The Hard Kind of Promise by Gina Willner-Pardo Read Free Book Online

to sound excited.
    She wished she'd never agreed to be in Marjorie's weird movie.
    "
Middle School Space Alien,
" Marjorie said. "Doesn't that have a great ring to it?"
    I guess.
    "That way, if there are sequels, they can be
Attack of the Middle School Space Alien!
or
Middle School Space Alien Rides Again!
"
    "Wouldn't that be for a cowboy movie? Like, if the space alien was riding a horse?"
    "You can ride a spaceship," Marjorie said defensively.
    Sarah sighed. Even her movie titles were weird.
    "You never know," Marjorie said.
    She sounded like Sarah's mom. Sarah felt irritation surge in her veins. "And anyway, why are you talking about a sequel?" she asked crankily. "I never said I'd do a sequel."
    "Directors have to think like that," Marjorie said. "I probably won't do one, actually. Next semester we have to make documentaries."
    Immediately Sarah felt sorry. "I
might
be in a sequel," she said. "If I have time."
    She hoped Marjorie believed it: that the only reason she didn't want to do a sequel was because she was busy.
    She hoped so, but she was pretty sure Marjorie knew she was lying.
    Marjorie always knew.

CHAPTER 5
    "HOLD STILL!" Louellen said grumpily. She knelt at Sarah's feet, fiddling with the hem of her costume. A red cushion wrapped around her wrist was full of pins.
    They were in Marjorie's room, on the second floor of the Fingerhuts' house, under the eaves. Sarah guessed that no one had cleaned it since Marjorie was a baby. There were clothes all over the floor, even things that didn't fit anymore, things she hadn't worn in a year. There was no desk: Marjorie liked to do homework on her bed. Mrs. Fingerhut (who always insisted that Sarah call her Roxie) said she didn't care as long as Marjorie's grades were good, and she had moved the old desk out. In its place was an ugly green metal filing cabinet, where
Marjorie kept her DVDs. She had so many that the cabinet was full. There were at least ten stacked on top.
    The walls were covered with movie posters. You couldn't even see the walls anymore. There were so many posters that most of them were partly under other posters. Marjorie's grandma sent them to her all the time, not just on birthdays and Christmas. Sarah's favorite was a poster of Walt Disney's Tinkerbell, with all the
Peter Pan
movie information written in French. Marjorie said her grandma found that one on eBay.
    Louellen looked critically at the hem of the costume. Under it, Sarah's feet in black rubber flip-flops looked strange to her, like pale, shy sea creatures peeking out from under rocks.
    "Marjorie, are you sure you don't want this shorter? Because you want her to be able to walk in it," she said.
    From the way they looked, you would never know that Louellen and Marjorie were sisters. Louellen had wispy blond hair and red skin on her face and neck, as though she'd been standing over a hot stove. She always looked frazzled and worried, as if a lot of people were depending on her to get things right and she'd better not screw anything up.
    Marjorie was staring at Sarah's feet, too. She had her hands on her hips and seemed to be thinking hard.
    "No, it has to be long, because I don't want her feet to show. I think it would look wrong if you could see that an alien has feet. I want it to look like she's all blue, and I want the costume to go to the floor."
    "Well, okay, but you don't want her to
trip,
" Louellen said.
    "And it can't look like a dress," Marjorie said. "Can you make it look like more of a tube?"
    "You mean like the alien is a worm?" Louellen asked.
    "Maybe it would look good if you made it shorter and I wore blue high-tops," Sarah said. She was a little worried about walking around.
    "Yes, a worm! Exactly!" Marjorie said, ignoring Sarah completely. "And then you can make the head covering tighter. So it looks like skin."
    "It's hot in this thing," Sarah said, fidgeting.
    Louellen looked up at her. "Just a few more minutes," she said. She turned back to Marjorie. "And you still