Cheers, Chocolate and Other Disasters
129 pages
English

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129 pages
English

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Description

Disasters strike in many different forms. Thirteen year old AJ Devlin believes she has a great life with a good family, two BFFs, a love for cheerleading, and a Champion Quarter Horse mare. When a new girl arrives in town, AJ thinks nothing of it. It’s only when her best friends, Julie and Jaime, begin ignoring her that she wonders why Celine is insinuating herself into AJ’s life. As her life begins to fall apart in many different directions, she realizes that the “new girl” is intent upon destroying everything AJ holds dear. Yet, when her almost-boyfriend finds incriminating evidence against Celine, revealing that this girl is not who or what she claims to be, AJ refuses to allow him to disclose it. Before AJ can settle the score with Celine, she must confront the unexpected divorce of her parents and her now unstable relationship with her father; navigate a new and shaky friendship with one of her former BFFs, and learn to cope with a devastating tragedy that comes out of nowhere.

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Informations

Publié par
Date de parution 01 juillet 2015
Nombre de lectures 1
EAN13 9781771456531
Langue English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0010€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Cheers, Chocolate, and Other Disasters
By Mikki Sadil
 
Digital ISBNs
EPUB 9781771453479
Kindle 9781771456357
PDF 9781771456364
Print ISBN 9781771456371
 

 
Copyright 2015 by Mikki Sadil
Cover Art by Michelle Lee
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rightsunder copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may bereproduced, stored into a retrieval system, or transmitted by anymeans (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, orotherwise) without the prior written permission of both thecopyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
 
Dedication
To my husband, Richard. As always, you are myinspiration.
 
 
 
 
Chapter One
The Tryouts
 
The new girl stood in front of me with alook of pure hatred on her face, which had turned as white as anArctic bunny. I had never seen her before in my life. It wasexactly 8.37 a.m. on Monday, September sixth.
Since my mom says I never tell a storystraight through from the beginning, I guess I’d better back up anhour or so.
The power in our house went off last night,which meant our alarm clocks didn’t ring. When Mom woke us all upby pounding on our doors, it was already after seven a.m. Sheesh,tryouts for our eighth grade cheerleading squad were in fifteenminutes. I leaped out of bed and threw on the first clothes I couldfind, which happened to be the shorts and T-shirt I’d had onyesterday to muck the stalls. They smelled suspiciously of horsepoop. Plus, I realized I had a sore throat and two new zits. Crap,three disasters so far, and I hadn’t even left my bedroom.
I jumped around on one foot and then theother, trying to get my mud-splattered sneakers tied and finallygave up. I raced down the stairs with laces flying, bounced intothe kitchen, and croaked, “Mom, you’ve got to get me to school, right now. You know I have tryouts this morning!”
“AJ, what’s wrong with your voice? And whathave you got on , you smell like abarnyard. I can’t leave now, everyone is late and I still have tomake lunches.” She was slapping milk and cereal down on the tablefor my twin sisters, oblivious to my crisis.
“Okay, forget it, I’ve gotta go.” I boltedout the kitchen door as Mom yelled, “Tie your shoelaces before youend up in the ER!”
I ignored the warning and raced down thestreet, hoping the morning breeze would blow some of the stinkaway. Halfway to school I realized I’d forgotten my backpack.Things were definitely not looking up.
The day was already getting hot when I ranonto the football field. The track shimmered in the distance, andthe grass had a kind of musty smell to it, instead of its usualfreshness. Girls were lined up in front of the coach, who glared atme as I slipped into line. He thought there was no excuse fortardiness, so before he could say anything, I tried some damagecontrol.
“Sorry, Coach, but we had a terrible familyemergency this morning. I came as soon as I could.”
He frowned. “Miss Devlin, nothing short ofdeath makes tardiness excusable. Did someone in your familydie?”
“Uh, no sir. It wasn’t that kind ofemergency.”
Snickers trickled out behind me.
He glared at me for a moment before goingback to his lecture. The girls on either side of me moved away, andone covered her mouth and nose and gave an elaborate cough.Apparently, the breeze hadn’t worked.
The coach finished talking and walked downthe line of girls eagerly waiting to show him what they could do.He didn’t say much until he got to me.
“Miss Devlin, you are a disgrace. I trustyou will not have another family emergency anytime soon.” He walkedaway, leaving behind a whiff of shaving lotion that smelled like anold wet dog. At least, I hoped it was shaving lotion.
Coach was dividing the girls into groups ofthree, and I was sure I would be with my two best friends, Julieand Jaime. Before I could call to them, Coach came over and graspedmy arm with his bony hand.
“Miss Devlin, you are to team up with MissBaker and Miss Wilkins. Since you’ve never worked together before,you need to talk about what you’re going to do.”
“But, Coach, I’ve been practicing with Jaimeand Julie. We always…”
“Miss Devlin, I am perfectly aware of whatyou ‘always’ do, but this is not one of those times. You will teamwith Miss Baker and Miss Wilkins. Is that clear?”
Aaghh! I couldn’t believe my bad luck.Amberley Baker was a total klutz, always stumbling and dropping herbooks and papers all over the place. Lisa Wilkins was tall, thin asa popsicle stick, and had eyes the color of a glacier. Amberley’sclumsiness and Lisa’s forever talking about her Europeanexperience of living in Italy for a couple of years made themtwo of the most unpopular girls on campus. Now I was stuck withthem. But you really don’t even know them, said that littlevoice I try to ignore.
“Miss Devlin, I am waiting.” Coach’s voicehad gotten quiet, which was always a bad sign.
I shrugged. “Sorry, Coach. Yes, it’s clear.I’m to partner with Amberley and Lisa.”
Apparently, that satisfied him. He walkedover to the J’s, my term for Julie and Jaime, just as Amberley andLisa walked up.
Without even saying ‘hi’, Lisa took charge.“We are going to do some jumps and a pyramid. Coach said for thetryouts we could only do basic tumbling. Can you do that?” Sheloomed over me by several inches. I usually had to look up atpeople, but this was ridiculous.
“Of course I can,” I replied, drawing myselfup to my full five feet. “ I’ve been a gymnast for years. Ican do anything you want.”
She looked at me and frowned. “You do notgenerally smell like this, do you? It is disgusting. And your voicesounds like a wounded buffalo.”
Amberley gave me an embarrassed smile.“Lisa! That isn’t very nice. Maybe AJ fell down this morning, orsomething.”
Aaagh! Now this klutz is trying to makeexcuses for me. “No, I didn’t fall down. I was late and justthrew on some clothes that I had cleaned stalls in. I’m sorry Idon’t smell like perfume.”
She blushed, and I got a funny feeling in mystomach. It isn’t her fault you were late, said that littlevoice.
Coach yelled for everyone to be quiet andlisten for their turn. In a few minutes, he pointed to the three ofus.
We started out with tumbling, and I wassurprised to see that both Amberley and Lisa were very good. Atfirst, that is. It all fell apart when we did the basic jump, whichwas the spread eagle, and then the toe touch. They couldn’t landproperly or even get their legs up at the proper angle.
It was awful. My face turned hot and I hadto grit my teeth to keep from yelling at them. Coach walked over tous before we could begin the pyramid.
He looked disgusted. “Do you ladies evenunderstand what ‘tryout’ means? You’ve obviously not learned themost basic of jumps. Why are you here?”
They both blushed, and Lisa started to speakup, but I glared at her, so she didn’t. Coach said, “Miss Devlin,you managed to be technically correct, but you have no grace aboutyou at all. The three of you have many hours of work ahead if youexpect to make the senior squad.”
He was still frowning when he addressed theclass. “I expected better from this group, but obviously, you allhave a lot of practicing to do. The next tryout session will be oneweek from today. I had better see improvement. If there is none,there will be no cheerleading squad. No questions, no comments. Youare dismissed.” He left the field without another word.
Some of the girls were looking at Amberleyand Lisa and whispering. Lisa stuck her nose in the air and walkedaway without speaking to either of us. That was okay by me, becauseI had nothing to say to either of them.
Amberley gave me what I thought was a sadlook, but it could have been just those awful glasses she wore. Shestumbled over her backpack, pushed back her glasses, and shuffledoff.
The other girls snickered,, and I knew theywere making fun of her. I rolled my eyes and turned up my hands toindicate that I felt the same way.
I heard a familiar laugh and turned to seethe J’s talking to a girl I hadn’t noticed before. She looked overat me with the darkest blue eyes I’d ever seen and one small dimpleat the corner of her mouth. I wondered how anyone our age could bethat perfect.
Jaime and Julie came over to introduce her.“Hey, AJ, this is Celine Carroll. She just moved here from NewYork. She was senior captain of her cheerleading team back there,and she’s going to partner with us. Celine, this is AJ Devlin.”
It was at that moment my world began tochange. Her dark blue eyes seemed to turn black, and the dimpledisappeared so fast I thought I had imagined it. The curve of herlips became a tight straight line, and she suddenly reminded me ofthat Greek goddess who could look at someone and turn them tostone. I hadn’t turned to stone yet, but this girl was so scary ittook all my courage to keep from taking a step back. My heartthumped and my stomach jumped.
She didn’t speak and with the knot in mythroat, I couldn’t. For some reason I couldn’t explain, I lookeddown at my watch. It was eight-thirty-seven.
We stood silently, sizing each other up. Shewas dressed way too buff for our s

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