Shadow Girl by Patricia Morrison Read Free Book Online

jackets.”
    “She’s not growing as fast as I am, Mom said. Maybe I’ll get a new one next time. Yowee, it sure is freezing today!”
    They had a wild snowball fight when they reached Wedgewood. Jules got hit in the face again. Same spot. Her cheek stung something awful.
    Penance for a lie
.
    When they got to Mattice Avenue, the road the school was on, they ran. The bell would ring any minute.
    Jules was glad she’d gone to school with Patsy. She felt almost normal.
    There’s no way I’m gonna go home after school
, Jules told herself. She walked up to Bloor and over to the plaza instead.
    Shoppers, lights, decorations – just the same old lousy Christmas stuff
.
    She went into Zellers, feeling embarrassed. Mrs. Adamson kept looking over at her. She tried playing with the toys and games in spots where Mrs. Adamson couldn’t see her. But it was hard to do anything at all. Her heart wasn’t into being there.
    She headed over to her doll. Seeing it felt good for a few moments. She stood there staring at it, and she felt her mind slowly leave her body. Not in the good way it usually did when she was imagining things, but in the vanishing way she’d felt last night.
    “That would be a wonderful Christmas present, wouldn’t it?”
    Jules almost jumped out of her skin. Mrs. Adamson was standing right beside her. Jules didn’t want to give a friendly answer back.
    “Yeah,” she said quietly. Jules quickly turned away, but she knew Mrs. Adamson was still watching her. She stomped over to the empty spot at the book display and crashed down onto it.
    I could break this whole stupid thing with a few kicks. Smash it all to pieces!
    She was angry, so angry.
    If I looked in a mirror right this second, I’d have the same kind of expression on my face as Dad’s stupid friend Hank. He always looks angry and miserable
.
    Argh! Can’t scream or they’ll think I’m crazy
.
    Jules grabbed the first book beside her. Hans Christian Andersen.
    No, thank you!
    She turned to the other side of the display and reached over for a “real” book, a thick one.
    I’ll show her. I’ll sit here and read as long as I want
.
    But … Mrs. Adamson won’t mind. She never does
.
    Jules buried herself in the book. Two hours later, she heard the announcement telling shoppers that the store was closing.
    Shoot! Gotta go to my stinking home
.
    Jules left the store before Mrs. Adamson could say one more kind thing to her.
    When she got home, the house was dark.

CHAPTER
10
    D ecember 18. Wednesday.
    Jules usually crossed off each day on the kitchen calendar, but she’d stopped doing it since Friday.
    Doesn’t matter anymore, does it?
    The eighteenth meant something, though. She tried to think what.
    Oh, yeah. The Christmas concert. The stupid Christmas concert. How am I going to go? I can’t go alone – it finishes too late
.
    Last year, she and her dad had walked together to school, and it’d been fun.
    Who wants to see me in the stupid concert anyway? I’ll just pretend I’m going, pretend my dad’s coming
.
    She stomped around the house.
    I hate you, house, as much as you hate me! Stupid walls. Stupid brown carpet. Smelly, old kitchen. I hate you!
    Jules started to cry.
    She pushed herself outside, avoided Patsy’s place, and kept her head down as she kicked through the snow. Eventually, she got to the outer limit of the school property.
    I’m breaking apart
.
    Jules wondered if she could even get herself into the schoolyard. She tried to make her face look normal and joined some other kids who were having a snowball fight.
    None of the kids in her class looked at her as if anything was wrong.
    “Make sure you get here by six-thirty tonight,” Mrs. Fournier said before dismissing the class. “And remember: clean uniforms. With cleaned and pressed shirt or blouse.”
    Jules felt a moment of panic. She had only one blouse, and it had stopped being clean or white a long time ago. Then she remembered she wasn’t even going to the