The Opposite Of Tidy by Carrie Mac Read Free Book Online Page B

it was an angry-looking mess of charcoal that kind of looked like a monster in a box. Surprise, surprise. Wouldn’t want the school psychologist to get a hold of that.
    Lulu leaned over. “What is that?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t know.” Junie glanced at what Lulu was working on: an elaborate pen-and-ink drawing of a fairy perched gracefully on a toadstool. It might as well have been a self-portrait. Lulu was a tiny, elfin girl, with finefeatures and big green eyes. Her long, dark brown hair hung halfway down her back, and her flowy skirts and shimmering tops and sandals all year round made her appear altogether otherworldly. “What’s yours?” Junie said, hoping to shift the subject off of herself and her disturbing work of art. If you could call it art.
    “Your drawing looks very, very angry.” Lulu shook her head a little. “That’s not healthy, Junie.”
    “Duly noted, Lulu.”
    Junie considered Lulu a friend—a really good one, actually—even if she didn’t know a thing about her life at home. She was Ollie’s girlfriend—if you could believe that a geek like him could find true love in the tenth grade. They were both super-smart, he was dorky, she was whimsical, and together they were sickeningly sweet. Junie considered Ollie a friend too, and he was yet another one who had no idea about the mess she went home to every day.
    Junie and Lulu stopped by their lockers and then made their way to the cafeteria, where Tabitha was waiting for Junie just outside the door. Lulu went ahead to join Ollie, leaving Tabitha and Junie behind.
    “Look.” Tabitha pointed to their usual table through the open doors. There was Lulu, just sitting down beside Ollie, and there was Wade Jaffre, too.
    “Wow.” This was an interesting new development. Junie didn’t know what he’d done during his lunch hour until now, but there he was, in the flesh, at her table. “He must really like you.”
    “After this morning? Highly doubt it. More likely you. He probably thinks I’m a total goody-goody.” Tabithayanked her arm, forcing Junie’s attention back on her. “Either way or neither way, you have to come clean about your parents.”
    “But you agreed to play along!”
    “That was before you were so awful!”
    “Tabitha, that isn’t fair.” Another glance at the table. Wade was looking their way. He waved. Junie and Tabitha both broke from their argument to each give him a flirty little wave back. And then they went back to it.
    “Isn’t it?”
    “Don’t go all parental on me, okay? You can’t honestly tell me that you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing as me.”
    “I can so.”
    “Oh yeah?”
    He was still looking at them, only now he was waving them over. Tabitha held up a finger, gesturing that they’d be another minute.
    “What would you have done, oh Holier Than Thou Tabitha, who is—in fact—a total goody-goody?”
    “Told him to stop in front of the house and let me out so I could go referee my deeply embarrassing parents.”
    Junie thought that that was actually a pretty good response. But then Tabitha had had a long time to come up with it. It was infinitely easier to come up with a witty retort after the fact.
    “Well, it’s too late. I can’t go back in time, as much as I’d like to for a zillion reasons, so here we are. I’ve got a good little lie going, and don’t you go messing it up. Or I’ll trump you.”
    “You would?” She looked genuinely hurt. Since they were old enough to know what “trump” meant they’d had trump power over each other. It was a little like doubledog-dare-you, only it was even more binding. Junie could trump her, and Tabitha could trump Junie, but never at the same time. Whoever got there first. And Junie just had.
    “I would. So this is me officially trumping you on this matter, Tabitha Faith Dillard. You have to play along with my lie.”
    Tabitha clutched her lunch bag to her chest, horrified. “I can’t believe