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

hesitation.
    â€œArtistic,” Alicia added.
    â€œHandsome,” Etta commented, smoothing back her green-streaked hair with a hand clustered with silver and turquoise rings.
    â€œOvercoming,” Bernard said, “which may not technically be a word to describe someone, but we all know what I mean.”
    â€œTall,” Will said. Of course, Oscar wasn’t tall, but when you’re as height-obsessed as Will is, you measure everyone against yourself. I could tell Oscar liked being called tall, because he reached out and gave Will a friendly punch on the arm. Poor Will, it nearly knocked him over.
    â€œI like this game,” Oscar said when everyone had finished. “Okay,” he continued, getting into the spirit of things. “Here I go. Bernard, you are musical. Will, you are funny. Etta, you are colorful. Keisha, you are smiling. Sara, you are curly.”
    Everyone laughed. Sara has this huge head of black curly hair that poofs out around her face like a lion’s mane. There is no doubt that she is curly.
    Then Oscar looked at me and thought for a long minute.
    â€œSammie,” he said softly. “You are beautiful and bright like a star.”
    I could feel myself blush. There was so much emotion in his voice. The room got really quiet while I searched for something to say. I wanted to let him know how much his words meant to me, but I was also embarrassed, and to be honest, a little overwhelmed. No boy had ever told me I was beautiful before except Julian LaBonge, and he only said it because we were acting out a scene from
Romeo and
Juliet
and it was right there on page 16 of the play. Alicia’s warning for me to be careful and to not hurt Oscar echoed in my mind. I couldn’t come up with the right balance of saying something nice but not saying something too nice.
    Thankfully, the front door opened and Sara’s father came bursting in carrying two pizza boxes. I was so relieved. He couldn’t have arrived at a better time.
    â€œOne pepperoni and one pineapple-olive-green pepper!” he called out cheerily.
    Pineapple-olive-green pepper? Seriously? We all knew right away who the culprit was. Bernard. He has never ordered a regular-sounding pizza in his life. We can always count on him to order weird things, like the shrimp-anchovy-garlic combo, or spinach, almonds, and apricots.
    â€œ
Were you absent on the day they handed out taste buds?” Sara asked him.
    â€œDon’t judge it until you’ve tried it,” Bernard snapped back.
    â€œIn general, that’s a good life rule,” Mr. Berlin said, putting the boxes on the dining room table. “Although, I’m not so sure it applies here. There’s a mighty powerful aroma coming out of that box.”
    We tore open the boxes and dug in. I did take a slice of the pineapple-olive-green pepper, and I’m here to tell you it is just as bad as it sounds. Don’t try it at home, kids. Oscar took one bite and looked like he wanted to spit it out.
    â€œIs this what you eat in America?” he whispered to me.
    â€œOnly if your name is Bernard.”
    â€œGood. Then I’m glad my name is Oscar.”
    After the pizza, we watched a really bad, but in a good kind of way, old movie called
Zombie High School
. Afterward, we had a Who Can Do the Weirdest Zombie Walk contest. I love it that the Truth Tellers always come up with such fun and creative things to do. When it was Oscar’s turn, he put some tomato sauce from the pizza box on his face so it looked like blood, crossed his eyes, and limped around the room, walking into walls. We all laughed hysterically.
    â€œSee, my bad leg is good for something,” he said.
    Then he lurched around the room some more, his arms out in front of him, making zombie sounds. The more he bumped into furniture, the more he moaned and groaned, the more we howled. By the end of the night, no one even had a thought about his clubfoot or his limp. He