Best Kept Secret by Debra Moffitt Read Free Book Online Page B

glamorous girls who was “with the band.” Anger bubbled and boiled inside me.
    â€œWe’re going to take a break and be back for another set later,” Forrest said to a mix of boos and claps. The DJ returned and a crush of people rushed toward him with song requests.
    Just as I was about to ask Bet if she liked Forrest’s band, I felt another tap.
    â€œWant to dance, now that there’s some real music on?” Jake said.
    â€œUh…”
    â€œI have to go do some filming anyway,” Bet said, darting off before I could stop her.
    Bet was going to do some on-the-dance-floor interviews for her follow-up report on whether the dance was a success, or if anyone was still fired up about the controversy. The only thing I was fired up about was the Forrest and Piper situation. Ugh, she was probably dabbing his sweaty brow with a towel right then.
    â€œSure,” I said, hoping desperately that both Piper and Forrest would see us dancing.
    On the dance floor, I laughed, smiled, and tried to look my very coolest for the entire song. Jake seemed a little stiff, but at one point he grabbed my hands in a funny disco move. He wasn’t so bad. I told him about how I was adding “flower” as a suffix to everything. That made me a dance-floor-flower, and in a minute I’d be a water-fountain-flower because I couldn’t drink another drop of that syrupy punch. I darted off and kind of hoped that Jake wouldn’t follow me. If this was how it felt to have someone like you, it felt weird and awkward. I wondered if this was how I made Forrest feel for all these years.
    I found Bet in the cafeteria, where a bunch of people including Forrest and Piper were gathered around. Bet had her camera on. She wasn’t interviewing people about the dance right then. She was filming another underground session of the Catch-It-in-Your-Mouth Olympics. The teachers hated this, so if you wanted to play, you had to be quick. It was only a matter of time before someone would come in and break it up. Mark Sheehan tossed up an orange cheese puff, but it bounced off his nose and onto the floor. Piper stepped up and caught three in a row. More cheers for Piper. Great. I looked around for Forrest, but he was gone. Piper started looking for him, too.
    â€œHello, like, where’d my date go?” she asked of no one in particular.
    Back out in the lobby, it was clear where Forrest had gone. Pythagorean Theorem was back onstage. As much as I liked watching Forrest, I decided to go with Bet on her interview with Ms. Russo. Bet was set up in the big room the school band used to practice. In the interview, Ms. Russo had softened her position some. She said she never wanted the dance to be canceled. But she did want girls to feel confident and happy, not desperate for a date.
    â€œReally smart, wonderful girls can be dumb when it comes to guys. Sometimes they forget everything else when a cute boy walks in the room—their real personalities, their friends, et cetera,” she told Bet’s camera.
    Was she reading my mind? Did she know about me and Piper and Forrest?
    â€œBut boys are not the enemy. I hope I made that clear,” Ms. Russo continued. Without them, life would be much, much less … interesting, for sure.”
    Ms. Russo seemed even more cheerful than usual. She said she was delighted at how the slightly adjusted Backward Dance turned out. Friends came with friends, and those who wanted to come as part of a couple did so. A boy could ask a girl and vice versa.
    â€œInclusive, not exclusive,” Ms. Russo said.
    I so agreed that I piped in with, “Exactly! You can’t believe all the relieved people who wrote to the PLS this week.”
    Oops .
    I saw Ms. Russo sit up straighter and look over both shoulders before continuing. What she said next, she said in a whisper.
    â€œJemma, by the PLS, I assume you mean the Pink Locker Society? Isn’t that group supposed to