Too Cool for This School by Kristen Tracy Read Free Book Online Page B

a boutique in Tucson. We’d informed Angelina that the theme of the trampoline party was a pj swap, so everybody had to switch pj’s. It was a total lie. But we needed to get Angelina comfortable with the idea that our clothes were better than her clothes and that in order to establish a decent reputation she should start wearing them immediately.
    I crawled to the side of the trampoline so I could get the best possible view of Angelina. She walked onto the porch wearing a short-sleeved cotton top that circled her waist in ruffles. Both the top and shorts were multiple shades of green, and the bottoms were looped with a ribbon belt. Ever since Ava had shown me the pajamas, I’d been worried that Angelina would look like a forest and the pattern would swallow her. But it didn’t. What a relief. Angelina looked so cute.
    “Green is really your color!” Rachel said. “It makes your skin look less pale.”
    “The ruffles make your eyes pop,” Lucia said.
    “Your torso looks great belted,” Ava added.
    I cheerfully lowered my head. Maybe helping her wouldn’t require a ton of my time and effort. Things looked like they could turn out okay, because when you put normal clothes on her, Angelina looked like one of us. These realizations made me feel much more mellow about introducing Angelina to everybody I knew. She bounced down the steps and hopped onto the middle of the trampoline, making our sleeping bags slide to the center.
    Rachel squealed like she liked it. So Angelina bounced us again.
    “Stop!” Ava screamed. “I’m fragile!”
    But Angelina didn’t stop. “I’m going to crack you!”
    Whoa. That seemed hostile. And a little immature. We’d stopped playing crack the egg in fourth grade. Right after Lucia stepped on Ava’s ankle.
    “No!” Ava said. “We don’t play that game!”
    But Angelina didn’t stop. She bounced us very high.
    “I’m cracked!” Lucia said, unfolding her legs.
    “I’m double cracked!” Rachel said, falling onto her side.
    “I’m not playing,” Ava said.
    “Okay, Angelina,” I said. “Let’s sit.”
    “In Alaska, we play this game for days,” Angelina said.
    Ava looked horrified.
    “But we have our stuff on the trampoline,” I explained. “We don’t want to break anything.”
    “Yeah,” Ava added. “If my phone gets damaged, I’ll die.”
    “Okay,” Angelina said. “I don’t want to wreck anybody’s phone.” And so she did sit, but not before she released one more powerful bounce and landed hard on her butt in front of us. The force of that bounce made Ava topple onto her side.
    “Seriously, Angelina,” Ava said, springing back up to a sitting position. “We don’t play that game anymore for a reason.”
    “I know,” Angelina said, frowning big. “You’re fragile and your phone could break.”
    “And we’ve got secret visitors coming over and you’ve ruined everybody’s hair!” Ava pointed to her mess of a blond bob. Normally, it was very smooth. At the present time, not so much.
    “Shhh,” I said. Other than the five of us on the trampoline, I didn’t want anyone else to know that Todd and Jagger were going to crash our pajama party. My parents would flip. The whole point of the party was to introduce Angelina to a few of my friends before she started school. If we were caught with boys, my parents would ground me for weeks, and then be disappointed in me for eons.
    “Will I get to meet Todd Romero?” Angelina whispered. “Your boyfriend?”
    Rachel giggled.
    “I knew it!” Lucia said.
    I hadn’t told them either of them that Todd was almost my boyfriend. So I was furious that Angelina had said anything.
    “Shut up!” I said. I could feel myself blushing. “And, Angelina, don’t call him my boyfriend ever again.”
    I glared at Ava, because I figured she must have accidentally told Angelina. But Ava looked at me as if she was pretty surprised.
    “Oh,” Angelina said. “Don’t get mad at Ava. She didn’t tell me. You talk