Girls Only! Read Free Page A

heart breaking all over again. Whatever happens to my skating dreams, even if I have to give it all up, I can’t let you go to Colorado. Not without me!

Dreams on Ice
    Chapter Four
    It was a cloudy Saturday. Just two more days before doors opened at Alpine Lake Middle School. The only middle school in town.
    Big whoop .
    Ordinarily, Livvy would be practicing her routines on a day like this. Back in first-class Chicago! But she busied herself with cleaning and organizing her new room, trying to shove away thoughts of future competitions. Of skating buddies and the best coach in the world.
    Her dreams had been put on hold. She’d even missed out on the Summer Ice Revue—something she’d worked for all year. But worst of all, she’d had to leave Elena behind. No coach . . . no skating career. Yet she couldn’tblame anyone but herself for landing here in Podunk. A place precisely in the middle of nowhere!
    The realtor had shown them only three houses. All of them run-down Victorians. One far worse than the others.
    Amazingly, her dad had purchased the most hopeless of the bunch. He said he was going to “remodel the seventies away” and recapture the heart of the house.
    Whatever that means , Livvy had thought at the time.
    So here she was rattling around in an old fixer-upper, awaking each morning to pounding and sawing. “Dad’s taking his misery out on this poor old house,” Livvy informed her parrot.
    “Poor house” came the answer.
    “Right, the poorhouse is exactly where we’re gonna end up.”
    “End up . . . end up.”
    Livvy laughed and blew kisses to Coco. “Try to behave yourself today. Is that possible? Because I’m going school shopping.”
    “Missing Liv . . . missing Liv . . .”
    She shook her head, wondering how Coco had gotten so smart. She’d worked with him repeatedly their first years together. As a result, he could carry on like a chicken, sneeze like a human, and repeat most any phrase she’d ever taught him. But sometimes he actuallyseemed to think for himself. Uncanny. Never a dull moment with Coco.
    At least she had one friend in town!
    ----
    The shops on the edge of Alpine Lake were the poorest excuse for a mall Livvy had ever seen. She found herself buying school supplies at a drugstore, of all places!
    When she’d checked off her list and paid for her supplies, she wandered over to another shop—the Cloth Mill. There she searched through bolts of bright-colored fabric and packages of sparkly sequins.
    “May I help you?” a cheerful clerk asked.
    “Just looking, thanks.”
    The woman chuckled a bit, her turquoise bracelet jangling. “Please, feel free to look around. And take all the time you need. We have plenty of markdowns this weekend.”
    “Okay, I’ll look.”
    Pausing, the clerk asked, “Are you from the Midwest somewhere?”
    “Chicago,” she said proudly.
    The woman clicked her fingers. “I thought so!”
    “Really?” Livvy was surprised. “Do I have an accent?”
    “I never would’ve guessed, except that I have some cousins who live back there. You sound just like them.”
    Livvy felt completely comfortable telling the clerk that she and her father had just moved to Alpine Lake. “It’s a first for me . . . moving someplace new.”
    “Well, let me be the first to welcome you to the prettiest place on earth.”
    Easy for her to say . Livvy forced a smile.
    “Why so glum? Our town’s full of wonderful folks, you’ll see.”
    “I’m sure it is.” Quickly, she filled the clerk in on her biggest worry. “It’s just that I’m an ice skater . . . without a coach.”
    “Oh, that is a problem.” The woman’s eyes were kind and sincere. “You’ll just have to practice on the mall skating rink, I guess.”
    “There’s a rink here? ”
    The woman nodded emphatically. “Go see for yourself.” She gave easy directions. “You can’t miss it.”
    Normally, Livvy never would have confided in a stranger like this, but the clerk had such an honest