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

as if those guys were rock stars!”
    â€œLike they aren’t getting enough attention already,” Pip said, outraged.
    â€œAnd the school might even put the insert in the yearbook this year – for the very first time,” Jamila reported.
    â€œNot when I get done with it, they won’t,” Skye said. “’Cause I’m gonna do a job on the mean guys’ pictures. You know, fix them up a little – or draw whole new ones and sneak them in. I mean, those guys are messing with us because they think we don’t have any way of getting back at them, right? So this’ll teach them a lesson.”
    â€œYou could do that?” Matteo asked, sounding skeptical.
    â€œYeah, like what are you gonna do?” Jamila chimed in. “Draw mustaches on their pictures? ’Cause that’s just lame.”
    â€œI can do better than that,” Skye said, sliding her sketchbook out of her book bag. Her heart was pounding as she mentally reviewed the drawings inside it: there were those really mean drawings of Scott she’d done last summer when she was still so angry with him, not that any of these kids knew Scott. But there was also that drawing of Pip that made him look freakishly flexible and thin, like some kind of mutant, and the one of Jamila wearing the world’s goofiest smile, and the one that made Matteo look like a sumo wrestler on a bad day, and the one ofAmanda that made her look like she was made entirely out of twisted party balloons.
    And then there was the drawing of Maddy – made just a week after Skye had arrived in Sierra Madre – that made her look completely out of it, as if her brain was totally empty. That drawing would” hurt the most, Skye knew, suddenly ashamed. You could draw a bad picture of anyone, really – especially when you didn’t know them.
    â€œLet me show you a couple of drawings, just so you can get the idea,” Skye said. “But you have to back up a little, ’cause this is private. It’s like my journal.” She hurriedly selected a few harmless pages to show them, and the art kids were quiet for a moment.
    â€œHey, those are pretty good,” Amanda said, surprised.
    â€œThey’re
really
good,” Matteo said, leaning in close to get a better look. “But do you think you could draw those actual guys? So people could recognize them, I mean?”
    Skye nodded. “I can try,” she said. “I’ll just make ’em look a little more…
interesting
.”
    â€œGreat!” Pip said, looking hopeful for the first time all day. “Revenge! This could really, really work, Skye – if you can make those guys look bad in front of everyone. We’ll teach ’em what happens when they mess with us art jerks.”
    â€œTeach who not to mess with whom?” Ms. O’Hare saidas she backed into the room holding a cookie sheet.

    â€œOh, nothing,” Amanda, Matteo, and Pip said in unison.
    â€œWell, I made you some quesadillas on the hot-plate in the teachers’ lounge,” Ms. O’Hare said, grinning, “because I know how hungry you kids get after school. But use plenty of paper towels when you clean up, okay? Because we don’t want to leave any fingerprints on anything.”
    â€œWe’ll try not to leave fingerprints,” Pip promised, and all the art jerks knew exactly what he was talking about.
    But Skye had the distinct and suddenly sinking feeling the only “fingerprints” on this stunt were going to be hers.
    Dear Scott, Help!!! I got carried away and came up with a way to get even with the football guys, only I’m probably going to get in trouble for it. But I have to do it! Maddy thinks I definitely will get in trouble, but she says she will back me up, no matter what. That’s Maddy.
    I wish you were here to give me some advice. Rememberthe good old days when we were kids? Remember your Radio Flyer wagon?? I could