Read Online Almost Crimson by Dasha Kelly - Free Book Online Page B

CeCe.
    â€œWe’d be cute bears, though,” Dwayne said, winking that smile at her. “Girls like cute bears, don’t you?”
    She shrugged her shoulders, held her breath, and looked for an escape.
    â€œWhere you going?” Dwayne asked as CeCe resumed a more deliberate march toward the medical cabin.
    â€œMed. We need Band-Aids.”
    â€œSomebody got hurt?” Dwayne asked, his eyes light.
    â€œPortia. A branch poked her in the arm.”
    â€œShe bleedin’ real bad?” one of the other boys asked, impish curiosity pushing aside his cool.
    CeCe waved away their wide-eyed attention. “Just a flap of hanging skin. She’s bleeding, but not bad.”
    The boys were visibly disappointed.
    â€œTonya is in your cabin, right?” Dwayne asked, taking steps toward the med cabin with her.
    â€œWhich one?” CeCe asked. “Tall Tonya is in Whisker’s cabin. Short Tonia is in mine.”
    Dwayne looking to the other guys for verification and confirmed, “Short Tonia.”
    â€œYeah, she has the bunk below me,” CeCe said, taking another step toward the medical cabin. The boys followed.
    â€œYou should tell her to meet me by the boating shed after lunch,” Dwayne said.
    â€œI don’t know her like that,” CeCe said, recoiling at the idea of initiating a conversation with one of the girls, let alone relay a message from Dwayne and embroil herself in the subsequent chatterfest.
    â€œGet to know her like that,” Dwayne said. “Come on, CeCe, please?”
    CeCe’s head snapped around at the sound of her name trumpeting from Dwayne’s throat. How did he know her name? How had he chosen her of all the people at camp who would willfully do his bidding? Why was he smiling at her that way?
    â€œWell,” CeCe said, giving Dwayne a thin and bashful grin. “OK.”
    Â 
    CeCe returned to their cabin area with the Band-Aids as her group lined up for the cantina. CeCe paced herself behind Tonia as she bantered with another girl.
    â€œI’m having fun,” Tonia was saying, “but I’ll be glad to sleep in my own bed.”
    CeCe injected herself in their conversation, asking Tonia what her room was like. One of the nicer girls, Tonia didn’t dismiss CeCe’s fringe status and gave a bubbly description of her matching bedspread and curtains, new Cabbage Patch dolls, and wall posters of Diana Ross, Marilyn McCoo, and Thelma from Good Times .
    CeCe waited for Tonia to exhaust the inventory of her room, so she could submit Dwayne’s request. While Tonia rambled, CeCe wondered why Dwayne had picked this girl. She wasn’t that cute. She definitely wasn’t very bright. Confounded once again by the nature of boys, CeCe half-listened and half-waited while they walked the trodden path.
    As they reached the edge of the woods, CeCe glimpsed the shimmer of an enormous spider’s web stretched between two trees. CeCe sidestepped the tree and, before she could open her mouth, Tonia said, “Bread and butter! It’s bad luck to split—”
    Then Tonia screamed.
    Â 
    Before they left for dinner, Hoot gathered the girls to slice through the heavy tension of their small group with a discussion on “trust.” The open forum devolved into a sharp indictment of CeCe’s deliberate trick to scare Tonia.
    â€œYou know she’s scared of spiders,” one girl barked.
    â€œYou were just on that pathway, so you knew the spider web was there,” insisted another.
    â€œWhat if she had been bitten?” Hoot even asked.
    â€œThat’s why don’t nobody even like your weird butt,” concluded another.
    CeCe claimed her innocence once more and absorbed the rest of their accusations. She didn’t bother mentioning Dwayne’s request. She didn’t see how it could help her plight. She spotted him outside the cantina when their group finally arrived for dinner and he