Double-Crossed by Lin Oliver Read Free Book Online Page A

hope will fix his clubfoot.”
    There was a chorus of hellos from everyone in the room, except Will. He walked up to Oscar to shake his hand.
    â€œ
Buenas días
,” he said. “Oh, wait, that means good morning. Sorry. Maybe I should just stick to Korean.” Then he bowed to Oscar and said, “
Ahn-nyung
.”
    Oscar bowed right back at him and repeated, “
Ahn-nyung
,” and they high-fived. It occurred to me how different this welcome was from the way Oscar was greeted by the SF2s. In Sara’s house, nobody stared at him, nobody frowned at him, nobody made snide remarks, and nobody judged him. I was so proud of my friends; I just wanted to slobber all over them.
    Okay, you’re right. Slobbering is for dogs. Maybe just a few hugs would do.
    â€œListen up. I have a major announcement to make,” Alicia said. “We just got invited to perform at Councilman Ballard’s fund-raiser at the Sporty Forty next Saturday night . . . to raise money for the arts programs in our schools.”
    â€œWow,” Keisha said. “How cool is that?!”
    â€œI am definitely going to add some pink to my hair for the occasion.” Etta grinned. “Show those folks what some cutting-edge hair art looks like.”
    â€œAnd I know exactly what I’ll talk about,” Bernard said. “How music changed my life—and I’ll do it to a drum beat.”
    He pulled out his drumsticks, which he always carries in his back pocket, and started tapping out a reggae rhythm on the arm of his chair. Mrs. Berlin looked up from the lemonade and gave him a look—you know the one, that special look parents give when you’re about to destroy their personal property.
    â€œI don’t want to dampen your musical enthusiasm,” she said, “but that’s called a chair. It’s used for sitting in.”
    â€œSorry,” Bernard answered, putting his drumsticks back into his pocket. “I got carried away.”
    Bernard gets carried away a lot. We’re all used to it, but I guess Mrs. Berlin wasn’t.
    We decided to call Ms. Carew, our faculty sponsor whose room we meet in every Monday after school, to ask her permission to do the fund-raiser. Most teachers won’t ever give you their cell phone numbers, but Ms. Carew isn’t like most teachers. “This makes me so proud and happy,” she said when we got her on the phone. “I’ll send out an e-mail tonight to all the Truth Tellers, asking them to prepare something very special for the evening.”
    She said congratulations to each of us, and when she got to me, I introduced her by phone to Oscar. Just before she hung up, she suggested we do an Acceptance Circle for Oscar. It’s something we do whenever there is a new person at one of our Truth Teller meetings. So we sat down in a circle and Keisha began.
    â€œWelcome to Truth Tellers,” she said to Oscar, giving him a friendly grin. Keisha has a mouthful of braces, and in school, she tries not to smile because Jared and Sean think it’s funny to call her Metal Mouth. But at Truth Tellers, she lets it all hang out. We don’t care how much metal she has in her mouth.
    â€œI think we should go around the circle and each say a word that describes Oscar,” she suggested. We call this First Impression, and it’s one of our favorite exercises to make a new person feel at home.
    I remembered when I went to my first Truth Teller meeting and they did First Impression with me. At the time, I thought they were totally bonkers. I had never heard of an exercise to loosen up your emotions and help you discover your true feelings. Back then, the only exercises I knew were stretches to loosen up my hamstrings. A lot had changed in just two months. Now, playing First Impression seemed totally normal, and I knew the exact word I wanted to begin with. It was just the right one for Oscar.
    â€œBrave,” I said without