Sister Mischief by Laura Goode Read Free Book Online Page B

proof of our friendship, we could touch each other’s breasts. Jacque refused. I also had a terrible desire to kiss her, which I did. Every time I see a female nude, such as the Venus in my history book, I go into ecstasy. Sometimes I find them so exquisite I have to struggle to hold back my tears. If only I had a girlfriend!
     
     
     
    I close the diary and look at Anne’s picture on the front, at her grainy black bob, and in profile, I see the black wall of Rowie’s bob, its smooth surface disturbed by the rapid action of her pencil, her head bowed, unaware of me just on the other side, watching.
     

 
    Fall is a heady apple-tree season in Minnesota; the sinking feeling of winter hasn’t quite sunk, and the wind is aromatic with embering pumpkins and unpacked quilts and dirty, wet red leaves and a distinct, immodest scent of anticipation veiled over it all. Football season bleeds into hockey. The bottle blondes begin to lowlight a little. College scouts sniff around, and it rains until it snows. I’m in my last-period art elective on Friday, which would be the easiest class in the world to skip if I didn’t actually like it, when Ms. Mayakovsky, the severe-looking but appealingly crazy art teacher, hands me a note summoning me to the principal’s office directly after class. It doesn’t say why, though I have an idea. My suspicions are confirmed: all three of my comrades-in-arms are gathered outside the office, waiting to be called in.
     
    “Guys, this is going to sound pathetic,” Tess confesses, “but this is the first time in eleven years of public school that I’ve ever been called to the principal’s office.”
     
    “Me too,” Rowie says. “There goes my perfect record.”
     
    “I punched Ryan Hoffstadt for tripping me in kickball in first grade,” Marcy says. “He lost four baby teeth, they made me sit at the bad kids lunch table for three days, and people called me the Tooth Fairy until middle school.”
     
    “Savage from day one,” Rowie says, chuckling.
     
    “Well, ladies, you must be happy to be sharing your first time with us public-school menaces.” I headlock Marcy and noogie her hard.
     
    “Oh, eff off, poser,” Marcy says, calling me out and wriggling free in a matter of seconds. “Name one time you’ve ever gotten sent to the principal’s office.”
     
    I blush. “I got sent to the guidance counselor once for telling everyone in my second-grade class that Santa Claus was invented by advertisers.” I hadn’t even known what that meant, really, I’d just heard Pops say it.
     
    “Doesn’t count!” Tess gleefully points at me. “You’re just as big a square as we are.”
     
    Principal Ross Nordling opens his door, quelling our clowning. “Ladies? Would you like to join me?”
     
    We straighten up and hustle in. Principal Ross Nordling is a tawny man, the same golden pink from his hair (mustache, eyebrows, eyelashes) to his skin to his dress shirt. He’s youngish — I’d say late thirties — and not particularly intimidating, though you can tell he thinks he is; he gives off that red-meat scent of hanging on by a thread all the time.
     
    “Please, sit down.” He gestures us toward four chairs. His demeanor suggests a host’s, as if he’s just invited us to sit for tea. We sit.
     
    “The office is collecting and sorting this year’s signed Holyhill school policies,” he begins, glancing through the new copy of the
Holyhill West Wind,
the school paper, on his desk. “And I was surprised to learn that four of Holyhill’s most outstanding students hadn’t yet responded to a second reminder to sign the policy.”
     
    None of us says anything for a moment.
     
    “You don’t say,” Marcy replies, earning a raise of two strawberry-blond eyebrows.
     
    “In fact, Miss Crowther, I do,” he challenges her.
     
    “
Ms.
Crowther,” she corrects him. He takes a moment and gives us all a long elevator-eyes scan.
     
    “Ms. Crowther”— he offers a