Read Online Twice As Nice by Lin Oliver - Free Book Online Page B

anything. Charlie’s our friend. Jared and Sean, you messed up and have to take the consequences. I say we move on.”
    â€œAll in favor raise your hand,” Brooke said.
    â€œNo, Brooke! You missed the whole point,” Spencer said. “We don’t have to vote on this. You don’t vote on what’s the right thing to do. You just do it.”
    â€œListen to you,” Ben Feldman said. “The politician’s son. When are you running for city council, Ballard?”
    Everyone laughed, and suddenly, the tension broke. Jared and Sean went back to eating their sandwiches, Lauren passed me the yogurt, and before I knew it, everyone was talking about their plans for after school.
    Lily asked me if I wanted to help shop for stuff to decorate the hats for Bethany’s party. Lily’s mom was taking her to one of her favorite vintage stores.
    Lauren wanted to come along, too. And I was of course in.
    As everyone finished lunch, Lauren told us about how impressed the principal was when she said I would be part of the club. As I ate my yogurt, Spencer on one side of me and Lauren on the other, bragging her head off about me, I couldn’t believe how dramatically my life had suddenly improved. Everything I wanted was right there at that table. It was almost too good to be true.
    After lunch, I went to Ms. Carew’s fifth-period English. When I walked in, she smiled at me like we shared a secret, but never mentioned a word about what had happened at Truth Tellers the day before. Her quote of the day, which she always writes on the blackboard before class, was from a French writer named Pamela Kline.
    How I feel about myself is more important than how I look. Feeling confident, being comfortable in your own skin—that’s what really makes you beautiful
.
    I had a feeling Ms. Carew had picked that quote especially for Sara. I glanced over at Sara, and she was writing it down in her black-and-white speckled notebook. Her hair was especially poufy and the curls bobbed up and down as she scribbled. It’s weird, I thought, how no one but the Truth Tellers, and me, knew what was hiding under her hair. I was among the few people in the whole world who understood why that quote meant so much to her. I wasn’t sure I wanted that information, but like it or not, I had it.

    As soon as school let out, Lily’s mom was waiting for us in a beautiful navy-blue convertible.
    â€œYou guys want the top down?” she asked as we climbed in.
    â€œDuh,” Lily said.
    Her mom laughed, pushed a button, and within seconds, the top lifted off, folded up, and tucked itself into the trunk. As we drove off, I saw Sammie walking with Alicia and Sara. I waved, but only Alicia waved back. Sammie pretended not to see me.
    But I didn’t give Sammie a second thought as we cruised down Pacific Coast Highway, our hair blowing in our faces and the radio blaring. The only thing that kept going through my head was:
Could this day get any better?
    Believe it or not, it did.
    Lily’s mom, who designs swimsuits—or as she calls it, swimwear—took us to
Yesterday’s Treasures,
her favorite vintage store in Venice, which is this funky area a couple miles down the beach from the club. The shelves were piled up to the ceiling with old clothes and flower vases and swatches of fabric and jewelry and buttons and weird sunglasses and anything else you could think of.
    â€œThis place is a treasure trove,” she said. “Dig in, girls, and see what you can find.”
    Lily instructed us to look for old hats and interesting things she could use to decorate them with. I found a white sea captain’s hat buried under a pile of moldy magazines, and a crazy-looking orange straw hat with a purple brim. I even pulled out a construction worker’s bright-yellow hard hat. Lauren unearthed a glamorous little black velvet hat that had a lace veil in the front and a well-used Detroit Tigers