Other Shepards by Adele Griffin Read Free Book Online

his teammates? “I’ll come to the next one, I promise.”
    “Season’s over. We’re in baseball tryouts now.”
    Geneva bounds up. “I threw it away in the trash,” she announces. “Come on, Holland, you said if we had time we could stop at Piza Ricemann. Hey, I just thought, it seems stupid for us to walk all the way up here, we’re double-walking a block somewhere, aren’t we? I bet it would be faster—”
    “Okay, let’s go then.” I nudge Geneva not so gently.
    “Wait.” Louis takes an uncertain step closer to us, then drops back. “You go to Monsignor Ambrose, right?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You’re Catholic, or you just go there?”
    “Catholic when I feel like it.”
    Louis wrinkles his nose. “Is that a joke?”
    I shrug, but the air between us suddenly bristles with tension. “Why, are you seriously religious or something?”
    “I gave up beating on my kid brother for Lent,” he says. “That’s serious.”
    “I gave up candy,” I counter. “My sister did, too. But we’re not, you know, obsessed with it. We don’t go to church camp or anything.”
    “I did not give up candy,” Geneva says. “I didn’t give up anything this year. Mom explained it was a personal decision. So I decided there’s still too much stuff I personally am not allowed to do, and God would understand that I can’t afford to sacrifice more.” Louis laughs, and I relax slightly.
    “Your name’s like Ireland or something.”
    “Holland.”
    “Uh-huh. I remember. Some strange-ass name.”
    “That is called swearing,” Geneva says.
    “An ass is a donkey,” Louis says gravely, raising his hand. “Gotta rock. Take care,” he says.
    “Bye.” I turn quickly so that we can leave him before he leaves us.
    “Your face is red,” Geneva squawks. “Why is your face so red? Did you really give up candy?”
    “Would you be quiet?” I growl. I abandon my slow, hips-first walk as I jostle Geneva down the sidewalk.
    “What, do you like him or something? He looks like an acid-house-music kid, like Sophie’s brother. Get your hand off my neck!”
    “Come on, we’ll be late.”
    “We will not. We left fifteen minutes early today. You like him, I can tell. He looks like a rebel. Mom would never let him come over in that leather jacket and with that partly white hair. She would call him an unprincipled thug. I mean it, stop hurting me! What’s wrong with you today?”
    “What’s wrong with you ? Calling him a litterbug! Yelling at him for swearing! Being an obnoxious little sister, after all I did last night, giving you a bath and staying with you after your boring blah blah blah nightmare.”
    In the silence that follows my skin chills with my own cruelty. How hateful, Mom would say. What an unthinking, poisonous sister. What is wrong with you, Holland? Yet I remain stubborn, yanking Geneva’s hand at the cross lights and, even more hurtfully, refusing to comment on or even to stop at the freshly draped and sequined mannequin display in the window of Piza Ricemann. Geneva needs to know that you are angry, another part of me argues.
    Most of my thoughts are not really focused on Geneva at all. I found him, trumpets the loudest, most victorious inside voice. I hunted him down, and today I found out exactly when and exactly how Louis Littlebird gets to school in the morning.
    We stop outside the side entrance of Ambrose, at the yellow door where we always part for the day.
    “Pick you up at 3:10,” I say. “Sorry I was a grouch earlier.” Geneva does not answer and when I look at her, I see that her face is teary. I defrost and melt in an instant, folding my arms over her shoulders.
    “Look, I’m sorry, please don’t cry. I am so—” But Geneva pushes solidly from my grip.
    “Go drown yourself,” she hisses. She turns and is lapped up into the wave of sixth graders rushing through the door.
    “Aw, come on. I said I’m sorry,” I call after her. I stand, undecided, but then I turn and head toward the