“Please Harper?” Sylvia begged. “Everyone’s doing it!”

“I don’t know guys,” Harper said, trailing off. “We’re only in seventh grade! We probably shouldn’t be going skinny dipping in the lake in the middle of the afternoon.”

“Ugh, she’s such a wimp,” Lynda complained to her best friend, Marie.

“Some things never change,” Marie responded.

Harper shook her head, hating that she was the uncool one. “Fine! I’ll go skinny dipping. But I want one of you guys to go first.”

“Ooh, I can!” Lynda volunteered, because it was her idea in the first place. All the others nodded.

“Uhm, I’m going to go get a towel, okay? I’ll be right back,” Harper walked out of her room and to the closet in the hall where her family stored all the towels. She was walking back with a floral beach towel when she stopped cold at her friends’ voices.

“I can’t believe she’s falling for this,” Marie chuckled.

“I know, right?” Sylvia added. “New kids fall for everything. She thinks we’re her real friends. Like, come on, girl.”

Lynda snorted. “It’ll be so funny when we take her clothes! She won’t even know that it’s coming!”

Harper fought back the tears in her eyes. These girls had been playing her all along? Well, she knew she was going to get some revenge. She waited awhile longer outside the door, listening to their master plan to get her to jump in and then they would steal her clothes and run away with them.

“Sorry,” she said, reentering her bedroom. “I had to go to the bathroom.” The truth was she didn’t want the girls to see that she’d been crying, but she wasn’t about to tell them that. They had lied to her, so why couldn’t she lie to them?

“Hey, I have an idea!” Harper said. “Why don’t all of us jump in at the same time?”

“Ooh, okay! But you have to swim all the way to the end of the lake and back before you can put on your clothes,” Sylvia said.

Harper grinned. “Sounds awesome!” Her master plan was unfolding.

“Let’s go!” Marie said, jumping up and running out of Harper’s room. The others followed, Harper being last.

“Yes,” she whispered to herself.

***

They were all at the lake, towels in hand, about 20 minutes later. Harper, still grinning, set her towel down and started to take off her shirt. She was really uncomfortable stripping all the way, so she had put on a skin tone bra and matching underwear that she hoped the girls didn’t notice.

“Everyone ready?” Sylvia called from somewhere to her left.

“Yes!” Marie, Lynda, and Harper all shouted at the same time.

“3… 2… 1… JUMP!” Lynda called, and Harper heard three splashes and started to get to work. She uncovered the jar of ants that had been concealed in her towel and poured them in each of the girls’ pile of clothes. Then, she waded in noiselessly and pretended like she had been in there all along.

When all of the girls emerged and started to put their clothes on, it was the Popular Girl Itch Fest. Harper was giggling uncontrollably at the sight of Lynda, Marie, and Sylvia itching and screaming like crazy.

“That,” she said in between laughs, “is what you get for playing me and planning to steal my clothes!”

“You knew?!” Sylvia asked, momentarily pausing her screaming.

“I heard you guys plotting it in my bedroom while I was ‘going to the bathroom’ and getting my towel.” Harper did air quotes around the “going to the bathroom” part.

“Ugh! I hate you!” Lynda shrieked, itching her legs and arms and chest.

“Ditto,” Harper said, picking up her towel. She hesitated at the plastic jar of ants and then tossed it at Marie, who yelled not-so-nice words and jumped back into the lake to get away from them.

Harper stalked off, a satisfied grin on her face and a smug pep in her step.