Spell Check Read Online Free

forced her to quit. Highlighter fumes fouled the air.
    I clattered together a mountain of dusty CDs and slid them into a metal holder. Parvani winced at the scraping noise, so I switched to gathering up clothes. Hopefully, she didn’t notice the underwear from the discount department store nosedive when I threw the heap into the hamper. I shoved the tangle of belts into my white wicker hutch. A wallet-sized photo fell out through one of the cracks on the side. The handwritten caption on the back read: Jordan, Age six, First Grade. I turned it over and stared at his gap-toothed grin.
    Behind me, the highlighter screeched across the page. I stashed the picture under the belts, then cleared the floor and the spare bed, tossing most of the stuff in the closet. The phone rang in Mom’s room and the kitchen, its insistent buzz cut short after the second ring.
    Parvani was still reading, so I picked up my copy of Kiss and flipped to the article on the Goddess. Look inward and awaken your inner Goddess.
    “The editor from The Times is on the phone,” Mom said from the doorway.
    I gripped the magazine so tightly it crackled and bent. “Tell her I can’t talk right now.”
    “She wants to know if you’re ready to start taking photos again for the school section. There’s a game this weekend at Campo. What should I tell her?”
    “Tell her no. I’m not ready.”
    Mom ground her teeth. I knew what she wanted to say. I needed to get back on the horse. Or we needed the money, since Dad had never been able to get life insurance. Or I needed to move on, so she could, too.
    Well, I can’t.
    Parvani kept her head down and scribbled notes on binder paper. Mom sighed and left. I flipped back to the goddess article. Envision what you’d like to experience. Seeing Dad again? Making peace with Jordan? My heart tightened. Taking photos…?
    “Don’t you have one of the goths in your English class?” Parvani asked.
    I lowered the magazine. An image of a short girl, whose oversized black tee shirts hung on her thin frame, leapt to mind. “You mean Salem?”
    Parvani blinked twice.
    “It’s what everyone calls her since she crossed out ‘Remember The Alamo’ on Tommy Deitch’s notebook and scrawled ‘Remember Salem’.”
    “We need to text her. Where’s your Jefferson phone book?”
    Doing spells in the privacy of my own room was one thing, but texting a goth? My voice cracked. “I don’t even know her real name. She’s Sarah something.”
    Parvani stood and plucked a bright green booklet from the wreckage on top of my dresser. “We’ll find every Sarah in the ninth grade. You must have heard her last name when Mrs. Knapp called roll. We just need to jog your memory.”
    “I’d rather jog in a hurricane without my sweatshirt. Didn’t you hear? In the fifth grade, Salem put a hex on Britney Bauer, and Brit broke out in hives the next day.”
    Parvani lowered the directory. “Total coincidence.”
    “No it wasn’t. Even the Smash Heads are afraid of her. Why do we need to text her?”
    “We need lots of props to cast a spell, and I don’t know where to buy them.”
    Sheesh. Judging from the pentacles and other exotic stuff Salem wore, she would be the best person to ask.
    Parvani skipped through the pages of the school directory. “Sara Douglas?”
    I shook my head.
    “Sarah Grimes?”
    “No.”
    “Johansen? Mackenzie? Miller?”
    I drew in a quick breath. A shiver shimmied down my spine.
    Parvani’s stare bored into me. “Miller? She lives on Lucas. Is she just down the street?”
    I felt as though the warden had given me truth serum. Against my will, my head bobbed up and down.
    “Let’s go see if we can spot her,” Parvani suggested in her most reasonable, don’t-worry-this-won’t-hurt-a-bit voice.
    I glanced out the window. “Are you insane? It’s raining.”
    “Then text her.”
    I began to reconsider Parvani as my best friend.
    “Come on,” she pleaded. “Baby would love to go for a