Wanting Sheila Dead Read Online Free

enough corners, so that Coraline could see the entrance doors to the building. The entire idea of a ballroom made her nervous. It wouldn’t be the kind of ballroom Cinderella had danced in. It would be the kind that Jane Fonda had danced in, in that movie Coraline had seen at her friend Miranda’s house one afternoon when Miranda had broken up with Keith again. Miranda broke up with Keith a lot. Coraline had been with her own boyfriend since their freshman year in high school, and she expected to get engaged to him as soon as they got off to college. Or, rather, as soon as Miranda got off to college, to Liberty University, to get her teaching degree. Michael was talking about joining up with the Marines.
    Coraline had an umbrella. It wasn’t a very good one, and it had cost nearly twenty dollars, but she had needed to buy it off one of those street stands with the newspapers. She hadn’t expected the rain. She hadn’t expected the crowd of girls. She had almost been late, and she wondered if that was because she didn’t really want to be here at all.
    â€œOh, thank
God,
” the girl next to her said. The girl was very short and she had a lot of rings on. She also had tattoos. There was a big green and black snake down the side of her neck. Where Coraline came from, girls only got tattoos when they were . . . when they were . . . well—not right with the Lord. That might be the best way to put it.
    The girl with the tattoos had an umbrella, too. If she hadn’t had one, Coraline would have offered to share her own. People she didn’t understand made Coraline very nervous, but she knew there was only one way to bring souls to Heaven, and that was to be as good a Christian as possible in your everyday life. Coraline didn’t think she was an especially good Christian—she could think the most awful things about people; she had to work like the dickens to make sure she didn’t say them out loud—but she could try, and trying was something she was good at.
    â€œWe are actually moving,” the girl with the tattoos said.
    Coraline realized that the girl was actually talking to another girl, who was standing beside her. This other girl was also very short, and did not seem to have brought her own umbrella.
    The girl with the tattoos turned to Coraline. “Hey,” she said. “I’m Linda Kowalski.”
    â€œHello,” Coraline said, and suddenly she could just hear her own accent, like a joke on a television show. “I’m Coraline Mays from Southport, Alabama.”
    â€œWell, you sound like you’re from Alabama,” the other girl said, the one without the tattoo. “I’m Shari Bernstein. I’m from Scarsdale.”
    â€œIt’s a town in New York,” Linda Kowalski said. “You can’t just do that. You can’t just assume that everybody is going to know where Scarsdale it.”
    â€œEverybody
does
know where Scarsdale is,” Shari said.
    â€œI’m about ready to pop,” Linda said. “I can’t believe they left us standing out here in the rain. And I’ve got a million rosaries on me, and I’ll bet all of them are wet.”
    â€œYou didn’t look to me like the kind of person who would be carrying around rosaries,” Shari said.
    â€œMy mother gave them to me,” Linda said. “She wants me to win. But it’s no big deal. I mean, it’s not like you can’t have a tattoo here and there, and still be a good Catholic. I don’t have tattoos of the devil or anything. It’s just a snake.”
    â€œIt’s a snake the size of a swimming pool,” Shari said. “And I’ll bet you got it some night when you were out drinking. I make it a point only to drink when I’m safe in my own home. When I go out, I stick to one rum and Coke, or a glass of wine. You never know what’s going to happen to you when you go