The Fellowship for Alien Detection Read Free

she’d had it all planned out in what everyone knew was very typical Haley fashion. But then, as everyone in class also knew, things hadn’t quite worked out. And now, not only was Haley’s summer a blank page, but it felt like her very future was unwritten.
    â€œOkay, time’s up.” Ms. DeNetto walked to the front of the room. “And . . .” she said dramatically, “it looks like we will have time for a few last readers to end the year.” A fluttering sound came from her hands. Ms. DeNetto was shuffling her Deck of Fates. Groans and sighs sounded from around the room.
    Haley sat up, propelled by a rush of nervous energy in her gut. It was a feeling she knew all too well: a wriggling anxiety just below and behind her belly. She sometimes imagined that it was caused by a tiny creature, a parasite or maybe some kind of stomach gnome. The feeling had been with Haley her whole life, like an old friend, or maybe nemesis was more accurate, a little doubt demon riding shotgun inside her, questioning every move and pointing out every possible flaw.
    She slapped her notebook closed. A playing card was taped to the front: eight of diamonds. Each kid had a card, and Ms. DeNetto had a matching deck. If she picked your card, you had to read aloud to the class. And while a blank page might get some of her classmates out of reading, Haley knew that if she got picked, Ms. DeNetto would just ask her to talk about her summer anyway.
    If she had to, Haley could talk about it, but she didn’t want to. Didn’t want to deal with everyone’s judgment about what she wasn’t doing, and didn’t want to bother trying to justify what she actually was doing.
    She glanced at the clock. 2:15. Fifteen more minutes. That was about five readers. Please don’t pick me , she begged the Fates. Really, it’s the least you could do .
    Ms. DeNetto drew the first card from the deck. “Five of spades.”
    Okay, one down. Little whispers of “Yes!” escaped around the room. Haley shared in that wave of relief, but only for a moment, because then she realized who had just been chosen. Madison Blake. Well played , Haley sneered to the smiling Fates. It looked like, as payment for not being called on, the Fates had decided to remind Haley of this summer’s failings.
    â€œMy summer will be . . . a blooming garden of discovery,” Maddy began theatrically. Haley reached back and pulled off her hairband, letting her brown bangs fall in front of her eyes so that she wouldn’t be caught glaring. There were many things about Maddy that could inspire spite and jealousy: how she overenunciated t ’s at the end of words and treated l ’s like they were made of ornately blown g-llll-ass, the big fuzzy boots that she wore when it was even a degree below fifty, the unspeakable way that she’d dumped their classmate Beckett, and how calm and poised she always seemed to be, in all situations: fluster-free.
    But worst of all was her plan for the summer.
    â€œFirst, I’ll be planting fertile seeds of compassion at Habitat”—emphasis on t !—“for Humanity Camp. . . .”
    That wasn’t the part that bothered Haley, though it did sound fun.
    â€œThen, I’ll spend two weeks pruning and shaping my lll–ove for theater at Junior Shakespearean Society.”
    Not that part, either . . .
    â€œAnd then . . .” Maddy added a dramatic pause and even seemed to spend an extra second on Haley as her gaze swept across the room. “The fruits of a long sunny summer will ripen at Thorny Mountain Music Camp.”
    That part. Haley glanced over at her best friend, Abby Warren. Abby gave her a sympathetic shrug. Abby was also going to Thorny Mountain, which was up north in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. She and Maddy were the only two kids going from the whole school. Haley had applied, too, but she hadn’t gotten in. It