On Friday morning, Luca and Brennan arrived on the playground together, but Brennan was instantly attracted to a game of Ultimate Frisbee, and he bid Luca a quick goodbye. Luca looked around a bit nervously.
He was disappointed that he hadn’t made any progress on Emma’s problem, and worse, he didn’t want to disappoint her. Rather than face her right away, he decided to find a nice quiet place where he could wait for the morning lineup.
He turned away from a rather entertaining game of tag—Bo had tagged Dillon so hard that Dillon was now on his hands and knees, spitting sand out of his mouth—and saw Emma standing directly in front of him, smiling expectantly.
“Good morning, Luca,” she chirped. “Any luck?”
Luck? No, he hadn’t had any luck. He was no closer to finding a new best friend for Emma, and his first attempt to avoid her had gone bad. He was feeling anything but lucky.
“I’m sorry, Emma. I…I didn’t get a chance to think about it last night.”
Why did he lie?
“Oh.” Her face fell a bit.
“I have an idea, though. I can ask my mom to Google it. You know, ‘how to find a best friend’ or something like that. Works every time!”
Emma’s expression changed from sadness to disbelief. “I already thought of that, of course,” she said. “The answers I got were either not helpful or not helpful and ridiculous. I think I saw something about a love potion like in Harry Potter. Absurd. What else do you have?”
Nothing. That was what he had. Why was this so hard? He wanted to help Emma. She was nice enough, he guessed.
“I know!” he said at last. “Mrs. Qwirkle, the principal’s secretary! She knows everyone in school, and probably a lot about them. She’s sure to make a good suggestion!”
“Let’s go!” Emma said, suddenly hopeful again.
School would begin in ten minutes, but they had just enough time to dash down the hall and into the office.