The Other Half of My Heart Read Online Free Page B

she’ll hand-deliver them to the Black Pearls office.”
    “Oh,” Minni said.
    “Yeah!” Keira printed a copy for each of them. “Maybe the old lady’s not so bad after all.”
    Mama’s lips turned down at the corners but she didn’t say anything. Keira picked up the papers from the printer and handed one set to Minni and one to Mama. “What else does it say?”
    “Let’s go to the table and work on it together,” Mama said. “Bring some extra paper to write out your answers and then you can copy them onto the application.”
    Minni got the extra paper while Keira picked through her pencil holder, obviously searching for the perfect writing implement. She pulled out her purple gel pen.
    Minni grabbed a chewed-up, blue ballpoint and followed Keira and Mama to the dining room. Daddy was sitting in the living room watching his favorite TV program—a reality show about fishermen braving the dangers of life aboard a boat in the Arctic Ocean.
    At the table, Minni stared at the application. She couldn’t believe she was actually going through with this. She glanced at Daddy, sprawled in the comfy leather chair with his feet on the ottoman. A deal was a deal.
    She read the words across the top of the page: “Miss Black Pearl Preteen National Achievement Program.” She knew that firstborns were supposed to be the achievers, and she had won a few things—Student of the Month, the spelling bee, that state award for her poem.
    But Keira…Keira was
driven
to succeed. Every time she got another gold medal at a gymnastics competition, or when she sold the most cookies of any Girl Scout in all five states of their region, or when she entered the national fashion design contest and won honorable mention, Minni was convinced all over again that Keira was supposed to have come out first.
    She forced herself to look beyond the name of the contest to the information they wanted. Name, address, e-mail, birthday, grade level, school, parents’ names. Basic stuff. She supposed she could fill out that much.
    She wrote in her first name—Minni, not Minerva, of course. Then middle—she wrote the whole thing because she liked it okay, even if Eddie Moldanado had found out it was Lunette and told all the boys to call her Minni Lunatic. And finally, her last name, which she wrote in all capitalletters because it was the best part of her name—being the same as Dr. King’s—and because it just seemed to want to be written big and bold like that: KING.
    She filled in her address, 1907 Bluff Drive, Port Townsend, Washington, then her e-mail address—[email protected]—and their birthday, June 23. Sixth grade. Crawford Elementary. Gordon and Lizette King.
    Her eyes dropped to the next line. Grade average. Her heart thumped a little harder. The application only listed four options—and they weren’t A, B, C, and D. They were A+, A, B+, B. The instructions said to circle one.
    What was someone like Keira supposed to do?
    It reminded Minni of the form she’d filled out when she tested for the Hi-Cap—or “high capability”—program this spring. The form listed six options for race and told her to choose one. Should she choose black or white? “Other” was an option, but she wasn’t “other.” She was black
and
white. She’d skipped it.
    When she’d turned in the form, the woman said, “You missed one,” and pointed to the race question.
    “I didn’t know what to put,” Minni said.
    The woman glanced at her, then marked “White.”
    “But I’m not just white,” Minni said, suddenly hot and flustered.
    “It doesn’t really matter. It’s just government stuff.” The woman’s voice turned bright and cheery. “Now, ready for the test?”
    Minni focused again on the Miss Black Pearl application and the four grade options listed. She looked to where Keiraand Mama sat side by side. Keira was still on their school name.
    “Mama,” she said.
    Mama looked up.
    Minni turned the application and pointed to the