Little Divas Read Online Free

red
C,
across the top of one of Uncle Lance’s old boot boxes. Mary buys us peach Jolly Ranchers, watermelon Hubba Bubba, Wet ‘n’ Wild glitter fingernail polish (and remover to erase the evidence),
Teen Vogue, Seventeen,
and
YM
magazines, playing cards, and grape Lip Smackers to store inside our Contraband container. We keep the box hidden behind the washing machine. Rikki is smart. She and Mary do all the laundry, so how will Aunt Honey ever find it?
    Rikki and I sat facing each other with our legs folded, and she pulled out our sixth-grade class photo. Darwin Mack, Sam Woods, and Travis Jones were in the last row on the end, and all three of them had their arms folded across their chests, with their chins lifted in a what’s-up expression.
    Rikki touched Darwin’s face and said, “Me and Darwin are gonna get married someday. Watch.”
    I sighed. “Well, I hope Travis isn’t at the wedding. Because if he is—”
    “We won’t invite him,” Rikki easily agreed, tossing the picture back in the box and pulling out a deck of cards to begin a game of solitaire.
    A few months ago at the end-of-year sixth-grade carnival, I’d decided that I never again in life wanted to see or speak with Travis Jones. One of our classmates, Lane Benson, had been proclaiming all year that I was stuck-up. The day of the carnival, she said that if I wasn’t, I had to prove it, and according to her, the only way I could do that was to kiss a boy. She picked Travis Jones.
    A small crowd had gathered, including Travis, and I’d never felt so alone. Only students who hadn’t gotten into any trouble during fourth quarter, no detentions or anything, were allowed to come to the carnival, so Rikki wasn’t there. She isn’t afraid to tell
anyone
how she feels, and grown-ups are no exception, but you get detention for talking back to teachers, so Rikki almost always has to stay after school. If Rikki were at the carnival, she
never
would have let Lane Benson terrorize me like that.
    No matter if Rikki and me get along or not, we’re cousins first, and defending each other to outsiders is what being family is all about.
    I tried to imagine what curse words Rikki would have used, but usually, whenever I try them, they come out sounding corny. At least that’s what Rikki always says. So I didn’t dare try. The only thing worse than feeling stupid is actually
sounding
like you are.
    With every breath that I tried taking, my heart pounded harder. My palms were so moist that I was losing my grip on the plastic bag containing the goldfish I’d won. Already I’d named him Goldie.
    Shantal Henry, who had also won a goldfish and had been standing beside me, was inching away now, trying to blend into the blur of the crowd. I should’ve never bothered to go to that stupid carnival in the first place, at least not without Rikki, and definitely not with Shantal.
    I swallowed hard,
real
hard, and looked around. One, two, three… Altogether there were eight of my classmates watching, waiting to see if I was going to faint or take the challenge.
    Lane folded her arms across her chest, twisted her lips, and declared that I had to kiss Travis Jones, a short, ashy, brown-skinned boy with freckles. If I didn’t, she was going to call me stuck-up every time she saw me for the rest of our lives.
    There was no way, I mean
no no no
way, that I was going to waste my first kiss on Travis Jones. Lane Benson and the rest of her training bra crew could kiss all the boys in the entire school if they wanted, for all I cared. I had more important things to do.
    At a school assembly a few months before, a skinny, stern-looking old woman from Tomorrow’s Achievers had spoken to us about goals and dreams. Most of it was boring stuff we’d already heard from our parents and teachers, so I didn’t perk up until I heard her say the words “in conclusion.”
    “As you continue on into your teenage years,” she said, “as you go off next school year to junior high