Never Throw Boloney by EJ Patterson (red queen ebook .TXT) 📕

mind.” I told her about Charlotte sitting with Penelope on the bus and our fight and the fight I had with Penelope. I told her about Dawn and how I was so happy to have another friend to talk to. By the time I finished talking, I was out of breath and my eyes were stinging again. My mom hugged me and didn’t talk for a few minutes. After awhile she said, “So this girl, Penelope, is pretty mean, huh?” I looked at her. “She told me I was dumb and ugly.” I said. “That isn’t very nice.” “Well,” my mom said. “Think about what you said to Penelope.” I thought. “Well, I called her dumb and ugly too, I guess.” I felt defeated… and a bit ashamed.
“And what about Charlotte. You weren’t very nice to her, either,” My mom said. “But she wasn’t nice to me!” I started getting angry again. “Honey,” my mom said, “calm down. Now all I’m going to say is that if Charlotte really is your best friend she will come back. And, if you are her best friend, you could be the bigger person and apologize first.” My mom left to stir the stew she was making. I thought about what she said, and decided that I’d wait a day before apologizing. I mean, I’m not little Miss Perfect.
I never told my mom about the note.

****

I had a strange dream last night. I was walking with Charlotte and Meryl with my ‘Do the right thing’ tee-shirt on. Suddenly a huge hole opened right under me and I fell. As I was falling I heard, as if in the distance, Charlotte prefers people with beauty and brains before people like…well…you...I know all your secrets…you ignorant selfish toad…warthog…you better watch out... more words came, louder and nastier until they sounded more and more like a scream. Finally I hit something solid. I realized I was sitting on a desk in school! I looked at the room number. 212! I was in room 212, the room I have to go to in April! I was so surprised I laughed. Bad idea. The sound of my voice triggered something. Whispers filled the room and faces appeared on the walls. My body went rigid. My blood curdled. My heart was beating fast against my chest. I thought I was having a heart attack. My lips and nose were numb. My knees buckled. My hands and feet were starting to freeze, they would surely fall off. My breath came in and out sharply, if I could get any breath at all. I was having a muscle spasm, or probably worse. My teeth were chattering. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I was dying, defiantly dying. I thought all was lost.... then a voice filled the room. “Fight it, Madeline. Fight it like you fought me.” It was Charlotte’s voice! “I can fight it! I can!” Warmth filled my body, and feeling came back to my nose and lips. My legs started to regain feeling. Another voice filled my ears. “She’s mine now, Madeline. She likes me better. You will be alone and friendless, like how it should be.” “No! That’s not true! You’re lying!” Penelope had to be lying…right? “You will be all alone… you and that idiot Dawn. You guys are perfect for each other. Both pathetic losers with no lives, which means… your life isn’t even worth living.” Realization dawned on me. She’s right. I have no life without Charlotte standing next to me.” Suddenly, as if it a bull whip was slashed through my back, I remembered. This is a dream. It’s not real. I started to smile, but it soon faded as a new thought popped into my head. But if I don’t apologize to Charlotte, this could happen. Before I knew it I was sitting up in bed, the comforter on the ground and my hand clutching the photo of me and Charlotte during the summer of 2007, before Penelope flew in from California.

****

“Charlotte! Hey, Char!” I was in the library attempting to find Charlotte. I was successful, but she walked right past me without even blinking. “Come on, Charlotte! You can’t ignore me forever!” “Oh yes I can!” I heard her call in the distance. I ran up to catch her. I grabbed her arm. “Ha! Can’t escape now, can you?” I said. “Maddie! Let go of me!” she said angrily. But then she laughed. At the same time we said, (or yelled,) “I’m Sorry!” “I’m sorry I called you a greedy backstabbing warthog! It’s a really lame thing to say!” I said. “And I’m sorry I called you an ignorant selfish jerk! That is pretty lame too!” We did a hug spasm-thing. “Hey!” I said. Now that Charlotte and I were friends again, I wanted to introduce her to Dawn. “What?” She said nervously. “Do you want to go to the mall with me and a new friend of mine on Saturday?” she looked at me. “You made a friend? Who?” “Dawn Kalahassi.” “O.K! To tell you the truth, I’ve been kinda lonely,” She said. Her cheeks flushed. “Great! So I’ll see ya tomorrow at 12:00.” I said happily. She smiled, and then flounced away.
I now had two friends, and I didn’t even think about the note once.
***

“Wow! This is so cute!” We were in “Girl 101”, one of my favorite stores. Dawn was holding up a lavender shirt with a small yellow butterfly in the corner. “You should buy it! How much is it?” Her face fell. “It’s a whopping thirty bucks.” She said. “All I have is fifteen bucks.” She hung the shirt back up. “You guys? I think this store is a little too pricy for our budget,” Charlotte said. “Let’s go to Jeanie.”
Jeanie is a store where they sell jeans and jean jackets. You can draw on them, rip them, and bedazzle them. You can even sew other fabric and materials on them for an extra two dollars. “I’m going to rip my jeans to shreds,” Charlotte said as walked to Jeanie. “I’m going to draw hearts on the jean jacket I buy.” Dawn said. “Well, one thing’s for sure,” I said. “We cannot get smelly jeans or jackets!” The one problem with Jeanie is that all their jeans and jean jackets are donated to the store. The store cleans them as well as they can, but the smell is like a ghost…it follows you.


“Ok, girls, are you going to bedazzle, rip, color, or for an extra two dollars, sew a different fabric on your jeans?” We were finally in Jeanie, and the sales lady with the nose ring was looking at us with great disgust. “Rip!” said Charlotte” Color!” said Dawn. “Color and rip!” I said enthusiastically. We laughed. The sales lady rolled her eyes. She led us to the long tables towards the back of the store. “This is where you do it.” The sales lady said in a monotone. “Don’t make a mess,” She grouched. “You don’t have to clean it up, I do.” She sauntered back to the counter. We sat down on the worn plastic chairs. “You better watch out,” I said to Charlotte and Dawn. “I think that lady is going to explode!” We all looked at the saleslady, who was putting on lip-gloss, and giggled. “Where should I rip my jeans?” Charlotte asked. I turned to face her. “Not on your thigh. I hate it when celebrities rip their jeans near their thigh. It’s nasty,” I said. Dawn nodded. “Yeah, I hate that too. It makes that person look like a Lindsey Lohan wannaby.” We giggled again. “Yeah, I-“ Charlotte stopped short. “Look at the grouchy saleslady!” We all turned our heads in unison. We all burst out laughing. We couldn’t stop. People turned their heads and one couple even left the shop. That had to be the best trip to the mall ever. Especially when the grouchy saleslady is a Lindsey Lohan Wannaby with toilet paper stuck to the bottom of their high tops.

CHAPTER 4
I love Christmas time. All the caroling and lights and cookies and turkey and Santa and cookies. And cookies. Even though I’m thirteen and should not believe in Santa Claus, I still have a tiny shred of hope that he is real. I’ve always wanted to prove to my family, (and Todd,) that my ranting and raving about seeing Santa is true. I was in first grade and it was Christmas Eve. My dad just screamed at Todd for eating all the Christmas cookies we left out for Santa. I should have already been in bed, but I was too excited to sleep. I heard Todd whine his way back to his room. I think I fell asleep for an hour or so because when I woke up it was dark and I heard my dad snoring loudly. I was about to doze back to sleep when I heard a thump downstairs. I swiftly put on my robe and tip-toed downstairs. My arm brushed against the side of our Christmas tree and I winced. I kept walking, hoping that my intruder didn’t hear me. I looked around the side of the tree and sucked in my breath.
A big shadow on the wall gently petting Sunny, whom we had just gotten a week ago. I quickly tip-toed back up the stairs and into my room. To this day I’m not sure if that was a dream or real. I’ve been trying to convince myself that it was true. But my hope has been fading. After leaning the truth about the Tooth Fairy, and yelling, ‘so my whole life has been a lie’ when I was ten, my faith has shattered. But Santa has always been there for me. So today, when my Grandma and Grandpa came over I almost mentioned my Santa story. But instead I started think about the note for a while. The guilty look on Charlotte’s face and the smirk on Penelope’s. I’ve been wondering if Charlotte and Penelope sent the note. I reread the note multiple times, each time my heart would race and the knot in my stomach would tighten. I knew that April was months away, but already the butterflies were starting. I knew I had to tell someone…but who? My mom? No…she would call the school and start a whole