They tell us to be grateful for the little things. Well as a thirteen-year-old girl that’s pretty hard! How about I just start from the beginning. I’m Amanda Smith, and while it sounds like I have a normal name. Well, my life was anything except normal. It all started at a sleepover with my best friend Grace Jones, while this sounds normal it was at my house, and let me tell you I don’t have a normal family. Instead of taco Tuesday its Tea and chili night! We don’t even get to drink tea we have to talk about our Monday and Tuesday. Like whom in my family wants to eat chili instead of Tacos! I can answer that my mom and dad!!

Having a twin brother who pretends he is older, and better is simply great! I am not saying I do not love him! I do like a lot. It is just when I go to middle school, I want to be original! Everyone makes me feel like I am a shadow of my brother! Jackson does not let me be, how do I say the person I want to be. Like the night of my sleepover, he had to have one at our house!  The worst thing is that he invited my crush, Daniel. Dainel was so sweet, and his voice was mellifluous.  Just because I am in seventh grade does not mean I want to see my crush and brother have a sleepover.

Not to mention this was supposed to be the best night of our lives!! We planned everything down to the seconds! The sleepover had to go perfect! Middle school starts in one week! That is not a lot of time and just think I am thirteen and in less than 3 years I will be driving a car! A lot of things are going to change! By then I will be knowing what colleges I might want to go to!

Well Kattie and I are planning so nothing and I mean nothing is going wrong! We already told the boys were picking food, and nit to eat our snacks! Mom and I went shopping just to find the best snacks for the sleepover! It took over a week of planning just the food to buy! When Kattie and I first met we talked about everything what we like and don’t like! That is what has made us such good friends!

The face masks and nail polish were already in my room! My favorite one a light pink nail polish that complemented my brown eyes with the streak of gold towards the center, and Kattie’s purple one that made her hazel eyes pop!  We had picked the perfect tick tock dances, and the hot tub and pool were cleaned!

Nothing is going to go wrong I tell myself as I open the door and let Kattie into my house! The teal door mom picked out to go with the white outside shines as I see Kattie’s dad drop her off! I give him a slight wave from the door! We run up to my room! When were all settled, we start the night off by talking about school and boys. While we talk and drink soft drinks I hear a knock on the door, I tell Kattie I will get it!  I get up and open the door and see that Daniel is there, with his perfect hair, and amazing smile. His smile looks like he should be on a magazine. When I open the door enough that you can see my face, Daniel says “hey, can we talk alone?”

I glance where Kattie is, and she gives me a thumbs up! I quickly grab one of my cheer sweatshirts from the hook by the door! I then tell Daniel “Yes we can talk” I slowly close my door and walk behind Daniel down the stairs. As he starts walking towards the back door, I follow him. Once we got outside, we sat by the pools edge and sit with our feet in! I had flip flops on, and it felt so good to have the warm water on my toes! I put on my cheer sweatshirt my favorite on! With the hood and gray outside wait blue words on it! Daniel sits down next to me as I watch the water! His body heat getting closer as I feel or fingers touching! That is when I look up, I realize Daniel has been watching me! He says something I cannot quiet hear, that’s when I hear footsteps coming from the deck just as my hand land on Daniels. He does not move his hand till he sees Jackson. Absolutely amazing Jackson strikes again. I tell Daniel “I better go talk with Kattie, if you want to talk come find me later!” As I walk inside the backdoor, I find that Kattie has been sitting there watching us all along!

 Then my phone rings it reminds me of our plan! Pool time, Me and Kattie did swim lessons when we were four! After that she did swim team and I danced! Let’s just say dance didn’t work for me! Then I tried all-star cheer and it’s my life now! I love the feel of being a flyer! Getting catapulted in the air in! Flipping around the mat it’s just an amazing feeling! Me and Kattie put on our best bathing suits. My Pink string two-piece swimsuit and Kattie’s purple flower pattern one with the white bow in the back. When were ready I put my cheer hoodie on over my swimsuit, and I look out the window!

I see that Jackson and Daniel are already in the pool! When were outside Daniel waves me over and I see Kattie and Jackson talking and blushing! I knew it they like each other. I go in the shallow part of the pool holding a soda. Daniel comes over and sits next to me. We talk and swim. That’s when I hear my phone goes off. The fun ring tone that I remember me and Grace dancing to in my living room when we were kids. A while ago we made a pact to play this ring tone at all of our sleepovers and other special occasions.

That’s when we all make our way inside. We’re going to watch a movie Kattie says. It was on our list but after we do our nails so I’m a little surprised. Grace messages me go with it! So, I ask to talk to her and makes a really fat excuse. I tell them we might meet them in the basement and drag grace up the stairs. As we get into my room, I close the door. In my quietest angry voice, I say “Grace we had a plan, and why didn’t you tell me you liked my brother.” Grace is so quiet sitting in my soft chair in the corner of my room. She looks at me in a sad way. That’s when I realize I was too hard on her. So, I sit next to her and say, “tell me everything please.” Grace and I talk for one hour straight. Then we change and go downstairs.

As we pick a movie, I can’t get out of my mind what Grace said. They have been a thing for like 2 months. It all started at the sports camp they went to. How could she not tell me, how could how could Jason not tell me. We made a pact she said, “Well Amanda you and Jackson are twins.” That’s not an excuse, I think.  What about the pact that we had to tell each other stuff like if someone is being mean at school or the time people were being mean to Grace. We had a pact, and Grace broke it.

As were towards the middle of the movie I get up and say I’ll be right back. I quickly go to the living room upstairs and look through my phone till I find Jackson number. I message Jackson “Get up here now! I’m in the living room.” I hear him make an excuse as I stand by the basement stairs. Jackson comes up the stairs slowly. Usually, he runs but now he’s taking baby steps, he must be nervous. I sit on the couch and Jackson grabs the recliner; I start off by saying “Grace told me everything. Jackson why would you keep it a secret from me?” As Jackson comes and starts to talk, he studders. Then he goes silent, as I think for once he’s silent this never happens.

 He gets up and grabs a napkin he goes in the kitchen and writes something on it. Once he goes back in the basement, I grab the note from where he left it. In his scribbled handwriting it says, “I didn’t want to tell you because she’s your best friend, I’m sorry I thought it would be better.” As I think Jackson didn’t want to make me upset. He actually seems like he put a lot of thought into it.

I quickly grab the bag of chips by the notes and go downstairs. Everyone else is eating popcorn so I grab my alternative because I can’t have it with my braces. The chips are the blue Doritos my favorite. When I bring them downstairs in the other popcorn bowl. My favorite one, pink on the outside and blue in the inside. I put them on the table and Daniel says those are my favorite. I sit next to him between him and Grace. Grace shows me her phone and it reads 11:58. I quickly say, “It’s almost twelve a clock was going to be in school in less than a week.” That’s when the clock struck 12:00

As the movie ends, we tell the boys “See you.” We walk up the stairs whispering as we hit the twelfth step me and Grace say, “twelve and now thirteen” We giggle up the last few steps. As we hear our mom in her bathroom running the water, we get into our matching pajama pants and talk on my two couches. The water in my mom’s room cuts off and a few seconds’ pass. As she walks down the hallway, we don’t hear a sound. Then my mom peaks her head into the door and says, “good night girls, don’t be too loud and the boy’s room is off limits” As she gets ready to move Grace says, “Good night miss Smith” and I say, “Good night mom” As I think my dad’s probably already asleep.

As we start winding down Grace and I go and grab the nail polish. Grace askes me “Amanda can you do the pretty French tip and flowers on My nails” I respond, “Yea I love doing your nails” Grace and I both have really long nails, Her’s are squarer but mine are more rounded. As she picks out the purple one, I start with the French tip. I have known how to do French tip for so long now I could probably do it with my eyes closed. I finish the French tip and move onto the flowers I work quickly and grab a white nail polish and the purple we already used.  That’s when I let her nails dry and start mine. I pick the nail polish I have hidden behind my giant Amanda sign. I quickly grab it and do this French tip design that I found on my phone. It’s perfect, I think. As my nails dry, I hear footsteps in the hallway must be the boys sneaking downstairs to get food or something.

As I realize I haven’t written in my online diary for the day. So much has happened it would take me so long. I decide to ignore it for today. I add clear coat to Graces nails then mine. I then walk and turn my fan on so when we sleep or pretend to sleep, it doesn’t smell in my room. We set our nails on my coffee table which sits in the middle of my twin couches. I ask Grace “Have your nails dried?” She answers in a happy and tired voice “Yes have yours Amanda” I answer “Yup.”

I reach to where my phone is and where my sprite sits. I quickly grab my sprite and take a sip. The sprite fizzes in my mouth as I grab my phone and see I have a message from one of my other best friends, it reads Lydia. Me and Lydia go to school together. We have been friends for some time but me and Grace have been friends for longer.  Grace says, “She sent something in the Group chat” She’s staring at her phone screen her hazel eyes shining. As she doses that I see her fingers move then my phone dings. She has just responded to whatever Lydia said. I quickly swipe to see the messages. Lydia says, “We should all go to the mall and get first day of schools outfits!” After that I see Graces message “Yea! We would have to go to the farther one because they have more clothes stores.” I knew she was talking about how they had the Giant Hollister and the amazing Arie. I quickly respond, “Yea sounds good we just need to find a good time to go!”

Then I close my phone and it locks showing the background of Grace, Lydia, and me. I giggle but then show Grace the photo. “Grace, do you remember this photo” Grace giggles “yea the last day of our beach trip” Yea it was! That was such a fun trip. It was at our beach house all the way in Florida, and we went to Disney!

The beach house was my favorite. Usually, we go right after school ends and go for about three weeks. Then we come home, and Grace goes to sports camp and me and Lydia go to silver shore camp. We always do the art majoring it’s so fun. All of the musicals we have done together. After camp ends my family goes back to the beach house for a week and a half and then we come back. By the time were back usually we have about two weeks of summer left.

As I look in the mirror my eyes sparkle. My eyes are this Gold-Ish brown. My eyes are amber eyes. It makes me special because Jackson just has brown like a lot of other people in our grade. Even though where twins were different. A lot of people don’t see that. For example, I love the blue Doritos and the color pink. Jackson is the opposite he loves the red Doritos, and his favorite color is light green or a mint color.

          Being different is good  but my favorite part of having a twin brother is that I get all of the information between the girls and boys in my grade. A lot of people don’t get that but when your brother never shuts the door and talks really loud on calls you get all off of the information.  

          As we start setting up the couches me grab a bunch of blankets. I take the left couch and Grace snags the right. I put on Mean girls, we have been planning this movie for years and now that were old enough our parents finally let us. As time goes by, we watch the movie and laugh at the funny parts. When it’s over we move the coffee table and plug our phones in the corner. We say good night and I sit there. Thinking about all the things that happened today.

 I slowly fall asleep, My alarm rings and its six thirty. Grace wakes up after me I have to give her a good shake to get up. We quickly head downstairs to the smell of warm cinnamon buns just out of the oven. As we grab one each and grab some fruit we sit down at the table. We eat quickly because Graces mom is coming to get her in two and a half hours.

We make our way up the stairs and into my room. I quickly put on one of my t-shirts and a pair of short. We brush our teeth and comb our hair and run till were in the basement.

          We watch tv and talk till we hear the doorbell ring. It must be graces mom. As I get the door Grace grabs the last of her stuff from my room and says “thanks!” She hugs me and I say, “See you later.” I close the door and realize Daniel is gone! I go to my room and its tidy! That’s the great thing about grace we always leave a place better then we found it. I quickly sit on my bed and fall asleep. I end up getting woken by my phone buzzing. I needed that sleep but now its two thirty. I slept through lunch and my stomach is not happy about it.