Read Online The Secret Book Club by Ann M. Martin - Free Book Online

to sound both dubious and incredulous at the same time.
    â€œIt’s not an impossibleness.”
    â€œImpossibility,” Flora corrected her automatically.
    â€œOkay.” Ruby, perched on Flora’s bed in the once-again impeccably tidy room, said, “Well?”
    â€œWell what?”
    â€œYou know what! The party! Tell me everything about the party!”
    Flora gazed soberly out her dark window. “It was fun,” she said at last.
    â€œThat’s it? It was fun?”
    â€œRuby, sometimes it’s kind of hard to put my thoughts and feelings into words,” said Flora in her most annoying older-sister way.
    â€œJust start by telling me what you did.”
    â€œOkay. Well, when we first arrived, everyone —”
    â€œHow many people were already there?” interrupted Ruby.
    â€œAbout five or six. Anyway, everyone was out back by Tanya’s pool. First we just swam for a while and talked and stuff. Then Tanya’s parents put hamburgers and hot dogs and chicken on the barbecue. We ate dinner at two picnic tables.”
    â€œDid you and Nikki stick together the whole time?” asked Ruby.
    â€œNot the whole time. We both knew everyone there.”
    â€œWere all the other kids from your class there except for Olivia?”
    â€œNot all,” replied Flora. “But most of them. I don’t know if the others were away or what. And then there were about five girls from Mrs. Annich’s class.” (Mrs. Annich was the other sixth-grade teacher at Camden Falls Elementary.)
    â€œSo you had fun?” prompted Ruby.
    â€œYes,” said Flora. “I really did.”
    Flora remembered the jumpy feeling in her stomach when Min had dropped her and Nikki at Tanya’s house. What if no one except Nikki spoke to her at the party? What if the invitations had been a bad joke after all? Flora had imagined dozens of horrifying situations — being snubbed, ignored, teased — but of course nothing even resembling these scenarios had taken place. She had merely swum and eaten chicken and chatted with the other girls. They talked about their summer plans and movies they’d seen. At one point, Tanya had whispered in Flora’s ear, “Will Price has a crush on Sophie and she has one on him!”
    Flora, smiling, had looked around at all her classmates — laughing, swimming, wiping barbecue sauce off their fingers — and thought with some surprise,So now I’m part of this, too. She was part of her new family with Min and part of the Row Houses and part of Main Street and part of her small circle of friends. And now she was part of this bigger circle of girls.
    This bigger circle, she had mused, did not include Olivia. Was that all right? (This was one of those thoughts she did not yet care to put into words for Ruby.) She supposed so. After all, even best friends couldn’t stick together all the time. And in September, when Flora moved to the central school, she would be part of a much wider world. Why, she and Olivia might not even have any classes together. Still, she thought uncomfortably, Olivia had been her friend since the day she and Ruby had moved to Camden Falls and had helped to ease her into her new life.
    â€œFlora?” said Ruby.
    â€œJust thinking.”
    Ruby knew better than to ask what her sister was thinking about.
    Â 
    Across Camden Falls, in a house far out in the countryside, Nikki Sherman lay in her bed, Mae in deep sleep on the other side of the room. Nikki replayed the events of Tanya’s party, marveling at the very fact that she’d been invited to it. She had had a wonderful time. As she drifted off to sleep, she tried not to recall the look on Olivia’s face when Nikki and Flora had left her behind in the vegetable garden that afternoon.

“I’ll get it! I’ll get it!” cried Ruby the moment the telephone began to ring. She leaped to her feet and pounced on the phone,