Caught in the Web Read Free

was just like the night before when she’d been thinking about eating dessert and Mom gave her chocolate cake.
    “Hey, Finnster,” Hart said, sliding into a seat in the front row. His hand grazed her shoulder accidentally as he walked by.
    She felt her face get all red, so she tried to focus all of her energy onto a poster of Barcelona, Spain, that was hanging directly ahead of her on Señora Diaz’s wall. It said PARADISE. She stared at the words until they got fuzzy.
    Fiona whispered from behind. “Hey, Maddie, did you see that Web contest on TweenBlurt?”
    Madison turned around. “Uh-huh. I’m gonna do it,” Madison mumbled. She was happier than happy to get her mind off Hart. “Are you?”
    Fiona shook her head.
    “What are we talking about?” Aimee asked from one row over. “Are we talking about the dance?”
    “No, we’re talking about an Internet contest,” Fiona said. “On TweenBlurt.”
    Out of the corner of her eye, Madison tried to watch Hart and talk to her friends at the same time, but it wasn’t working so well. Hart was turned halfway toward them, wearing a jewel-green shirt that made his eyes sparkle. She still had a ghost of a feeling where his hand had brushed her arm.
    “Earth to Maddie,” Fiona joked.
    “Oh. Sorry.” Madison snapped back to the conversation. “TweenBlurt. Yeah, the Web site, Aimee, where you can go online and chat. You know.”
    “I know that, Maddie.” Aimee chuckled. “But I’m pretty much clueless about online chatting.” Madison didn’t understand how Aimee’s dad could have a cybercafé in his bookstore, while Aimee still hadn’t gotten her own screen name.
    “But you are the queen of chatting, Aimee,” Madison teased. “Just not on the computer.”
    “Which is why you just have to sign up!” Fiona commanded. “Then the three of us can meet up on TweenBlurt and talk. You can get your own screen name. It’ll be the best, Aimee.”
    Fiona explained how she and her brother, Chet, had twin screen names. She was Wetwinz with a z, and her brother Chet was Wetwins with an s. Aimee agreed that was pretty inventive.
    The classroom began to fill up slowly. Madison counted sixteen volunteers. Even Egg and his good buddy Drew were there.
    Señora Diaz charged in behind students. “Hola, estudiantes!” she proclaimed, a little out of breath. “Cómo están? Tienen ganas de que llegue el baile?”
    Most kids didn’t have a clue about what was said since they were in basic Mandarin, not Spanish. But Egg tried to help. “She wants to know if we’re excited about the dance,” he explained.
    If anyone could translate Señora Diaz, Egg could. Señora Diaz was his real-life mother.
    “Thank you for your help, Walter,” Señora said sweetly, as if she were pinching his cheek. Egg muttered something under his breath. Madison knew he hated it when Señora called him by his real first name like that. Mothers who were teachers were way more embarrassing than plain old ordinary mothers.
    “Señora Diaz.” Aimee’s hand was up in the air. “Are we supposed to wear costumes to this dance?”
    A kid in a blue jacket sitting near the door asked, “Do we have to pay?”
    “Is there going to be stuff to eat?”
    “Will there be a live band?”
    “Settle down, everyone.” Señora inhaled deeply and scratched her head with her pen. “Let’s go slowly. Estámos preocupados, no? Lots of ground to cover.”
    A couple of kids groaned. Egg leaned across a desk and whispered, “What are you going to the dance as, Maddie? A dork?”
    “Quit it,” Madison growled.
    “Silencio!” Señora said as she handed a piece of paper to someone in the front row. “Please pass this sheet around and sign up your names and homeroom and phone number. This is our committee contact sheet.”
    They would be splitting up into task teams for whatever needed to get done. Seventh graders had all the grunt work of the dance. Eighth and ninth graders just had to show up.
    “Are we doing