Back to School

Leslie has spent her summer delivering papers, and she is telling Ann all about it: Mr. Turner's dog, she insists, must be part horse. Ann has seen the dog and knows better, but to Leslie it sure seemed that way. Then Leslie spots Cindy Hanson, her best friend since they were babies, and hurries over, complaining that she has hardly seen her all summer. Cindy shrugs it off, and when Leslie invites her over for the afternoon, Cindy says she can't - she has promised to do some things with Krista, and off she goes to find her.

Mr. Whittaker has overheard, and he asks Leslie how her first week at the big new school went. "Terrible," she says, and out come the stories. Her mother supposedly screamed her out of bed and made her wear a torn dress. Her bus driver, Crazy Eddie, wears a parachute and once explained to a police officer that he was doing 65 in a 30 zone because he was slowing down for the turn. A man in the hallway demanded a hall pass and insisted on being called sir. And her new teacher, the fearsome Mr. Gutwrench, renamed her Lisa, thundered that she had wasted all 120,960 minutes of her summer vacation just hanging out, and assigned her to write "I will make better use of my time" 220,000 times. Mr. Whittaker admits it makes a very funny story, but he wants to know how the week really went, and at last Leslie tells him: she has lost her best friend. She and Cindy promised to be best friends forever, and now Cindy is suddenly best friends with Krista. Mr. Whittaker gently suggests that it was a promise neither girl could keep, because both of them are growing up and changing. Leslie will not hear of it. Cindy made a promise, and Leslie marches off to hold her to it.

The confrontation at Krista's house goes badly. Cindy asks why she can't have other friends and tells Leslie to grow up; Leslie shoots back that if Cindy won't be her best friend, she needn't bother being her friend at all, and storms off while the two girls head out to a movie. At home, Leslie treats Ann just as coldly, refusing every idea and saying she wants to be alone. When Leslie moans that she has lost her best friend today, Ann protests that she is right here; Leslie brushes her aside, and Ann runs out the door in tears. That brings Leslie's mother, who wants to know why, and once the truth comes out she tells Leslie about Beverly, her own best friend growing up. The summer before high school, Beverly drifted to a different group, and the two of them have not spoken in almost twenty years. But Mom realized she had changed that summer too. People change as they grow up, she explains; the friends who change along with you are the ones you keep for life, and there is one friend, Jesus, who never changes at all. Leslie thinks it over and asks to call Ann, because she owes her an apology.

A few days later Cindy finds Leslie with Mr. Whittaker and asks if she is busy that night: maybe they could hang out like they used to. Leslie already has homework plans with Ann, but instead of slamming the door on her, she invites Cindy to bring her homework along and make it three. Mr. Whittaker marvels at how the friendship got straightened out. Maybe, Leslie tells him, she has grown up a little. Then she goes right back to her story about the softball that flew two miles - well, it sure seemed like it to her.