Spring was warming into summer when Carmen decided to make a special meeting place. She would not have to build it independently. Building it by herself wouldn’t be much fun. Her friends La Shonda and Robin would help her. The three of them had formed a group called Friends Forever. They all lived on the same street and did everything together. They wanted a secret place to have their group meetings.

The girls were at La Shonda’s house trying to come up with ideas. “I’ve got just what we need to make a house for our secret meetings,” La Shonda said. She pointed to a huge empty cardboard box in her garage.

Carmen thought about the idea. “Remember when we made that cardboard house for your kitten?” she asked Robin. “It got soggy when it rained, and we had to pick up the wet pieces from all over the yard.”

“I forgot about that,” Robin said. “That was a big mess! What about getting an old sheet and hanging it over the clothesline at Carmen’s house? Then we could nail the corners down to make a tent.”

The girls thought Robin’s idea was great. They were about to get to work when Carmen thought about her dog Rex. She reminded her friends about the time when her mother had almost given Rex away. Rex had pulled her mother’s clean towels off the clothesline and chewed on them in the mud.

“Now what should we do?” La Shonda asked sadly. “What else can we use for our meeting place?” Robin and Carmen shrugged their shoulders. The girls sat in silence, trying to think of another idea.

“Let’s go to my house and see what we can find,” suggested Robin.

The girls began walking through the large field that was between La Shonda’s house and Robin’s house. The neighborhood children often used the field for baseball games. There was a patch of sunflowers at the back of the field. Many times the children had lost the baseball in the area covered with the sunflowers. The game would have to be stopped so everyone could look for the ball.

As the girls walked, Robin told her friends about her mother’s childhood playhouse. “Mom told me that when she was little, she had tea parties with her friends. They crawled under the bushes beside her house. No one could see them under there,” Robin explained. “Hey! I have a great idea!” La Shonda exclaimed. “We can have our group meetings in the sunflowers. We always have trouble finding the baseball in there. Why can’t we make a place in the sunflowers for our secret meetings? No one will be able to find us there.”

“I think it’s a wonderful idea!” agreed Carmen.

“Me, too!” Robin cheered.

Finally Carmen, Robin, and La Shonda were able to have their first Friends Forever meeting. Sitting on an old blanket, they looked around and talked about the leafy walls of their secret place. Suddenly Carmen signaled for her friends to be still. La Shonda and Robin sat motionless and listened carefully. They could hear a bird singing in a nearby tree. Its sweet song gave Carmen another idea.

“Let’s make bird feeders. When the sunflowers make their seeds, we’ll put the seeds in our bird feeders,” she said. “But let’s save some seeds. We’ll want to make sure plenty of seeds are planted here for next year’s secret place!”