Saving Face (a young adult romance) by T.J. Dell Read Free Book Online Page B

either.
                Brent just looked at her for a few minutes. 
“I’m sorry about before Lyssa.” 
                She just nodded.  It wasn’t the first fight
they’d ever had and she wasn’t really mad anymore.  Besides she was starting to
have a sneaking suspicion that he might have been right about some of it.
                Brent climbed back to his own room.  Alyssa laid
down and didn’t go to sleep for a long time.

Chapter Nine
     
     
     
                How many bobbing buckets would she need?  Alyssa
was setting up her table with individual bobbing buckets.  Because of the
germs.  The rest of her booth looked really good.  A black table cloth and
orange buckets for the bobbing went perfectly with the Halloween theme.  And
the wall behind her was covered with construction paper black cats,
jack-o-lanterns, and ghosts.  All the kids would also be receiving prizes in
addition to their apples, so she had a big punch bowl filled with small plastic
toys.  The hospital had cleared out a big common room for them.  All the other walls
were also hung with Halloween decorations, and everywhere you looked there were
games, activities, and arts and craft tables. 
    All the high school students were
encouraged to wear costumes.  Most of the girls were happy to dress up—a black
tee shirt, a fuzzy eared headband, and a little creative use of her eyeliner transformed
Alyssa into a cute kitty cat.  Beth made a pretty angel.  Her long blond hair
looked extra shiny under the sparkly halo.  Most of the boys wore their sports
uniforms. So they ended up with a lot of football players, basketball players,
and even a couple baseball players.  Everything had come together really well
and any minute the doors would be opened to the kids and their families.  Alyssa
should have been having fun except, well she wasn’t.
                “Alyssa!  We need you.”   Tommy and Beth came
rushing over to her. 
                “What’s the matter?” 
                “The clown isn’t coming.”
                “Oh.  Well I do have the number for the
agency.”  Alyssa reached for the day planner she’d been using to keep track of
all the carnival information.  As the most organized member of the Varsity Club
she’d been elected event committee chairman.  They’d spent a pretty chunk of
change on the face painting clown.
                “No.   There isn’t time.  Couldn’t you do it? 
We provided the special hypo allergenic face painting kit—now all we need is
someone with a little talent.”  Tommy was holding out the face paint.  “Brent
says you’re good.”
                “She’s never lost a game of Pictionary.”  Brent
walked up to them.  She hadn’t even known he was planning on coming.
                “Brent!”  He was standing there easily—as if
they hadn’t been fighting the last time they saw each other.  He looked good
too.  Somewhere he’d found a Green Lantern tee shirt.  His mom must have told
him to wear a costume.  The tee shirt was probably a left over from his comic
book days, and it was a little tight now around his upper body.
                “Come on!”  Beth grabbed her arm and dragged her
over the face painting booth.  “Your cat face is perfect.  And we can get
anyone to do the bobbing thing.”  Brent trailed behind them.
                “I can take photos of the kids after you do
their faces.  One of the nurses said she would make sure all the families got
copies if we leave the memory card with her overnight.”  Tommy and Beth were
gone and Brent and Alyssa were left standing there awkwardly staring at each
other.
                “Oh no!”  Alyssa broke the silence when she
groaned and dropped into a chair.  “You’re right.  Things are getting weird!” 
She was completely serious, but for some reason