Bessica Lefter is back in this hilarious, all-too-relatable middle school novel that "will have readers laughing aloud" ( Booklist ). Now that Bessica’s the half mascot at her middle school and made some new friends, she finally feels like she’s fitting in. But Alice, the other half mascot, hates her. And after some mean texts, Bessica’s friendship with Sylvie might be over. Bessica doesn’t want drama. She’s got her first big game to worry about. Not even taking care of gorgeous Noll Beck’s lizard or deciding whether to crash Sylvie’s party can distract her. Bessica will be facing off as mascot against T.J. the Tiger, who has a reputation for embarrassing the competition. Letting him make fun of her would be like letting him humiliate her whole school. Bessica’s worked hard to have some social status. And she’ll work even harder to keep it. . . . "[Bessica's] endearing qualities keep one rooting for her." -- School Library Journal "A fun story." -- Midwest Book Review "Informative and worthwhile." -- VOYA   "Will have readers laughing aloud . . . Bessica's imperfection is what makes this a story not only about self-reinvention but also about self-improvement." -- Booklist "Bessica's pell-mell, self-focused, yet funny narration still rings true as the voice of a kid whose anxieties have outpaced the rest of her development . . . her successful and funny survival of a very trying period indeed will elicit sympathy and relief from readers." -- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books "[Bessica's] endearing qualities keep one rooting for her." -- School Library Journal "An informative and worthwhile read." -- VOYA Kristen Tracy is the author of many popular novels, including the PROJECT (UN)POPULAR series and  Too Cool for This School . She lives with her family in the popular state of California. Visit her online at kristentracy.com and on Twitter at @kristen_tracy (it will make her feel popular).  I had forgotten something important, and no matter how hard I tried to make myself remember it, I couldn’t. My mother and I were on the way to my best friend Sylvie’s house. Sylvie and I were going to plan her upcoming birthday party minute by minute.It needed to be crammed full of games and cake and craziness. You only turned twelve once. I tapped my temple, trying to remember the thing I’d forgotten. Tap. Tap. Tap. Out the window, I caught glimpses of my neighborhood as it whooshed by. A house. A lawn.A house. A lawn. Hay fields. Cows. My gorgeous neighbor, Noll Beck, atop a trotting horse.   “Ooh,” I said, sticking my finger on the window, pointing to Noll and the trotter. But then they were gone.   “What?” my mother asked. She patted my knee. “Are you afraid Sylvie’s mom might snap at you because she’s under a tight doll-assembly deadline?”   I looked at my mother in surprise. “I didn’t know anything about a tight doll-assembly deadline.” Sylvie’s mom painted the eyelashes on ceramic doll heads. And even though I didn’t understand how this could be true, it appeared that demand for these dollsand their black spidery lashes kept growing and growing and growing.   My mother pulled into Sylvie’s driveway. “Mrs. Potaski mentioned it to me on the phone. She sounded stressed-out.”   “This is terrible,” I said. I’d barely made up with Sylvie and won back the right to see her. I didn’t want her mom to snap at me.   “It’s not terrible, Bessica. Just be on your best behavior.”   “I can do that.” I reached for the door handle.   “And don’t forget to ask Sylvie what she wants for her birthday,” my mom said. “The scoping phase is over. We need to track down her gift and get it.”   My mom made buying Sylvie’s birthday present sound like hunting for a moose. It bummed me out to hear that the scoping phase was over. Because that was my favorite phase. I sighed.   “Actually, Mom, that’s not the plan,” I said. Then I stopped opening my door, because it was pretty clear to me that I was going to have to explain the plan to my mom.   “What plan?” my mom asked.   I sighed again. And when I did this I noticed that my breath smelled like breakfast sausage. “I want Sylvie’s present to be a total surprise. So today I’m going to trick her into telling me the top three things that she wants.” I smiled slyly when I saidthis, because I was pretty proud of my plan. Then I reached in my pocket and pulled out a piece of gum and chomped on it.   “Why don’t you just ask her what she wants?” my mother said. “Be straightforward about it.”   I let out a big peppermint-sausage breath of disapproval. “Mom, birthdays are about surprising people you care about with what they most want in the world. If you don’t surprise them, then you haven’t done it right. It’s a basic birthday rule.”   It alarmed me to think that my mom didn’t know basic birthday rules. I opened the door and got out of the car.   “If you need me I’ll be down the street,” my mom said.   But I already knew this. Because it was the fourth time my mother had told me th