She reaches into the front zipper of her backpack and hands me a cherry cough drop. “Here,” she says.
I take the wax wrapper off. “Thanks.” I grin, a little taken aback by her show of goodwill. “Tastes good too.”
“Anything to stop you from coughing down my neck and clearing the snot out of your throat. You’re not contagious, are you?”
I shrink back a bit. “It’s just allergies.”
She nods. “I’m sorry,” she finally says. “That stinks.”
I shove the wrapper in the pocket of my shorts. “Thanks again.”
She turns back around without another word and heads off to lunch.
Did... Was... she... I think Kiera Bryant was just nice to me? Maybe a little?
Is this real life?
Chapter Nineteen
Risky Business
After school, I’m not quite ready to go home. It’s not that Mom’s home or anything like that, but my brain is just buzzing. All I can think about is how my letter—something I wrote all on my own—ran in theValentine Gazette. And when I’m not thinking about that, my brain is in one giant tangle over Kiera.
I take the bus home with Oscar and walk with him to his house.
“You swear you’re not mad at me?” I ask again.
He puffs out a sigh. “I’m not mad, but you know if something’s going on, you can just tell me.”
I hate keeping secrets from Oscar, but for whatever reason, it’s impossible for me not to follow Miss Flora Mae’srules. Maybe it’s because her advice column is so good, or maybe she really is a vampire and I’m scared of her. But either way, she doesn’t want anyone knowing her business. Not even Oscar.
“I know,” I say too brightly. “Nothing to report.”
With his parents at work, Oscar’s house from the hours of three p.m. to five p.m. is a lawless place where anything goes. That probably sounds fun, but when you’re the youngest kids in the house, there might as well be a target on your back.
Oscar’s middle brother, Jorge, sits on the porch with two of his friends, cracking jokes. “Hey, Sweet Peaches!” he calls.
I roll my eyes. “You know my name,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “Whatever.” I’d be offended, except that this is almost an inside joke between us at this point, and one time at Green’s Grocers last year, Jorge told off an older boy who called me a roly-poly.
“Oscar,” he adds. “Coach Herda wants to know if you’re coming out for the team.”
Oscar scoffs.
“What team?” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
Weird.
We stop in the kitchen so I can call my mom’s officeto let her know I’m hanging out here for a little while. I can’t wait to start eighth grade and get a cell phone. It’s like I’m living in the nineties or something. Aren’t parents supposed to want a better life for their kids?
Oscar stands guard, looking over his shoulder every now and then, in the doorway of the kitchen.
“Is everything okay? Where’s Luis?” I ask while the line rings.
“I don’t know,” says Oscar. “And that’s the problem. I made the mistake of telling Mom he had a girl in his room with the door closed for a whole hour yesterday after school, and she made us all sit down on the couch last night while she gave us the talk on ‘adult choices’ she gives the eighth-grade class on their field trip to the clinic, and she grounded Luis too.”
