Read Online The Tiara on the Terrace by Kristen Kittscher - Free Book Online Page A

beating birds’ wings.
    The sun glinting on the bell of a trumpet blinded me as the heralds sounded out another blast. “Hear ye, hear ye, Faithful!” Harrison Lee cried out the coronation announcement. It sounded so silly, but it was part of the tradition. “All rise to welcome the new reigning Sun Queen of our Anniversary Festival Royal Court.”
    Kendra’s gummy dental-office smile could not have been brighter or wider. She’d practically stood up from her chair already.
    â€œJardine Thomas!” Lee finished.
    Kendra’s smile froze and her eyes went wide as Jardine Thomas hopped up and rode the roar of the crowd over to the podium, chin leading the way. “Jar- di !” someone hootedas some of the older Luna Vistans stiffened and shifted in their seats. Even with the camera’s close-up magnifying Jardine’s every feature, her flat-ironed hair and dark-brown skin looked perfect. Behind her, Kendra and the losing finalists beamed and clapped so hard their hands must’ve stung.
    Lund tossed her balled-up program to the grass as last year’s Sun Queen balanced the royal tiara on Jardine’s head. The band burst into a slowed down version of “We Are Family,” that 1970s song Grandpa Young hummed as a joke at the dinner table sometimes. Silver and gold confetti filled the air, shimmering in the sun as people poured into the center aisle.
    As I filed out of my row, Grace pushed her way through the crowd, her gaze dark and urgent. My mouth went dry.
    She threw her arm around me and leaned in. “We’re looking at a cover-up,” she whispered. “A royal one. And you know what that calls for, don’t you?”
    My stomach lurched as she answered for me.
    â€œThat’s right, Soph.” Grace squeezed my shoulder, eyes gleaming. “Undercover royals.”

Chapter Eight
The Beach Ball
    â€œT here’s no way the police are going to risk leaving a killer at large,” I told Grace when she repeated her police cover-up theory to me that evening in the mansion kitchen. Weeks ago we’d signed up to be servers at the “Beach Ball,” the gala dinner celebrating the new Court. Behind us cooks bustled around the sizzling stove. Clattering dishes mixed with the faint sounds of piano drifting in from the ballroom.
    â€œThis is the Festival, Soph. You heard what Lee said about the press,” she whispered, her eyes darting nervously to the other middle-school Beach Ball servers hustling in to change into their white waiter jackets. “If this got out, it’d be a disaster for Luna Vista’s reputation. First we harbor a fugitive, now a murderer?” She shook her head. “The Winter Sun Festival was supposed to make everyone forget aboutthe Tilmore Eight fugitive. What if they—”
    â€œListen,” I interrupted, tugging her closer. “The police investigated. It was an accident. Case closed.” I wasn’t sure I believed it, but I was desperate to shut down her royal page plan. “C’mon. Tonight’s supposed to be fun!”
    A week earlier when Grace and I had found out that we’d snagged one of the Beach Ball’s few volunteer waiter slots, we’d been so excited we’d pretty much thrown our own ball. Well, a spontaneous dance party, actually—even if it had come crashing to a halt when Jake had walked in to borrow my three-hole punch. Grace had been so embarrassed that Jake had caught her shaking her butt in the air, she hid in my bathroom for a full ten minutes before I managed to coax her back onto the “dance floor.” I wished it were as easy to get her to lighten up for the actual Ball.
    â€œBesides . . .” I pulled a waiter jacket from a hook and slipped it on. “Everyone is on high alert. I heard some parents are freaking out so much about safety they’re going to make their kids wear helmets in the float barn. Somebody else is all over