I’m just saying, this is shady. But I understand. I think maybe Sienna is jealous of our friendship, which is ridiculous. I mean, I live all the way across the country! And she gets to see you every day. If anything, I should be jealous of her.”

  Kara smiled. “You mean that?”

  “Of course!” I said. “In a perfect world, you would live here with me in California, and I’d have all of my friends in one place. But I don’t. And I miss you a lot.”

  “I miss you too,” Kara admitted. “And I talk about you all the time. I mean, all the time, to everyone.”

  “That’s probably why Sienna is jealous, then,” I guessed.

  Kara nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “So you believe me?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Kara replied. “I believe you. And I’m sorry I believed Sienna so easily.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, but inside I was still a little worried. How strong was our friendship, really, if Kara had given up on me that quickly?

  Or maybe this was just a regular thing that happened when your friends were far away. Sometimes you got lost; sometimes you got knocked off the friendship seesaw, but you could always climb back on again if you had help.

  We talked some more, about regular things this time, and then Mom called me down to dinner.

  “Good luck on Saturday,” Kara said.

  “Thanks!” I said. “Good luck with your game this weekend too.”

  “Gooooo, Kicks!” Kara cheered as we were both hanging up, and it made me feel good. I was glad that Kara was still in my life. And I was happy that I had friends like Jessi, Frida, Emma, and Zoe, too!

  Chapter Eleven

  “I know some of you are worried that we haven’t beaten the Victorton Eagles yet,” Coach Flores began her pep talk before Saturday’s game. “And I’m here to tell you why that doesn’t matter.”

  Every member of the Kicks stared at Coach Flores hopefully. At Friday’s practice all anybody had talked about was “the unstoppable Eagles.” I’m not sure who had dubbed them that, although I suspected it was Frida being dramatic, as usual. We had all left practice convinced that the Eagles couldn’t be beat, just like at the practice on Wednesday.

  “It doesn’t matter because every game is a fresh start,” Coach said. “It wouldn’t matter if the Eagles had beaten us twenty times! The only thing that matters is how we play today. And today we’re going to win!”

  Emma raised her hand. “Do you really think they could beat us twenty times?” she asked.