Read Online Camo Girl by Kekla Magoon - Free Book Online

about you saying things like that.”
    I grab my plate and glass and make a break for it.
    In the kitchen, Mom takes me by the shoulders. “Hey, where’s my girl?” Shewraps the end of my braid around her fingers. “It’s my last night home this week. I’d like to spend it with you.”
    I let her hug me without saying anything. Everything that comes to mind is mean. I don’t want her to go, and that’s the least of my problems.
    Slinking back toward the living room, I meet Grammie on the warpath.
    â€œElla Baker,” she says, raising her eyebrows at me.
    â€œGrammie—” I’m not in the mood for this game.
    â€œElla Baker!” she insists.
    â€œNamesake number one,” I mumble. “Civil rights activist. Registered black voters in the Jim Crow South at great personal risk.”
    â€œThank you. Ella Fitzgerald.”
    â€œNamesake number two. Jazz singer of the Harlem Renaissance. Beautiful voice, beautiful person.”
    â€œElla Cartwright.”
    I stand quiet. Grammie gazes at me pointedly.
    â€œThat one’s me.”
    â€œAnd what do we learn from this?”
    I all but choke on the words. “I’m named for great and beautiful women; I am a great and beautiful woman.”
    Grammie nods triumphantly. “You are indeed. Now, was that so hard?”
    Yes. “I’m going to bed.”
    â€œBrush your teeth,” Grammie calls after me.
    The lights are on in the bathroom. It’s no more horrible than ever, but no less.
    Mom’s face appears in the mirror, over my own. She’s so pretty. Her dark, smooth skin is flawless. I see her, but I don’t see where I came from.
    We look at each other. Then we look just at me.
    â€œWould you believe I forget sometimes?” I whisper.
    Mom strokes my hair. “Honey.”
    It’s true. Like today. I was sitting by the bathroom, waiting for Z, and my mind was on everything but how I look. The little boy staring at me brought it all back. The forgetting makes me free, for a moment, but it isn’t worth it in the end. If I could just know it all the time, it wouldn’t come back like that, and surprise me.
    â€œI’m a freak.”
    Mom hugs me from behind. “Anyone who can see will see you beautiful.”
    I close my eyes and try to make it true, just for a second.

CHAPTER 24
    Z doesn’t show up for school the next day. I get off the bus in the morning, and no one is waiting. All day, I’m sick with worry. Worse, I’m all alone.
    Z doesn’t skip school. He just doesn’t. When he’s sick, he comes anyway, and they let him lie in the nurse’s office all day.
    After school I leave the building at a dead run.
    I race in through the library doors. Mrs. Baskin, the afternoon librarian, is sitting at the checkout desk reading a thick paperback.
    I slap my hands on the desk and lean in. “Please tell me he’s here.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhere is he?”
    Mrs. Baskin gives me a pointed look. “Where do you think?”
    â€œIt’s not my fault,” I blurt.
    Mrs. Baskin slides a bookmark into her book. “What happened, Ella?”
    There’s no time to explain.
    I find Z lying on the floor beneath shelf 327.12 (spy books), balancing a thick tome over his face. He’s cleared the shelf and scattered all the books around him.
Burn Before
Reading. A Century of Spies.
The Know How Book of Codes
,
Secret Agents
&
Spies
. The Art of War.
    One look and I know. It’s bad, really bad. Worse than I thought.
    â€œGo away. I’m undercover,” he says.
    â€œAs what? A bookend?” I wave my hand at the large pile of books beside him.
    He lowers
The Encyclopedia of Espionage
long enough to glare at me.
    â€œZ, come on. What’s wrong?”
    â€œSometimes you just need a day off,” he says in a dull voice. He’s repeating something I told him once. Grammie lets me take the