Autumn~

I nod again. "It's at 5." Then the bell rings. Everyone turns to leave, but I grab Ava's arm. 

"Hey!" She turns around. 

"Sorry. But I need to talk to you." We start walking out of the cafeteria.

"Ok. Since you're gonna be joining our group now–" I pause to stop myself from adding "if you pass the trial" "–You're going to need to understand how complicated it is."

She gets a look in her eyes that says "what could be so complicated about it?" And I sigh. "Our group has many different parts. The section of it I manage is the one you just agreed to have a sleepover at. So everyone in it is a BFF now. Got it?" She nods. "But WHOLE group is actually managed by Sophie. She's an eighth grader. Do NOT talk to her until she talks to you. And she probably won't talk to you very much. I've been in her group since 2nd grade and I have had a grand total of 5 short conversations with her. Luckily, they were good conversations, and now I'm the queen of my grade." I smile proudly. "Anyway, you'll get to know everyone at the sleepover. Don't worry, it's pretty chill. We'll probably just watch a few movies, tell some ghost stories, stuff like that. And it'll just be my part of the group. Nobody else. Just 8 other people." I say the last few sentences to convince myself it won't be too hard to get Ava into this group. The piano lesson shouldn't be too much of a setback, as long as she doesn't say she's part of math club. I wave goodbye to Ava and head to my next class.