Crystal by Walter Dean Myers Read Free Book Online Page B

don’t have to if I don’t want to.”
    “For Jerry?”
    “No, for Bob Stiller. Do you know him?”
    “I don’t think so,” Crystal said.
    “He’s fat and all hands, if you know what I mean. Rowena probably likes him.”
    “Here she comes,” Crystal said, noticing Rowena bringing in a bowl of fruit.
    “Hello, Rowena.” Alyce put her head to one side and smiled. This time her whole face lit up. Crystal wondered if her smile was as good as Alyce’s.
    “Hi, Jerry said it looks like it’s really off,” Rowena said. “I mean, the stupid electricity! That kind of stuff really bugs me.”
    “I was telling Crystal that I was looking for someone to work with when I shoot with Bob Stiller next Wednesday,” Alyce said. “I have to figure out who’s free.”
    “I’m working with you,” Rowena said. “Jerry said it’ll be good for me to work in jewelry again.”
    “The guy from the account said I could choose,” Alyce said matter-of-factly, as she rose from the chair, turned it around, and sat again. “I told him I didn’t like working with just anyone.”
    “Oh?” Rowena looked at Alyce.
    “The account doesn’t use Blacks, so that leaves Crystal out,” Alyce said. “Who do you think I should choose, Rowena?”
    “Do you want fruit?” Rowena asked, holding out the bowl.
    “Any bananas?” Crystal asked.
    Rowena took a banana from the bowl and handed it to Crystal.
    “Are you free Wednesday?” Alyce asked, turning to Crystal. “Maybe I could get the account to change his mind.”
    “I—I don’t know,” Crystal said.
    “Are you free, Rowena?” Alyce asked.
    “You know I am,” Rowena said. “We were supposed to do the shoot together.”
    “I could work with you; it might be nice,” Alyce said. “I would, too, if you would do me a favor. Would you?”
    “What kind of favor?” Rowena asked. She sat cross-legged on the floor, answering without looking at the younger girl.
    “Well, you see”—Alyce crossed her legs and looked overto where Crystal watched in fascination—“I was told that to be a really great model you had to experience all sorts of things that great women experienced. And I imagined that I was a queen of a faraway place….”
    “I do that sometimes,” Rowena said, looking up. She was eating an apple, and the juice from it moistened her full lips. “Once I imagined I was a princess and—who was it?—oh, yes, Russell Crowe rescued me from the Huns or some other sort of bad guys. I was a princess and my mom was the queen. It was a neat dream.”
    “I imagined I was a queen and my subjects came and asked me for bread,” Alyce said. “And, being a good queen, of course, I gave it to them. And then each of them curtsied to me three times in gratitude. I thought, in the dream, that it was a nice feeling. That if I could do it in real life, it could be useful if I ever got a job that needed that sort of feeling.”
    “You want a job as a queen? You’re too young,” Rowena said. “You’d have to be a princess.”
    “Rowena, if you do me a favor and curtsy to me three times, so I would know how it felt, I will do you a favor and work with you next Wednesday.”
    Rowena didn’t move.
    The windows of Jerry’s studio were covered with white sheeting. The morning sun, slanting through them, caught the dust in the air and made it shimmer. The soft light was becoming to Alyce as she sat, head high, almost motionless, in the chair.
    Crystal pushed the peels of the banana together and held them as if the banana were again whole. Then, one by one, she let the peels fall, revealing the half-eaten flesh within.
    “Rowena?” Alyce’s voice broke the stillness.
    Rowena didn’t move.
    Crystal, from the corner of her eye, saw Alyce’s head move. Crystal looked up to see Alyce looking at her and smiling. Then the girl turned away and spoke again.
    “Rowena?”
    Rowena got up and stood before Alyce. Crystal held her breath as Rowena curtsied slowly once, twice, and then a