Speed Dating Read Free Page A

worth
our
time? We’d better get back to our table before we lose our prime real estate. Come on, Autumn.”
    They returned to their usual centrally located table to schmooze with their friends Claire Kessler and Ingrid Bauman.
    “Hello, Holly and Mads. Hello,
Tess.
“ Ramona Fernandez cast a shadow over the table in her corseted black dress, purple tights, black boots, and heavy Goth makeup.
     It occurred to Lina that Ramona and her shadow were not easy to tell apart.
    “My name is not Tess,” Lina said to Ramona. “As you know perfectly well. Unless you’ve experienced some recent head trauma.
     Which, knowing your headbanger taste in music, is not that unlikely.”
    “Deathzilla is not a headbanger band,” Ramona said. “Donald Death writes sensitive songs about the futility of life in this
     cold, cruel world. It just happens that you can’t sing about that subject without screaming a lot. Not believably, anyway.”
     Deathzilla was Ramona’s latest Goth band obsession, and Donald Death was its white-faced, pointy-black-eyebrowed lead singer.
     “But we’re getting off the subject.” Ramona dropped her tray and sat down without waiting to be invited. “I didn’t know you
     liked cotton candy so much. What do you do, bathe in it? Or just dabit on your pulse points, like perfume?”
    Lina glanced at Mads and Holly, who pretended to be fascinated by something on the wall across the room. Lina and Ramona were
     friendly, in an itchy, combative way. But Ramona wasn’t part of their circle of three. “What are you talking about?”
    “Don’t be coy,” Ramona said. “It’s obvious that Tess and Peter are you and Walker. Walker’s mother is a widow, right? So she
     probably dates. And he has two younger brothers. And going to the county fair is just the kind of cornball activity you’d
     think is cute. But here’s the clincher: You’ve got a big pink stuffed elephant in your locker. How stupid do you think people
     are? If they don’t know it now, it won’t be long.”
    Lina didn’t think anyone had seen the elephant. She waved this away. “I am not the kind of person who thinks going to the
     county fair is cute. Generally. I made an exception in this case. But anyway, nobody knows that about me. You don’t even know
     it about me. You’re just guessing.”
    “I still say you’ll be unmasked before you know it,” Ramona said. “And what will Walker think of that? He comes off so whipped
     in your column. It could be pretty embarrassing for him.”
    Lina remembered what Walker had said earlier. The last thing she wanted to do was embarrass him, or herself.But she still felt confident that their identities were safe.
    “You’re just trying to upset me,” Lina said to Ramona. “You’re not applying for the
Crier’s
summer internship program, by any chance, are you?” Maybe Ramona was trying to psych her out.
    Ramona grinned. “Of course, I am. After all, I’m the editor of the school literary magazine—and I’m only a sophomore. Erica
     Howard already told me she found that impressive.”
    “Who’s Erica Howard?” Mads asked.
    “The Metro editor at the
Crier,”
Lina said. “She’s in charge of the interns. They take a few college students and one ‘unusually precocious high school student.“’
    “That wording is key,” Ramona said.
“’Unusually
precocious.’ Not just ordinary, everyday smart. Like most people. When it comes to unusual, I’ve got you and Autumn beat
     by a mile.”
    “She said ‘unusual,’ not ‘freakish,’” Lina said.
    “There’s no point in arguing about it,” Ramona said. “The final results will vindicate me. I’m submitting some of my latest
     poems. If Erica Howard has any brains, she’ll recognize genius when she sees it.”
    “I’m sure she’ll love your latest sonnet, ‘A Worm’s Thoughts at Mealtime,”’ Lina said. “In case you didn’t read the latest
     issue of
Inchworm,”
she explained to Holly andMads, “it tells