Real by Carol Cujec (snow like ashes .txt) 📕

my day was usually the welcome table at lunch, which now included Grace and Stuart. But today, even there I felt alone.

I watched Stuart help Grace with a math problem and listened to her tease him about his taste in music.

Does he like her? Of course. Why wouldn’t he?

My brain flashed to the field trip. We held hands for thirteen minutes. Was it a dream? Was he just too polite to pull away?

Fact: No boy would want to hang out with me.

The cafeteria was strung with turquoise and lavender streamers for the “Boogie Fever” spring dance. Jaz was already in complaint mode.

“Can you believe the money they blow on these stupid dances? I mean, do they really need a giant mirror ball in the middle of the cafeteria? Didn’t they get the memo that disco is dead?”

Grace used her napkin to wipe a drop of sauce from Jazmine’s check. “Lighten up, girl. I bet you can rock those disco moves in your turbo-powered chair.”

Why did Grace have to be so sweet? She was making it tough for me to be annoyed with her.

“Everyone’s going, right?” Grace asked.

Her question was answered with silence. Peter squinted at her as if she was kooky. Julian seemed to ponder the possibility.

Grace put her hands on her hips. “C’mon, guys. It’s fun. You know what fun is, don’t you?”

“I know what it is!” Skyler said, raising her hand.

Jaz rolled her eyes. “You’re talking to the wrong crowd, Gracie. We would be clay pigeons for junior high target practice.”

“Not if we all band together,” Grace said, licking pizza sauce off her finger. “We can have a buddy system.”

Oh no—who will she pick for her buddy?

“Peter, how about you be my buddy?” asked Grace.

I was floored, and so was Peter. His eyes got wide and he shook his head.

“No way! Fridays, I get to play Minecraft. I’m not wasting my game time on some stupid dance. No way!”

“O-kay.” Grace scanned the table again.

Please do not say Stuart.

“Julian, you in?”

Julian typed a response, short and sweet and hit play. “In.”

Grace smiled big. “Skyler, how about you?”

“I’ll ask my mom and dad. Maybe they will let me come and dance.” Skyler bounced up and down in her seat excitedly. She did not see the potential for disaster.

Mason was the next person to surprise everyone. “Jaz, I guess we should be buddies. I need someone to protect me from all those cheerleaders. I hear you’re a pro at that.”

The whole table burst out laughing.

The next few seconds of silence seemed to last hours. Peter slurped the last drops of chocolate milk through his straw. Stuart stared down at the table, chewing his pizza, not noticing Grace’s burning stare. Finally, an elbow to his arm made him swallow hard and look at me. “Charity, I guess we could be buddies.”

He did not sound too thrilled about it. I must have been delusional to think he had one nanogram of interest in me.

“Here, Charity, I got your voice here.” Mason pulled out the keyboard so I could type.

Sounds like fun.

“Fun? Is that the word you wanted?” Mason asked. “Are you sure you don’t mean torture? Sounds like torture? Yes, I think that’s what Charity is trying to say.”

Everyone laughed again.

“I think I’m with the right buddy,” Jaz said.

“We’ll stick together,” Grace said. “Safety in numbers, you know—and have a blast dancing and being silly. Sound cool?”

Mason, who was now finishing Jazmine’s second piece of pizza, mumbled, “As long as there’s food, I’m ready to endure the torture.”

He held up his hand for a fist bump and Jaz returned it.

What had Grace gotten us into?

Disco Drama Queen

“I think I got a case of boogie fever.” Dad pointed his fingers in the air and shook his hips in the school hallway, determined to embarrass me before I set foot in my first-ever school dance.

I persuaded Mom to stay home because I thought that Dad would be a little cooler about the whole “first dance” thing.

I was wrong.

“C’mon, Cherry Girl. Let’s get our feet moving in the right direction—I hear them playing our song.”

I was not planning on moving yet. We had all agreed to meet at the gym entrance, and I did not want to go anywhere without the rest of the clay pigeons, as Jaz called us.

Jaz whizzed down the hall, wearing a tiara and blue sparkly shirt.

“Now there’s someone with boogie fever,” Dad said.

“Well, as a member of the Princess Court, I have a certain standard to uphold,” Jaz said.

Dad gave her a high five.

Grace came next, wearing a shiny silver dress with white boots that came up to her knee. “Right on, girls, you look fabulous. Jaz, you totally rock, and Charity, you’re gorgeous.”

I did not want to go overboard with the costume and make myself stand out any more than I normally do. I chose new jeans with violets painted all the way down the leg. Mom brushed my hair loose around my shoulders, and I picked out a purple headband. A little eye shadow and lip gloss, and I looked almost as cool as those girls in teen magazines.

“Get ready to get down,” Grace said, bending her knees and moving her hips to the music booming inside the gym.

Within a few minutes our little group had assembled. Mason had slicked-back hair and was wearing star-shaped sunglasses. Julian wore a cool cowboy hat perched on his fuzzy afro.

Skyler, in a pretty tangerine party dress, sashayed down the hall with her dad, who was wearing his white navy uniform.

“You guys definitely win cutest couple,” Grace said.

Her dad shook everyone’s hand. “I never would have thought to take her, but when she said her friends wanted her to come . . .” He tapped his fist to his heart. “Well, we couldn’t miss that, could we, honey?”

“Yes, we love to dance!” Skyler bounced, and her lacy dress floated up and down like a jellyfish.

We all stood there for what seemed like googolplex minutes waiting for the one missing person: Stuart.

Finally, Mason broke down.