Read Online All That Glitters by J. Minter - Free Book Online Page B

Seeing her all red-faced and panting made me wonder—not for the first time—what it was exactly that TZ saw in her.
    But I had to admit: It was pretty amazing to see her so riled up. Now all I had to do was figure out how to do it
off
the field.
    I expected to see Willa at Kennedy’s side, plotting their next attack against me, but Kennedy was picking the grass off her skirt alone, and Willa was nowhere tobe seen. Finally, I spotted her crouched on the ground, groaning and clutching her side. Whoops. I guess maybe I hip checked her a little harder than I’d meant to. I jogged toward her to make sure she was all right.
    â€œWilla,” I said, leaning down. “Are you okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for things to get so rough.”
    I stuck out my hand to help her up. She stared at it for a moment like I was offering her some kind of contagious disease.
    â€œWell gee, thanks, Flan,” she said, deciding in the end to take my hand. She put away the fangs for a change and gave me a sugary sweet smile as she stood up.
    From the other side of the field, to the boys or to Ramsey it might have looked like we were just two teammates helping each other out. But when Willa got to her feet, I felt the hard grind of her cleat dig into my toe.
    â€œOww.” I pulled my foot back and tried to do the same with my hand, but she just squeezed it tighter.
    â€œCan I just say one thing?” she asked, her voice still dripping saccharine. “That whole running-for-host thing that your little friends are trying to put you up to”—she clucked her tongue—“so not a good idea. You see, there’s an order to what happens at thisschool.” She finally released my hand and took a step away from me. “It’s like this: Everyone knows that I’m in line to be this Virgil Host. Hardly anyone even knows who you are. And if I were you, Flood, I’d keep it that way.”

Chapter 10
    What willa doesn’t Have …
    I was so shell-shocked (and hip sore) by Willa’s utter scariness on the field that I nearly forgot that night was my monthly “Cheap Thai food and trashy movie night” with SBB. We’d started the tradition when SBB was in a slump over some bad press she’d gotten for
Willow Walks with Wendy
, a cheesy date movie she’d starred in with the fallen former child star Fenton McCallister.
    When the movie debuted, I’d spent days trying to convince SBB that even though the
New York Post
had called it “horrifyingly vapid,” that her own acting had been much more highly praised (relatively speaking) as “borderline inoffensive.” But the only thing that seemed to cheer SBB up in those days was to watch movies that she claimed were worse than
Willow Walks
.
    Somewhere along the way, bad movies and pad thaibecame a tradition. Now that we’d seen just about every Keanu Reeves movie in existence, it was almost a challenge to keep digging up disasters that would beat the one we’d watched the month before. But somehow, we always found one.
    By the time SBB rang my doorbell, I was stretched out on the couch with a heating pad slung over my hip.
    â€œDoor’s open,” I called out. “I’m infirm and can’t get up.”
    SBB stepped into my living room wearing a geometric print bodysuit, bobby socks, and a high black babushka. More often than not, I wanted to crack up when SBB showed up at my house wearing something ridiculous. But I always had to remember to keep myself in check. If she was wearing it today, everyone on the street would almost certainly be wearing a toned-down version of it next month. Though in this case, I doubted very many people on the street could pull off a geometric print bodysuit. But a New Yorker could always try.
    â€œGrub’s here!” she called out, holding up a large paper bag that was filling the room with some very tantalizing smells. “And I brought
Joe