Read Online Perfected (Entangled Teen) by Kate Jarvik Birch - Free Book Online

could a pet do to help?
    Ruby wiped her eyes and fingered the end of my hair, which was almost dry from the pool. “I’m sorry I pushed you in the water.”
    “I should have told you that I couldn’t swim,” I said.
    She sat up. “Yeah, you should have. I thought everybody knew how to swim.”
    “Did your last pet swim?” I asked.
    She shrugged. “I don’t know. We got her after the pool guys put the cover on and we had to give her back before they opened it back up.”
    She reached over to a frosted glass jar on her bedside table and pulled out a little gold wrapper. “You want one?” she asked, handing it to me.
    I held out my hand and she placed the gold wrapper in my palm.
    “What is it?”
    “A butterscotch,” she said. “My grandma sends them from Boston. There’s a big candy store there that she takes me to when I visit.”
    She tugged on the ends of the wrapper and pulled out a small honey-colored butterscotch which she popped into her mouth, smiling. When I didn’t do the same, her smile faded. “Don’t you like them?”
    I stared down at the shiny wrapper in my palm. “It’s not one of the foods in my diet.”
    Ruby laughed. “Candy isn’t a food in anyone’s diet. That’s why it’s so good.”
    I pulled on the ends of the wrapper the way I’d seen her do it and picked up the hard candy.
    “Go on,” Ruby said. “Put it in your mouth.”
    I placed the butterscotch on my tongue and closed my mouth around it. The candy was tiny, but the flavor was immense inside my mouth, the sweetness filling up my whole head.
    She giggled. “It’s good, huh? But you probably shouldn’t tell anyone that I gave it to you. My mom’s always going off about cavities and getting fat and stuff.”
    I rubbed the candy gently against the top of my mouth, careful not to suck it too quickly. This was a taste I wanted to keep in my mouth forever, something I wanted to savor and remember while I fell asleep at night.
    As my candy slowly melted down to nothing, I eyed the wall of books on the other side of the room, and when the last bit crumbled away, leaving only the memory of sweetness in my mouth, I took a deep breath.
    “I can’t read,” I said softly.
    “What?” she gasped, pounding the bed with both fists. “You can’t swim or read and you’ve never had candy? How are you supposed to survive? Those are like the most important things.” She hopped off her bed, face flushed, eyes shining. “This is unacceptable!”
    The excitement on her face made the tightness in my stomach disappear. She ran to the bookshelf and reached up on her tiptoes, stretching to grab a big red book on the top shelf.
    “We’ll start with this,” she said, cradling the book in her arms before she plopped back down on the bed beside me. “This was my favorite book when I was little. It’s got all the Grimm Fairy Tales. But don’t worry—they’re not like little kid fairy tales because they’re full of scary stuff. My mom always used to say that they were too gruesome for girls, but I don’t care.”
    She flipped the book open and ran her fingers over the page as if they were something soft.
    “I’ve never taught anyone to read before,” she said. “Maybe to start, I could just read out loud to you. That’s what my mom and dad did when I was little. Then we’ll start teaching you your letters.”
    I nodded and smiled, too afraid that if I spoke she’d change her mind, or realize that pets weren’t supposed to know how to read.
    Ruby flipped through the pages, stopping to show me the ornate drawings every few pages. “Here, we’ll start with this,” she said, smoothing out a page in front of her. “ The Pink , it’s one of my favorite stories. You’ll love it.”
    She leaned up against me, her little body warming my side and I smiled, letting myself relax for the first time all day.
    As she started to read, I stared down at the delicate picture of a woman whose fair hair was crowned with jewels and