Almost to Die For Read Free

thing since I first realized the depth of my suckage in the witch department. Maybe . . . maybe tonight at the big ritual, things might not be as horrible as I’d always thought they would.
    “Ms. Parker? Are you with us?”
    I blinked. Mr. Martinez stood in front of my desk, frowning at me. He was a very trim guy, and he always looked sharp in a pressed white shirt and dark slacks and tie. But the sour expression on his face ruined the whole slick look, honestly.
    “Uh,” I said as I noticed everyone in class staring at me. It must be my turn to read. I looked down at the page, but I had no idea where we were in the play.
    “Uh, line?” It was what you said when you forgot what you were supposed to say during a stage rehearsal. As I hoped, I got a few laughs from the veteran actors in class. Mr. Martinez, however, wasn’t one of them. In fact, he looked at me like I’d deeply wounded him and that I’d blown my chances for a letter of introduction to Juilliard. Not that I knew what I wanted to do with my life or anything.
    “Ana, I expected better of you. Could someone please cue our daydreaming Ms. Parker?”
    Hands shot up around the room. Sucking up to Mr. Martinez was a tried-and-true path to audition callbacks. He called on Taylor. Taylor was my best nonwitch friend. She was a gamer, big into theater, and an all-around nerd. In short, my kind of people. Plus, she had the most amusing crush on Mr. Martinez, whom everyone else in the entire class figured to be quite fabulously gay.
    She was so getting the lead in the next production.
    I, meanwhile, felt more and more like an idiot as the seconds ticked as I scanned the page for the line. Finally I found it and read it with a deep blush spreading across my face. I determined to pay better attention for the rest of the class.
     
     
    AFTER, THE THREE OF US girlfriends gathered to debrief about the day. Taylor couldn’t meet us for lunch because she had it a different period. So, to catch up on everything, we had a tradition of walking one another to our lockers and sharing news, tidbits, and general gossip. Since Bea’s was the closest, we always met there.
    “Where was your head during class, Ana? Mr. Martinez was right. You’re usually an A student,” Taylor said.
    Taylor was a first-generation Somali and wore her head covered in a sparkly lamé wrap. Her real name was something much more ethnic, but she insisted that everyone call her Taylor. Even though she kept her head covered, she didn’t go for the whole longflowy-dress thing. Instead, she wore jeans, a long-sleeved knit sweater, and cowboy boots. If you couldn’t already tell, Taylor was another outsider like us. Even though there were a ton of other Somali girls at school, Taylor was far too strange for them, with her love of graphic novels, video games, and all things geeky.
    “I don’t know.” I shrugged.
    Bea, meanwhile, had no comment, as her head was deep in her locker while she rummaged through her things, gathering up what she needed to take home.
    “Seriously, you seemed lost in there. Is everything okay? ” Taylor asked again.
    “I’ve got a big night tonight,” I said. “It’s my birthday.”
    “Oh, are you having a party?” Taylor asked, her voice carrying that you-didn’t-invite-me edge.
    “A party? I wish,” I said. “I have to do a . . .” Hmm, what to say here? We weren’t supposed to talk about witchy stuff, but I didn’t want to totally evade the question. That was far more suspicious. “A test?”
    “You don’t sound very sure about it,” Taylor noted. She looked more hurt, like she figured I had to be lying about the party and her invitation to it.
    “That’s because it’s more like a graduation,” Bea said blithely. “Ana and I are doing a ritual tonight. It’s a kind of initiation ceremony. It’s all hush-hush, though. Big magic stuff.”
    I stared at Bea. Well, okay, I guess that was one way to keep the secret. Telling the truth like it was no big