Friends Forever Read Online Free Page B

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    Gabby and Izzie were still best friends in third grade. At eight, they loved each other even more than they had at five. They shared Barbies and traded clothes. Izzie spent weekends at Gabby’s house as often as she was allowed. They had carved their initials into Izzie’s desk at home, G+I4EVER, which hadn’t gone over well with Izzie’s mother, and she’d been on restriction for aweekend. Izzie loved staying at Gabby’s, where she could try on all her pretty clothes. Practically everything Gabby owned had sparkles on it, and she had two pink jackets trimmed in real white fur, and a pink fur coat her mom had gotten for her in Paris. They wore the same sizes in everything, and traded clothes when they were allowed to, although not the coat from Paris. And Izzie liked Michelle, even though Gabby said she hated her sister, and blamed her for everything whenever she could. Gabby hated it when her mother insisted they play with her, because she wanted Izzie to herself, but Izzie was a good sport about including Michelle in their games, and she even let her win sometimes. She felt sorry for Michelle. She never seemed to have as much fun as Gabby, and her parents seemed less interested in her. Izzie had a strong urge to nurture everyone; she always felt sorry for the underdog, and even took care of Gabby sometimes if she was in a bad mood or had a cold. Izzie was the perfect friend.
    Judy always said about her older daughter that she was born to succeed at everything she did, and it seemed to be true. Gabby had modeled a few times for ads for children’s clothing, and one national campaign for GapKids by the time she was in third grade. No one ever doubted that Gabby would be a star one day. She already was in her own little world. And Izzie loved being best friends with her, although she loved the three boys in her group too.
    Izzie’s father, Jeff, took them all out for pizza and bowling sometimes. The girls loved it, although they could hardly pick up the ball. Once in a while, Izzie’s mother went with them, but usually she had to work late at night. Katherine always brought a lotof work home from the office, and you had to be quiet in the house, so Jeff took them out, or dropped Izzie off at Gabby’s, if Izzie begged long enough. Her mother never minded, and once in a while she heard her parents fight about it. Her dad would ask why her mom couldn’t take at least one night off, and then the fight would start. Katherine always talked about her husband’s clients at the ACLU as the Great Unwashed. Whenever Izzie heard those words, she knew one of their really big fights was about to start.
    She talked about it with Andy sometimes, because he was an only child too, and his parents were busy and worked a lot, like hers. And she wondered if his parents fought too. He said they didn’t, and his mom worked late, if she had to stay out all night to deliver a baby. Both of Izzie’s parents were lawyers, and Andy’s were doctors. His mother didn’t come home for two or three days sometimes when she had a lot of babies to deliver, and his father traveled a lot to give lectures and appeared on TV for his latest book. He went on book tours when he wasn’t home seeing patients. Andy said his father was even busier than his mother. He wrote books about people’s problems. But Andy liked their housekeeper, and she lived in the house, so he said it didn’t matter to him how busy his parents were. Izzie had a babysitter, but not a housekeeper who lived in. And Andy lived in a bigger house.
    Like Izzie, Andy’s favorite house to visit was Sean’s, because his parents were so nice, but Andy always said that his parents were nice too, they were just out a lot, and the O’Haras were always home, and made time to talk to all of them. Izzie used to like to pretend that Sean’s mother, Connie, was her aunt, but she nevertold Sean about it, she just said it to herself. And Connie always gave her a big hug and kiss when she