Read Online All Shook Up by Shelley Pearsall - Free Book Online Page A

was close to my mom’s age, I guessed, but she was a lot shorter and her hair was a fake coppery shade that reminded me of the color of pennies after they have gone through the washing machine a few times. Everything about Viv was shiny, I noticed. Shiny lipstick. Shiny jewelry. Shiny penny-colored hair.
    “Josh,” she said, reaching out to hug me despite the fact I didn’t want to be hugged. A half-dozen shiny bracelets slid down her arms, so there was this jarring, clanging noise in my ears, as if I was being hugged by wind chimes. “I’m Vivian. It’s wonderful to finally meet you.” She moved to one side and gestured to the tall and skinny girl who was standing on the porch behind her. “This is my daughter, Ivory, but you’ve probably met her already in school.”
    The girl behind Viv appeared to have just stepped out of a 1960s time warp. A knitted rainbow beret was perched on her very straight, shoulder-length brown hair. She was wearing a fringed leather vest and jeans with ’60s-type patches of daisies, yellow smiley faces, and peace signs sewn all over them. That’s what gave me my first clue.
    My dad. Viv. Peace signs. Elvisly Yours….
    The girl looked over at me and a smile slid slowly across her face. I couldn’t tell for sure if she was the one who had sent me the notes, but I swear you could see she was enjoying a private little laugh about something inside her head. “Hey,” she said cheerfully, lifting up one arm in a small wave. “How’s it going?”
    “Would you like to stay here or come with us, Josh?” Viv asked as she took the clothes hanger I’d been holding uncomfortably in one hand since opening the door. I pretended to give this a few seconds of thought before I told her thanks for inviting me but I wanted to hang out at home instead.
    Except then, time-warp girl announced she wanted to stay, too. “I’ll just wait here with Josh until you get back,” she told her mom, as if this was a totally polite thing to do—inviting yourself into somebody else’s house without even being asked. And her mom (being a totally polite person, too) said it was fine if her daughter stayed.
    “See you.” Ivory waved as her mom headed back to the car. Then she brushed past me like one of those fanatics who come to your door with their Bibles, determined to convert you right then and there. Ivory didn’t have a Bible in her hand, but she still gave me the same uncomfortable, edgy feeling—as if she was going to convert me to something. I just didn’t know what it was.
    “Nice house,” she said, finding her own way into the living room. Her eyes flickered over everything, taking it all in like she was memorizing it. My dad’s living room is pretty worn-out, to be honest. The old tan couch was left over from the years when my mom had lived in the house. It had permanent butt dents in the cushions and round coffee stains on the armrests. We hadn’t picked up our Zippy’s pizza box from the night before, either, so the whole room smelled like stale pepperoni and cheese.
    I stood uncomfortably in the living room doorway, completely clueless about what to say to Ivory. Back in Boston, I was friends with some girls, and they were okay when you were with a group of them, but getting stuck talking to one girl always made me nervous. My neck would start to feel warm and prickly, or I’d get an itch on my scalp. Or worse yet, my eyebrow.
God, I hated that eyebrow thing.
The longer a girl talked to me, the more my eyebrow would feel like some large biting insect had landed on it.
    So I definitely didn’t want to be stuck hanging around in my dad’s empty living room with a girl I didn’t even know. I plucked the remote from between the couch cushions. “Here’s the clicker,” I said, sliding it across the coffee table, “if you want to watch some TV.” I was hoping Ivory would get the hint that she was supposed to stay in the living room and entertain herself until her mom came back.
    She