"You're Zoe, right?" said Jonnie. "I suppose you could say I'm a friend of Karyn's. I'm Jonnie."
Sarah grimaced.
"Yeah, that's me," replied Zoe.
"I... Never mind," said Jonnie. "I'll talk to you later."
"Er, sure?" replied Zoe, and backed off into the store.
"All right," said Sarah. "Just in case you were going to tell me, what's going on?"
Jonnie sighed. "I'm not sure if I even can tell you. It's nothing personal. Let's just say I've had a lot of strange things happen to me recently, and I can't talk about any of them. I don't want to be a party pooper and I know we're supposed to be hanging out but trust me, I can't. And I do know Karyn, sort of, and I can't explain that, either. Besides, I don't want to get in the middle of this feud between you two."
"You're serious," said Sarah. "I didn't mean...."
"You don't have to apologize to me," said Jonnie. She wasn't very much used to hearing Sarah apologize to anyone, but she supposed that popular girls wouldn't be popular if they couldn't get along with their friends.
"Cheer up," said Nicole. "Pun not intended. This isn't a classroom, and that's not a test. If you want to talk, you can talk. If not, no. But you are going to think about joining the team. Now let's forget about Zoe and go get some food. There's this nice salad bar restaurant nearby. I have coupons."
Jonnie considered; she didn't want it to be assumed that she had money. Not every teenager is in a position to just go to a restaurant casually, even just for salad. Finally, though, she decided to go.
As soon as she got "home" from the mall trip Jonnie did what she should have done in the first place. She logged onto Jon's computer account, and began typing out an email to Zoe and Karyn....
