Cassie Comes Through by Ahmet Zappa Read Free Book Online Page A

flowers had worked their intoxicating magic on Astra. She had to come up with another plan. She had come to realize that these strange flowers smelled different to everyone. For example, she could only smell the strong odor of silverbellas. She figured that the blooms, perhaps to entice you into not discarding them, gave off the smell of your own favorite flower. And she also knew from experience that it was impossible to convey that to someone who hadn’t figured it out on her own. The silverbella odor was actually so strong to Cassie that it was overwhelming and very distracting. She found herself wanting to lean over and bury her nose in the blossoms. She countered this by taking a step back and concentrating on breathing only through her mouth.
    Suddenly, she had a startacular idea. Okay, maybe it was a startacularly crazy idea. She’d find out soon enough.
    â€œI just read this amazing holo-article about keeping flowers in your room,” she fibbed. “It involves sports, so I thought you’d want to be the first to know.”
    â€œReally?” said Astra, leaning forward. She knew that Cassie read more than all the other Star Darlings put together, so it was perfectly reasonable that she would have seen a holo-article Astra had missed.
    â€œThree…two…one,” the announcer counted down, and a buzzer went off. “STELLAR SCHOOL WINS AGAIN! AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!”
    Astra lowered the volume with a wave of her hand and turned toward Cassie with interest. Behind her, Cassie could see the players jumping up and down, huge grins on their faces, but she tried not to let it distract her from her mission.
    â€œWell, the holo-article said that athletes should avoid having fresh flowers in their room before a big event,” Cassie said. “Apparently, it weakens their powers of concentration.”
    Astra stared at her. “Really?” she said. She gave the flowers a quizzical look. “That’s terrible! And here I have that big game coming up.”
    Cassie nodded sympathetically, biting her lip.
    Astra tossed the star ball onto a chair and picked up the vase of flowers. With a confused expression on her face, she held them out to Cassie, whose heart skipped a beat.
Is my crazy idea actually going to work?
she thought.
    Suddenly, Astra closed her eyes and brought the flowers to her nose. She took a deep sniff and her face grew serious. “I don’t know,” she said, hugging the flowers to her chest. “They just smell so good….”
    Cassie stole a glance at the wall and spotted a holo-poster of a sporty-looking woman with her name emblazoned underneath. She winked at Cassie, as if in encouragement. Cassie hated to lie; in fact, it pained her to do so.
But this is for Astra and Clover’s own good,
she thought.
They’ll be grateful when the flowers are gone and things can go back to normal.
    She took a deep breath and spoke. “Um, as a matter of fact, they interviewed a top athlete named Saturnia, who said as soon as she threw out a bouquet of flowers she had in her house, she felt so much better.”
    â€œReally?” said Astra, her eyes narrowing. “And they interviewed her recently?”
    Cassie nodded. “Just this morning,” she said. “This news is hot off the holo-presses.”
    â€œAha!” Astra said with a laugh as she put down the flowers (but not before taking another long, deep sniff). “Good joke, Cassie!” she said. “You had me going until you brought up Saturnia. She’s in training for the Starlympics and she’s in a remote mountain location. She won’t be giving any interviews for starmonths.”
    Oh, starf!
thought Cassie. “Ha-ha, I almost got you!” she said weakly. “Good joke, huh?” Her heart sank. What was she going to do now? She had to come up with something—and quick. She scanned the room, looking for something—anything—that