Read Online It's Only Temporary by Sally Warner - Free Book Online Page A

afraid things will just keep getting worse and worse for us art jerks. Those football guys basically crashed Amanda’s party last weekend and beat up Pip, or at least they tried to – all because of his costume, which was really out there. But he was only trying to be super-crazy and make Amanda laugh and notice him.
    Love, Skye
    P.S. Guess what? I got a second mystery drawing in my locker, and I think I know who did it! (But I’m not 100% sure.…)

    â€œWe gotta think of some way to get even with them, or they’re gonna keep going after us,” Pip said the following Thursday afternoon when Ms. O’Hare left the art activities room to take some papers to the office. “They think we’re easy targets.”
    â€œOh, no,” Maddy murmured, her face losing its color. She was obviously imagining another so-called “collision,” Skye thought, biting her lip in sympathy.
    She didn’t know what to fear for herself.
    Ms. O’Hare’s art activities group had started meeting on Thursdays as well as Tuesdays, because work was piling up. Homecoming was in two more weeks, and there was still the thirty-foot-long banner to finish and the special Homecoming newspaper to assemble. “Amelia Earhart is gonna kick Thomas Alva Edison’s
butt
this year,” Aaronand his friends kept going around saying, to Skye’s secret delight.
    Matteo Molina shifted in his seat. “I dunno,” he mumbled. “What can we do?”
    â€œI didn’t even tell my dad what happened at the party,” Pip said. “He’d probably say it was my own fault for taking art. He says art is for girls. You better believe I had to sneak my Halloween costume out of the house that night!”
    â€œI used to get that, too – about art,” Matteo confirmed. “Until my uncle got a job in computer graphics and started making more money than anyone else in the family.”
    â€œThe grown-ups at school don’t really care about what happens away from school,” Amanda informed everyone, “so you can’t tell
them
when something goes wrong. But bad stuff is going to keep on happening – at both places. To
us
.”
    â€œI don’t get why those football guys even care about us,” Skye said, shaking her head. “When my brother was in middle school, he and his friends never paid attention to any younger kids. They were too busy messing around and stuff.”
    â€œI didn’t know you had a brother, Skye,” Maddy said, her brown eyes widening in surprise. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”
    Because Scott was one of
her
syndromes, that was why, Skye thought, not meeting Maddy’s curious gaze.
    â€œWell,” Amanda said, ignoring both the subject of Skye’s brother and Maddy’s question, “I don’t know why they’re picking on us. Maybe they’re bored, or maybe they just hate anyone who’s different from them.”
    Scott and Maddy
, Skye thought immediately. They were different, too, and they always would be, at least a little, and people would judge them – and maybe even be mean to them –
because
they were different.
    And it wasn’t a temporary thing for them.
    â€œI can do something about it,” she heard herself say.
    All the art kids looked at her in silence for a second. “Yeah, right,” Pip finally said, laughing.
    â€œNo, I mean it,” Skye told him – and the others. “I can. Because we’re in charge of the Homecoming newspaper they’re giving out at half-time, right?”

    A couple of the kids nodded.
    â€œWell, you know that insert that’s going to be inside the newspaper?” Skye asked. “The one with all the football players’ individual pictures in it?”
    â€œYes,” Amanda said cautiously. “I heard everyone gets the players to sign the pictures, and thenkids tape them inside their lockers –