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

didn’t.
    She followed me into the kitchen, where I had left my plate of half-eaten spaghetti sitting on the table when I got up to answer the door. Moving smoothly toward the kitchen window, Ivory pushed aside the curtains to peer outside. “Nice yard.”
    I watched as Ivory circled the rest of the room, picking up things, silently studying them, and then putting them back down. She nosed around the spices in the spice rack, picked up my dad’s guitar-shaped salt and pepper shakers, and shook a tin of gourmet popcorn with a picture of Elvis on the lid. “All shook up,” she said with a laugh, as if I would think this was funny. Which I didn’t.
    In fact, my neck was starting to feel as if it was being attacked by fire ants. “Do you want something to eat—some spaghetti or something?” I asked because I couldn’t come up with anything else to keep the girl from examining every detail of our life.
    Ivory shook her head. “The label on your jar says meat sauce.” She pointed an accusing finger at the empty glass jar sitting on top of the stove where Chef Josh had left it at the end of his show. “I’m a vegetarian.”
    Although I didn’t really believe meat sauce contained anything other than a few meat-flavored chemicals, I wasn’t going to argue with a vegetarian wearing a rainbow beret. I just concentrated on twisting my pasta as neatly as I could onto my fork, as if I was going for the Olympics in spaghetti twisting. Maybe if I stopped talking to the girl completely, she would get the hint. It was a technique that worked with my dad sometimes.
    But Ivory seemed oblivious. Pulling up a chair, she sat across from me with her elbows on the table and her chin resting on her hands. She had chipped purple nail polish and a silver ring around her right thumb.
    “Does your dad ever say anything about my mom?”
    I could feel the red fire ants crawling farther up my neck.
Great. Perfect.
Now I was going to get grilled about my dad’s love life by my dad’s girlfriend’s daughter. (Or whatever she was.)
    Note to Dad: In the future, don’t date women with daughters my age.
    I thought about telling Ivory that my dad dated so
many
women it was hard to keep track of them all—but instead I ended up saying that my dad didn’t talk much about his dates. “No matter who it is,” I said, shoveling another forkful of spaghetti into my mouth. Ivory was quiet for a while, as if mulling this over.
    “So what’s your opinion of Listerine?” she asked, changing the subject.
    “Listerine?”
    “Our school—Charles Lister. We call it Listerine,” she said, pulling her feet up onto the chair and wrapping her arms around the front of her legs. “What do you think of it?”
    “Oh yeah, Listerine.” I forced a laugh, as if I’d already figured out this name myself. Which I hadn’t. “It’s okay, I guess.”
    A sneaky look spread across Ivory’s face. “And how about my notes? Have you seen the messages I’ve been leaving on your locker this week?” she asked.
    That’s when everything finally became clear. The notes weren’t coming from some middle school gang planning to torment me for the next four months. They didn’t have some sinister, hidden meaning. They had been left by my dad’s girlfriend’s weird daughter.
Didn’t I look like an idiot, right?
    Not wanting to reveal that her peace-sign note had caused me to skip the bus and walk two miles home that afternoon, I told Ivory I didn’t really like notes and stuff on my locker. In general.
    “No?” Ivory picked up an apple from the bowl of fruit on our table and rubbed it on the corner of her shirt before taking a large, loud bite. “I thought they’d make you feel like you had some friends at Listerine.”
    Note to Ivory: Friends sign notes. They don’t leave demented smiley faces and bizarre messages.
    “School’s fine.” I could feel my shoulders tensing up as I tried to get Ivory to understand what I was saying. “And I’d rather not