Read Online Tell Me If the Lovers Are Losers by Cynthia Voigt - Free Book Online Page A

Munchkin. “Yes?” she said. She stooped and stepped under the net, coming to shake hands. “How do you do? It is good to meet you, yourself,” Hildy said.
    â€œIt wouldn’t do to miss the tea you know,” Miss Dennis chided. “So I’ll see you all there, in a few moments.” She loped away, lopsidedly ascending a small bank of grass.
    â€œWe could finish,” Niki said. But she knew she would not be heard. Girls were already running back to dorms.
    â€œDammit,” Niki said. She flung the ball at the ground. “Who wants to go to this tea anyway?”
    â€œWhy, I do,” Hildy answered. She picked the ball up and hurried off.
    â€œSee you there,” Ann said to Eloise, as Eloise nodded. Ann hastened after Hildy, leaving Niki to make her own angry way.
    Hildy and Ann took quick baths, by which time Niki returned, her hair damp from a shower. As soon as she had stepped into the room, she said, “Hildy? What if I played volleyball for my fall sport? There’s a tournament—if we were on the same team, I bet we’d win.”
    Hildy had spread a brown cotton dress on her desk top and was smoothing it with the flat of her hand. When Ann asked what she was doing, she explained that this was her dress for the tea, but that she had worn it for two days’ travel. Ann brought out a bright flowered Lanz, in the princess style. “Will you try this?” she asked. Hildy was taller than she but no broader. “Really,” Ann insisted.
    â€œIs it the custom to share?” Hildy asked.
    â€œMy sisters and I do it all the time,” Ann said.
    â€œAh. I have only brothers,” Hildy said. She put the dress over her head and pulled up the back zipper.
    â€œPretty,” Ann said. The airy print and smooth lines of the dress suited Hildy’s haphazard hair, her bright blue eyes and slender, tanned neck. It was a pleasure to see the dress on her Both the garment and its wearer seemed fresh, accidental, and eager as a bank of daffodils.
    Hildy smoothed her hands down the front of the dress. “Pretty,” she agreed. “Isn’t it too short though? You are several inches smaller than I. Am I immodest?”
    â€œNever.” Niki laughed sharply. “Besides, we’re all female here, so who cares? What’s to show? Who’s to see it?”
    Hildy stared at Niki for a moment, without seeming to see her.
    â€œAnyway, what do you think?” Niki asked.
    â€œAbout what?” Ann asked. They were all dressing.
    â€œPlaying volleyball for a sport. Me. And Hildy.”
    â€œI would not want to play on a team with you,” Hildy said.
    â€œWhat? What do you mean? Why not?” The air in the room crackled. Ann squirmed.
    â€œYou do not know how to play on a team,” Hildy said. She apparently had not noticed Niki’s fullblown reaction.
    â€œWhat the—?” Niki said. “Holy pissing name of God.”
    Ann, whose squirming had intensified to acute discomfort, felt Hildy’s wrath while the third girl struggled to find her tongue. Hildy’s hands clenched. She stepped up to Niki, into whose eyes she could look as equal, and her own eyes were luminous. Her jaw moved, once. Her voice when she spoke was stony: “You will not use such language where I must hear it. I have heard enough.”
    Ann would have run from the room, had not her two roommates stood between her and the door.
    Niki stood silent, sullen. Hildy faced her, implacable, not altering her gaze.
    She spoke again: “You have not answered.”
    Niki could not possibly have mistaken the tone for a challenge. But she chose to respond as if it had been. “I guess you expect me to apologize, and wash my mouth out with soap because I’m a bad girl.”
    â€œYou have not answered.”
    Ann almost admired Niki’s stubornness against the force of Hildy’s anger.
    â€œJust what am I supposed to