Also Known As Harper Read Free Page A

sorry and we could be best friends again. But it didn’t seem to work that way when you were trying to apologize for someone else. For something someone else had done.
    I stood up. “Your mama could drive you and pick you up herself.”
    â€œNot a chance.” She pressed her lips together hard.
    I nodded and breathed out a long breath of air. Sarah Lynn’s mama had never gotten over the time Daddy gave Sarah Lynn a ride home from our house. Mama was at work, and Daddy had been refilling his coffee cup all afternoon. By the time he went to drive Sarah Lynn home, he’d emptied a good three-quarters of his whiskey bottle.
    When he’d tried to back out of Sarah Lynn’s driveway, he’d plowed over the better portion of Mrs. Newhart’s cutting garden and sent their garbage cans skidding into the neighbor’s driveway across the street. Afterward, Daddy had had trouble making his eyes focus right and didn’t seem to care one way or the other about all the yelling Mrs. Newhart was doing. She’d called Mama at work and really let her have it. Mrs. Newhart said you could smell the whiskey in the air a good ten-foot circle around him.
    I made my face like I didn’t care. “Maybe Mrs. Rodriguez will give us some time in class today.” I swung my backpack over my shoulder and went to get in line on the four-square court.
    I planted my feet along a thick painted edge of a square and tried to push Daddy out of my brain.Once his whiskey smell had gotten in somewhere, it took some doing to air it out.
    Sarah Lynn nudged her way behind me and bumped up against the books on my back. Her long sleeves swished against the canvas of my bag as she bent over to tie her shoe.
    I looked down at her. “Could you take a couple of steps back, please?” I pointed behind me. “You’re going to squash my lunch.”
    I liked Sarah Lynn and I wanted to be more than just school friends, but sometimes she just plain annoyed me. I wanted to be the kind of friends that had sleepovers and rode their bikes in each other’s driveways. There wasn’t anything so special about the flowers in her mama’s cutting garden, anyway. And I’d taken a million whiskey drives with Daddy. I was an expert at it. I’d taught Sarah Lynn how to get a good knuckle grip on the seat so you wouldn’t slide around too much in back.
    Winnie Rae stepped out of line a few people ahead of me and turned around so she could get a good nosy stare going. “My mama said you shouldn’t have ripped that sign down.” Her yellow T-shirt rode up in the front, and I could see a white stripe of skin trying to fold itself over the waist of her jeans. “Shedoesn’t have time to be putting those things back up. She’s too busy running the motel.”
    I rolled my eyes and nudged Sarah Lynn in the leg, softly, with my heel. “Winnie Rae wants us to think that her mama’s a front-desk hostess, taking people’s reservations and such.”
    Sarah Lynn raised one eyebrow and looked in Winnie Rae’s direction.
    I made my voice a little louder, so it carried up the line. “But anyone at all knows the truth, Sarah Lynn.”
    Sarah Lynn gave a good evil eye to Winnie Rae for me.
    â€œShe might be a landlord.” I added a good evil eye of my own. “But she’s just a housekeeper. Same as my mama.” The bell was going to ring any second, so I had to move fast. I had a lot more words trying to spill out of my mouth at Winnie Rae.
    â€œAnd another thing you should know, Sarah Lynn.” I stepped out of line myself, so Winnie Rae would be sure to hear me. “My mama does laundry and floors and such in people’s houses, but I know Mrs. Early to be more of a toilet-and-bathtub cleaner.”
    Right when I was getting up some nice momentum, the bell rang and I had to get back in line. Whichwas probably a good thing, because Winnie Rae was looking