caution：catty friends
名称：caution：catty friends
内容简介：
Dear Arizona,
I’ve become friends with one of the most popular kids in my class. But this new friend doesn’t want me to play with my old friend. I like being with the popular crowd, but I’d feel guilty ignoring my friend. Any advice?
—Guilty in Grass Valley
Dear Guilty,
Your experience reminds me of something I had to deal with this summer. I started going to a theater day camp, where I made two new friends. Since this story doesn't end in a super-friendly way, I'm going to give them the made-up names Tabby and Calico.
For our camp’s play, Tabby and Calico and I got the parts of the three little kittens who lost their mittens. This meant that we spent pretty much every single second together. We practiced our cat lines together and worked on our cat dance together and went through our cat costume changes together.
At lunch, we sat together. At break, we came up with fashionable new feline hairdos together. Even on the weekends we played (oh, did you guess?) together! People were always saying things like “You girls are as close as three peas in a pod!” and “You three must be joined at the hip!” and “Doesn’t it get sticky being glued together like that?” OK, I made up that last comment, but you get the idea. And the truth of the matter is that, yes, spending every minute with the same two people could feel a bit sticky after a while.
One Saturday, when the three of us were hanging out on my front steps trying to eat chips and salsa without getting our kitty noses messy, Ollie hopped off his skateboard to say hi.
“Nice cat costumes,” he commented. “But isn’t it a little early for Halloween?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Calico. “We’re not dressed up for Halloween!”
Tabby crunched a tortilla chip and said, “If you knew anything, you’d know we were practicing our cat roles for our theater-camp play—until you barged in and rudely interrupted us.”
“Wow, sorry!” Ollie said, skating away. “What’s the play called? The Most Obnoxious Cats in the World?”
“Ollie, wait! Come back,” I called after him. “They were just kidding around. You know how cats are!”
But Ollie didn’t come back. He kept right on skating.
“Man, is he clueless or what?” Calico shook her head. “Don’t tell me you’re actually friends with that kid!” Tabby said to me.
“Actually, we’re best friends!” I said. “And Ollie’s the exact opposite of clueless. He’s one of the smartest kids I know. Plus, we live just three houses apart and have known each other since we were babies.”
“Well, you’re not a baby anymore, Arizona,” said Tabby. “You know how people outgrow clothes? Sometimes people outgrow friends, too.”
“Face it, Arizona,” said Calico. “That boy just doesn’t fit in with our group.”
“This is seriously the most horrible conversation I’ve had in my entire life!” I exclaimed. “Are you saying that if I don’t dump my best friend, you’re going to stop hanging out with me?”
“Meow,” Tabby said.
Calico nodded. “Double meow.”
The next day, I knocked on Ollie’s door to apologize for the rude cat experience and to see if he wanted to skate on the ramp at the park. Luckily, he was totally cool about what had happened.
Getting through the last week of theater camp, on the other hand, was stressful. Calico and Tabby did their best to ignore me, and I did my best not to worry about it. The play went OK, but let’s just say that I wasn’t sorry when it was over.
So, dear Guilty, no matter what your new friend thinks, you should definitely continue to be friends with your old friend. And I hope you can convince your new friend to be nice to your old friend, too. If that doesn’t work, maybe it’s time to think about whether this popular kid is really the kind of friend you want. I mean, it’s great to know people from different groups, but if someone tries to get you to be mean to another person or tries to control the choices you should make for yourself—watch out!
