Emma Ross stood in the middle of her bedroom with her arms crossed and her foot tapping as she frowned at her best friend. They were finally in the eighth grade and this was supposed to be their first non-birthday party at Anthony Richard's house. But Emma couldn't figure out how in the world she was supposed to show up to the Halloween party with Lou covered in spots and a tail.

"What are you wearing, Lou?" Emma asked, shaking her head in disapproval. "Red dress. Black headband. This is totes not a red dress or black headband!"

Lou twirled her tail in her hand. It was long and skinny with a tuft of brown hair on the end. She giggled happily and replied, "I wanted to be a cow!"

Emma facepalmed. She loved her best friend, but Lou could be so strange at times. Emma had just gone over the costume dress-code with Lou yesterday in the cafeteria. She had even shown her a picture of Sabrina on her phone. How could she have forgotten already?

Emma stopped Lou's hand from twirling the tail and said, "But Hazel wants the three of us to be witches."

Lou rolled her eyes as she walked over to plop down on Emma's queen-size canopy bed. She picked up one of the frilly, pink pillows and squeezed it in a hug. She grumbled, "Who cares what Hazel wants! Why do we even have to try and be her friend? She hates you. I hate her. Can't we all just happily hate each other?"

"No!" Emma stressed the word. "I want her to like me!"

"And I want to be a cow!"

Emma let out a frustrated sigh as she made her way to her walk-in closet. She shouted as she moved hangers around, "Hazel's like the only person who doesn't like me. And everyone likes me! So, if being a witch makes Hazel like me then we have to be witches."

Lou groaned and fell back against the blankets. She tossed the pillow to the end of the bed and stared up at the fairy lights decorating the top of the canopy. Lou loved her best friend, but Emma could be so strange at times. Lou knew why Hazel hated Emma and being witches for one Halloween party wasn't going to change the reason why. Unless Xander could be persuaded not to stare at Emma like a lovesick puppy in math class, then there was no way that Emma could win over Hazel.

Emma found a red shirt that her aunt had sent to her a few months ago that was the wrong size but she had kept anyway. It had long, fitted sleeves and there was a bouncy red bow at the neck. She brought it over to Lou and tugged on her friend's arm.

"Please, please be a witch with me, Lou! Here, put this on. And there's a black headband in the bathroom. Please!"

"Why can't you be a witch and I be a witch that was turned into a cow? Then we all win."

"No."

Lou huffed as she sat up and reluctantly took the hanger with the shirt on it. "Fine," she grumbled. She stood up and dragged her feet to the door. She had worn shiny, black ballet flats with hand-drawn lines to look like cow hooves.

"Wait!" Emma called out.

Lou turned around brightly. She hoped her friend had finally come to her senses and accepted that not everyone needed to like her, especially Hazel, and that Lou could be one of her favorite farm animals for Halloween.

"You're wearing shorts under that thing, right?" Emma asked. She bounced on her toes. "Please say they're red! Or black. Just please don't be a cow print."

"Do they really make cow print shorts?" Lou excitedly asked.

"Gah, I sure hope not!"

Lou pouted then silently left the room. She probably spent as much time at the Ross house as she did her own, so she knew Ravi's room was right across from the bathroom. She smiled to herself. She knew if there was one person who would appreciate her cow costume before becoming a boring ol' witch, it was Emma's younger brother. He was in the sixth grade and went to a school for gifted kids, but he was always nice to her and made her laugh whenever she came over.

"He'll like my costume," she murmured to herself.

She knocked on the door covered in reptile posters and waited for him to answer. Seconds later, the door swung open to reveal Ravi in an elaborate lizard costume. The fabric glistened in the light of the hallway to make it appear scaly.

His eyes lit up when he saw her and he exclaimed, "Awesome costume, Lou! You look great!"

"Thanks," Lou grinned. She put her hands on her hips and proudly spun around. "I made it myself." She lifted the tail and fanned the hair at the end of it. "I even found some real cow hair for the tail!"

"That's so weird!" He said, scrunching his nose but unable to stop smiling. "I don't even want to know how!"

Lou shrugged and let go of the tail. She asked good-naturedly, "What are you supposed to be?"

He glanced down at his attire as if he had forgotten he was dressed as a lizard. He shyly fidgeted with the claws of his costume as he said, "I'm a Komodo dragon."

"Cool!"

"Really! Do you like Komodo dragons, too?"

"I have no idea what that is," she replied honestly with a bright smile. "But you seem excited about it, so I'm happy you're a komo do da lizard thingy."

Ravi chuckled. Out of all of Emma's friends, Lou was his favorite. She never made him feel like Emma's annoying little brother. She laughed at his jokes and made funny faces and always saved him a slice of pizza whenever Emma ordered some for slumber parties. He was pretty sure he was in love with her. Or at least as in love as you can be in the sixth grade.

"My mommy, uh, my mom bought a bunch of candy. It's in the kitchen. You can have some!"

Lou gave him a light boop on the nose with her cow tail and grinned, "Boop! You're so nice, Ravi."

Ravi giggled as his face heated up. He shyly twisted from side to side as he said in a hopeful tone, "I've got a bunch of books about Komodo dragons. You can come into my room and see them if you want."

"Sure," she said with a good-natured shrug. "Are there pictures?"

"Yeah! And I was going to watch a documentary about this island where the Komodo dragons live. We can watch it together!"

"There's an island of giant lizards?" Lou asked in awe. She bounced on her cow hooves. "That's crazy!"

Lou had only been able to take about two steps forward before Emma skipped out into the hallway. Her shoulders sagged in her cow costume. For a second, she had forgotten about Anthony's Halloween party and how Hazel was going to be the worst and how Emma was going to fail at winning Hazel over.

"Lou, I told you that you don't have to be nice to Ravi," Emma said as she linked arms with her best friend. "It's just gonna make his crush on you worse."

Lou snorted as she said in disbelief, "Ravi doesn't have a crush on me." She looked to him to agree with her. "Right, Ravi?"

"Psh, no!" Ravi lied. He had already been warm inside the lizard costume, but Emma blurting out his crush like that made it feel like he was in an oven. He tugged at the collar of the costume and squeaked, "That's dumb, Emma. So, dumb."

"Whateves," Emma said flatly. She turned Lou away. "Come on, we need to get you ready, Lou."

"If you change your mind, Lou…" he called out.

"She won't!" Emma said.

"Bye, Ravi!" Lou called over her shoulder before Emma dragged her into the bathroom and shut the door.

Lou stood in front of the vanity. The bathroom lights shone bright white light like they were in a makeup store. She flipped back the hood of her cow costume and complained, "How come Ravi gets to be his favorite animal and I don't?"

"Because Ravi's a dorky sixth grader and I want my bestie to have a date to the eighth-grade dance," Emma said nonchalantly as she dug through a storage container in search of a black headband.

"I don't think he's that dorky," Lou said. She shrugged off her cow costume and slipped on the red shirt Emma had given her. She blew some stray hair out of her face. "And the dance? But that's not until the end of the year. What's that got to do with Anthony's?"

Emma tossed the headband onto the counter and grabbed a brush. "It's our first real party, Lou. That means all the cute boys in our class will be there and we have to start thinking about which ones we'll let be our boyfriends."

"I thought we were just gonna get candy and dance," Lou murmured as Emma brushed her hair.

Lou had realized the dance was a big deal, but she had thought it was because it would be the first party that her parents weren't dropping her off to. She was looking forward to feeling grown up as she and Emma walked from the Rosses to the Richard's a few blocks over. But she hadn't realized this party was going to determine her eighth-grade love life.

Emma placed the headband on Lou and fixed her hair some more. She smiled at her work and nodded approvingly. She glanced down at Lou's legs and said, "Thank God. You're wearing black shorts. And they're cute. For a second I thought they'd have chickens on them or something."

"I like chickens." Lou narrowed her eyes at her best friend. Emma gave her a sympathetic look and put her hand on her shoulder.

"Don't be mad. I know you have a unique sense of style and I think it works on you. And I promise, after the party, you can wear your cow costume all you want for the rest of the night," Emma said sweetly. She picked up the spotted costume and smiled, "You actually did a really good job making this, bestie."

"Thanks," Lou sighed. As badly as she didn't want to be a witch, she didn't want to disappoint her friend more. She added sternly, "As soon as we get back, I'm wearing it."

"Totes," Emma nodded. She admired her work again and said proudly, "I would so make a great stylist when I grow up. But I'll be too busy running my fashion empire. Now, let's go!"

Lou let out an exaggerated sigh as she tossed her head back. She felt Emma pushing her out the door and into the hallway.

"Let me check myself in the mirror one more time," Emma said as she headed toward her bedroom.

"But there's a mirror in there," Lou said, pointing her thumb behind her to the bathroom.

Emma continued to her room. Lou shrugged and waited in the hallway. She didn't care how she looked now that she didn't have the costume she had worked really hard on. She figured Emma looked nice, so she must look alright even though she was wearing a shirt and shorts instead of a dress. Her eyes wandered over to the bedroom door in front of her. It was closed, so Ravi must have retreated back to his room. She wondered why he was staying home instead of doing something for Halloween too. So, she decided to ask.

She knocked on his door again and waited for him to answer. When he opened the door, she immediately started talking.

"Hey, how come you're not trick or treating or somethin?" she asked.

This time when he opened the door, his eyes lit up like they normally did, but then his expression changed. Lou hadn't ever seen him look so shocked before. It made her think something was in the hallway, so she looked around for whatever was causing him to look so freaked out.

"What? What is it?" she asked frantically, searching the hall from where she stood.

Ravi blinked rapidly. He shook his head in disbelief and then went back to staring at her.

Lou snapped her fingers in his face and said, "Everything alright there, bud?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ravi stammered. "You just, um, you changed your costume."

Lou exhaled dramatically and crossed her arms. "I know," she said. "Hazel wants us to be stupid witches and now I have to wear this to the stupid party."

Ravi didn't understand any of the emotions that he was experiencing at the moment, but he was certain that his heart was going to give out at any second. He thought she looked pretty, really pretty. But she always looked pretty. But somehow she looked pretty in a different way. It was too complicated for his mind to untangle. He knew Lou had asked him a question, but his brain had stopped functioning properly, so all he could do was stare at her like an idiot.

"Are you okay?" Lou asked in a worried tone.

"I don't think so…"

"Alright, I'm ready to go," Emma announced as she walked up to Lou. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and said to her brother, "Don't we look totes adorbs, Ravi?"

"Uh huh, sure," he said absentmindedly, not even glancing in his sister's direction. He couldn't stop looking at Lou.

"See, told you he has a crush on you," Emma said in a bored tone as she linked arms with Lou. She stuck her tongue out at her brother before tugging her friend towards the stairs. "So as soon as we get there, we have to…"

Lou tuned out her friend as they made their way down the stairs. She thought about the weird look on Ravi's face when he answered the door. It made her stomach feel funny. Funny the way her stomach felt whenever a cute boy said hi to her or when the hot guy in her social studies class winked at her. She glanced over her shoulder when they reached the last step. No one in a lizard costume was at the top of the staircase.

"Lou! Are you even listening to me?" Emma said as she shook her best friend's arm. "I said do you think Xander McCormick is cute?"

"Uh huh, sure," Lou mumbled.

As Lou let Emma lead her out of the house, she wondered if Ravi really did have a crush on her. She knew that there was no way she would take a sixth grader to the eighth-grade dance, but the thought of him liking her made her stomach feel funny again.