Rose Sees Red Read Online Free

weaved my way through the break-dancers and the huddles of other kids, and went over to join them.
    Callisto immediately offered me a clove cigarette from her fresh pack.
    “Want one?” she asked.
    “No,” I said. My lungs were already filled with a dark smoldering discontent. I had enough smoke inside of me.
    She shrugged and put one in her mouth and lit it up.
    I liked the smell of clove cigarettes and found I didn’t mind at all when Callisto blew the smoke right in my direction. It was a sweet smell, and its effect was calming, like incense. I leaned back against the wall and thought about Yrena’s smile and my mother’s warm hand and how nice it was to have someone to stand with that morning.
    Today is going to be a good day, I thought.
    “Are you staring at my earrings?” Callisto asked.
    Callisto was very New Wave. She had her hair cut to look a lot like Ziggy Stardust. I knew this because she wore a denim jacket with a picture of Ziggy on the back that she got some guy down in the Village to paint for her. She wore three silver earrings in her left ear but none in her right one.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, blushing. Because I had been staring—not in a disapproving way, just in a fixing-my-gaze-on-something-while-thinking-deeply way.
    “I always wanted to get a second hole, but my mom won’t let me,” I said.
    “Our mom cried when Callisto came home with those extra earrings,” Caitlin said. “She couldn’t believe the lady at the mall would shoot extra holes in someone’s ears without parental permission.”
    “She was worried that I looked too tough and would never be taken seriously as a concert violinist,” Callisto said.
    Caitlin, Callisto, and their triplet brother, Caleb, were all musicians, although Caleb was going to Performing Arts for drama, not music. He never stood with his sisters in the morning—in fact, I rarely saw him in front of the school. He had his own friends and they usually went to the parking lot across the street where the kids smoked who-knows-what.
    Caitlin had shoulder-length wavy hair and wore liquid eyeliner, Cleopatra-style. Callisto looked nothing like her. You’d never know that they were sisters, or even triplets, except I had noticed that sometimes all three of them moved their hands the same way.
    “Rose,” Callisto said. “Important question. Did you study for the geometry test?”
    “Not really,” I said. I’d actually forgotten all about math class.
    “Darn, me neither. I was hoping I could cheat off of you.”
    “Sorry.”
    I didn’t know if I was supposed to move away from them after they were done talking to me or if I was supposed to stay. They didn’t seem to mind me staying, so I stayed.
    “Any plans for Halloween, Rose?” Caitlin asked.
    “No plans,” I said.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Maurice and a bunch of other dance students stubbing out their cigarettes. They were all heading up to the locker room to change into their dance clothes because dance class was first period and they wanted to get there early to warm up.
    I knew I should be doing the same, but I never did. Mostly it was because I hated being in the locker room while all the other dancers were talking and having fun. I wore my dance clothes underneath my street clothes and always ran in to change at the last minute.
    That day, however, I didn’t go up early because I was hanging out with Callisto and Caitlin and they were talking to me and there was no way that I was going to leave that spot, not even if the Soviet Union sent a nuclear missile to destroy New York City.
    “Why are there no cute sophomore boys?” Callisto asked.
    “I wish Elliot Waldman would come over and talk to me,” Caitlin said. “He is such a dream.”
    I joined them in staring at Elliot Waldman and his friends, who were seniors, as they walked back toward the school from the parking lot across the street. Caleb and some other underclassmen were with them.
    “Elliot Waldman is the