Read Online Best Friends by Ann M. Martin - Free Book Online Page B

to arrive at school a couple of hours before each of the performances. It takes a long time to prepare everyone.”
    â€œBut in a real theatre,” said Ruby, “there would be more than one makeup person. And the star would probably have her own private —”
    â€œRuby,” said Min, “I don’t even want to hear the end of that sentence.”
    Ruby snapped her mouth shut and stalked down the hallway, where she sat by herself on the floor outside the door to the library, glowering, her arms folded tightly across her chest. Not far away, a group of girls, already in costume and makeup, was laughing and playing a complicated clapping game while chanting, “Eeny-meeny DIS-aleeny, ooh, ah, AH-maleeny, atcha-katcha, ooma-raga, ugga-wugga OOH! ISH-biddly oten-doten.…” Ruby knew the game and was very good at it but chose to sit on the floor until she was called to the makeup table.
    This is all Aunt Allie’s fault, Ruby said to herself as she sat sullenly while her makeup (including lipstick!) was applied. Aunt Allie had made her self-conscious. There was really nothing good about Aunt Allie, Ruby decided. Except maybe the fact that she had finally found a house she wanted to buy, which meant that she would soon be moving out of the Row House. Ruby couldn’t wait.
    Her makeup applied, Ruby again sat alone, but this time she was preparing for her role as Alice Kendall. She stretched a little and did the breathing exercises she had invented. The exercises were supposed to help her concentrate and focus, but Ruby’s mind kept wandering and she found herself breathing in rhythm to “Eeny-meeny dis-aleeny, ooh, ah, ah-maleeny.…”
    Later, when the dress rehearsal was finally under way, Ruby was painfully aware that this time she had more of an audience than usual. Min, Gigi, Flora, Nikki, and plenty of other people were sitting in the auditorium, watching. Ruby did her best all afternoon and even managed to become teary-eyed when the fierce Harry Lang hurled his accusation at her.
    But on the way home that evening when Min said, “Ruby, my stars, you were splendid! You really looked like you were going to cry,” all Ruby could think was that she hadn’t actually cried. Not like before.
    Her performance was already slipping. She was washed up before opening night.

Flora had listened to the tape of her interview with Mrs. Fitzpatrick twice and then had spent several hours writing down most of the conversation. (“That’s called transcribing,” Aunt Allie had told her, and she should know, since she was a writer.) Flora now realized that she was going to have to have a conversation with Mary Woolsey — possibly an uncomfortable one — about Isabelle, Mary’s aunt, and about people leaving their lives behind and starting over with new identities.
    Flora had also been looking through the notes she had made during the last few months when she had spoken with Mary or Min about Lyman Davis. And she had hauled the box of family papers out from under her bed and read through the letters several more times. But she still didn’t have a clear idea of what she was going to do with all the information. How could she present her project to the Camden Falls Historical Society so that it could be displayed at the town birthday festivities? A report wasn’t all that interesting, she thought, picturing some of the reports she’d handed in to teachers over the years — stapled together at one corner or (when she was younger) stuck between sheets of red construction paper. Flora wanted her part in the festivities to be memorable. After all, this was Camden Falls’s big birthday, and Camden Falls was now Flora’s home.
    Ruby’s part in the festivities would most certainly be memorable. And Nikki’s drawings would be framed and displayed in an actual art gallery, while Olivia’s photos would be mounted and displayed at