"You all brought socks, right?" Jisoo asked as she drove us to the bowling alley. She was dressed casually in her white T-shirt, black sweats, bucket hat and circle eyewear. "You don't want to wear bowling shoes sock-less."

"We all brought socks," Irene said with a sigh.  Irene blew a big bubble with her gum and it popped. She then cross her legs over; she was wearing a striped vertical dress and sandals. "How many rounds of bowling are we going to play, anyway?"

"As many as Suzy wants to," Jisoo said. "This is her new official birthday celebration, after all."

"We will play until I get a strike!" I smiled, putting my fist in the air at my declaration.

"This could be a long night," Jisoo said.

"It will be awesome," Irene said. "When's the last time we actually went out? You two never want to do anything."

"We always do things," I said.

"Things that don't have to do with school?" Irene asked, raising one eyebrow.

"True. We should do more things that don't have to do with school," I said. And now that I had the funds, I realized, that was even more possible . . .

"Rounds?" Jisoo asked.

"What?"

"Is that the right word for it? Is bowling broken into rounds?"

"Frames?" I suggested.

"No." She tapped the steering wheel. "I think each person's turn is called a frame. But what is the culmination of all or frames and all our turns together called?"

"Sets?" Irene said. "Or maybe quarters?"

"Quarters is a different sport." Jisoo furrowed her bro like this was the most important question. "Suzy, look it up on your fancy new phone."

"Look it up?"

"Yes. Hurry, before we get there."

"Are you worried the bowling alley people are going to think we're stupid?" I asked.

"Yes, actually."

I laughed but knew she was serious. I got out my phone and opened the browser.

Irene put her hand over her eyes. "Your super huge phone screen is blinding me."

"It's not that big," I mumbled, searching through the list that came up with my inquiry. "it doesn't say what a round is called."

"Did you look up a bowling glossary?" Jisoo asked.

"Yes. That's where I am." I scrolled down the page and read off some of the words as I went. "Anchor, Back End, Channel . . . Grandma's Teeth? There's a bowling term called Grandma's Teeth."

"What does it mean? Irene asked.

"Something about the way you knocked down the pins. I suddenly feel like I don't know enough about bowling to bowl."

"Right?" Jisoo said.

"Speaking of Grandma's teeth -"

"You honestly have a story to go along with that?" Jisoo interrupted me to ask.

"Yes, I do. Zoo Jimin found dentures in the petting pens one time."

"Gross," Irene said.

"I know."

"Zoo Jimin, huh?" Irene wiggled her eyebrows at me.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"what does what mean?"

"The eyebrow wiggle."

"It means you like him."

"No, I don't," I said, hating that I was blushing. "And even if I did, he doesn't feel the same way."

"Wait, so you do?" Jisoo asked.

"No, there's nothing going on!" I protested.

"But you want there to be," Irene said.

"No, we are just zoo friends."

"Zoo friends? That sounds like a kid's cartoon," Irene said. "But there better not be anything going on. I just broke up with my boyfriend for our pact. You don't get to break the rules now."

"I thought you broke up with him because he has 'better looks' than you?"

"Well, that, too."

"Did you find out what a round of bowling is called?" Jisoo asked.

"What? Oh." I held my phone back up and finished looking through the terms. "Nope. We need a bowling for dummies sit because this only defines the we're-expert-bowlers terms. It'll be okay," I added, petting Jisoo's arm. "They'll only think we're stupid for a second.

Jisoo laughed, which was a good sign. Sometimes comments like that made her get defensive. She pulled into the parking lot and found a space.

☘ 𝔏𝔬𝔱𝔱𝔬 𝔏𝔬𝔳𝔢 ☘

"How many games do you want?" the guy behind the counter asked. 

Irene and I looked at each other and said, "Games!" at the exact same time. Then we cracked up.

Jisoo stared at the guy. "That's really what a round of bowling is called? A game?"

Hoseok, according to his name tag, looked confused. "Yes?"

"Can we get two games?" I asked. "And then add more if we want to keep playing?"

"Sure. Or you can reserve the lane for an hour or more and play as many as you want in your time frame."

"Yes, an hour sounds perfect. Can we do that?" I asked my friends.

They shrugged and nodded.

"We want an hour. " I looked behind me at the row of lanes and located the number on the far wall. "On lane thirteen."

"Lucky number thirteen it is."

Thirteen hadn't been lucky for me, but I could still remember all the numbers that were. That ticket was burned into my memory. 2, 15, 23, 75, 33, 7. Maybe I should've picked one of those lanes. I felt like I owed those numbers some loyalty after all they'd done for me.

"That'll be thirty-seven thousand won," Hoseok said.

I raised my hand, "I got this." I whipped out my credit card, the one that was going to tide me over while waiting for actual money to appear in my bank account.

"But we are supposed to take you out," Irene said. "For your birthday."

"You are taking me out. I'm just paying for it."

Irene gave me a side hug. "Then we get to buy you ice cream after."

"Deal," I said. We each grabbed our shoes and headed to lane thirteen.

☘ 𝔏𝔬𝔱𝔱𝔬 𝔏𝔬𝔳𝔢 ☘

We were horrible bowlers. More than horrible. There were probably toddlers better at bowling than we were. Okay, maybe all of us weren't horrible. Irene was doing halfway decent. She'd gotten one strike. But Jisoo and I hadn't come close. When our hour was almost up, Jisoo asked, "Are we counting Irene's strike for the one you mentioned you needed to achieve before quitting?"

"Of course we are," I said, holding the ball up to my chin and eyeing the lane.

Irene smacked my . "Good luck, Superman."

I laughed and took three steps forward, then almost tripped when I heard a laugh from somewhere to my left.

I glanced that way and saw Jennie and a group of her friends putting shoes on several lanes over.

"Does this mean we're partially cool?" Irene asked. "If we're doing the same thing the popular girls are going on a Saturday night?"

"That's exactly what it means," I said.

"I still don't understand why it matters if we're cool or not," Jisoo argued. "Because we are so far from cool that we shouldn't even be considering what might help."

I laughed and rolled my ball down the lane. It only knocked over four pins. "I think I just scored a grandma's teeth," I said.

Irene was holding her hands over a vent on the ball return that shot out cold air. "I think Suzy is cool now," she said.

"I just used the grandma's teeth in a sentence. Pretty sure you're wrong about that."

"No, I mean, you ave money. That adds at least a hundred points to your score."

"A hundred?" Jisoo asked. "Out of how many? I would assume a hundred is the max score. So by adding a hundred, you're saying she was a zero before."

I nodded with a smile. "I probably was."

Jisoo rolled her eyes.

"But even thirty million doesn't give me the perfect score," I whispered, picking up the ball for my second roll. This time my ball went straight into the gutter and slowly made its way down the lane before dropping down with a clunk at the end, no pins disturbed. "Zero!" I called out. "For sure."

Irene looked casually over at the other lane. I did, too, but nobody was paying attention to us.

"Zeroes for life," Jisoo said.

I laughed. "Let's go get that ice cream you promised."

"Thank goodness this game is finally over," Jisoo said.

I linked my arms with Jisoo and Irene and watched the other groups of girls as we walked past. They didn't seem much different than us. Maybe we were all zeroes in our own ways. This thought made them seem more approachable. Maybe all this time I'd thought of them as above me, when really we were all pretty much the same.