Brave Warrior by Ann Hood Read Free Book Online Page A

food: tiny hot dogs in tiny buns, hamburger sliders, little egg rolls, and dumplings.
    “You make a very nice tulip,” Felix told Lily.
    “I know,” she said.
    He smiled and handed her a glass of lemonade.
    “Is that your sister over there?” Lily said, squinting.
    Felix followed her gaze across the room to Maisie, who was standing there looking around like she was lost.
    “Yes,” he muttered.
    “What is she wearing?”
    “She’s a March sister, from—”
    “
Little Women
!” Lily said. “That’s clever.”
    “It is?”
    “Well, clever but kind of hard to figure out,” Lily said. “I mean, she just looks like an old-fashioned person.”
    “Right,” Felix said.
    “There’s a DJ in the music room,” Lily said hopefully.
    “Right,” Felix said again.
    He mustered all the courage he had, then he wiped his hand on his pants to be sure it was good and dry, and then he actually took Lily Goldberg’s hand, with its chewed fingernails and small, star-shaped scar at the base of her thumb, in his. To his surprise and utter delight, Lily gave his hand a little squeeze.
    Hand in hand, Felix led Lily to the music room.

    “What are you supposed to be?” Jim Duncan asked Maisie. “Like, an old lady or something?”
    Maisie glared at him. He was wearing basketball shorts, a Duke basketball jersey, and sneakers.
    “What are you?” she said. “A basketball player?”
    “Well, yeah,” he said. “March Madness.”
    Maisie shrugged. “Whatever.”
    “March Madness is what they call the NCAA basketball play-offs,” Jim explained.
    She didn’t answer him. She was hot in her long dress and high, buttoned shoes. And she couldn’t find Felix to complain to.
    “Now you,” Jim was saying.
    “Jo March,” Maisie said.
    He looked at her, baffled.
    “Forget it,” she grumbled.
    “No, really, who is he?”
    “Do I look like I’m a
he
?” Maisie said, and walked away.
    “Joe’s a girl?” Jim Duncan called after her.
    She wove her way through the crowd, looking for Felix. Almost every boy was dressed as a basketball player and almost every girl was a flower of some kind. Felix had been right. Her costume was all wrong. She should have been a daffodil, an iris, a daisy. When she passed the buffet table, she popped a miniature egg roll into her mouth, then kept walking, following the music that came from another room.
    There, a DJ was talking kids through something called the chicken dance. First, they had to flap theirarms like wings. Then they moved their hands like two beaks opening and closing. Then more arm flapping before they shook their rear ends like chickens shaking their feathers.
    Smack in the middle of the room she spotted Felix chicken-dancing with Lily Goldberg and looking like he was having more fun than he’d ever had before. His face was actually lit up with happiness, and his eyes sparkled as he and Lily shook their butts, grinning at each other.
    Felix did not see her standing there looking lonely and miserable. Or if he did, he was pretending he didn’t. Maisie went back to the buffet table and ate enough hamburger sliders to add up to one real-size hamburger. Then she didn’t know what to do next. The chicken-dance music kept playing, and the sounds of everyone laughing and clucking floated with it through the air. No one else was even in the Gold Room. They were all chicken-dancing.

    Maybe his mother was right, Felix thought. Maybe there was something that happened to people in spring. It had happened to Great-Uncle Thorne, and his mother, and his father. And now it was happeningto Felix. He had chicken-danced, hokey-pokeyed, hully-gullyed, macarena-ed, and done the Electric Slide, all with Lily Goldberg. She did not leave his side, not once. When Felix smiled at her, she smiled back. In between dances, when Felix took her hand, she held on. He had even forgotten about Maisie in her ridiculous costume. All around him, girls were flowers, dressed in pale leotards and tights—yellow