Twist My Charm Read Free

the Friendship Community School Immersive Interactive Art Installation is the farthest thing from my mind as I stare at photo after photo on Madison’s poster board, and Ryder’s eyes melt into mine.
    “Let me show you a video!” Madison runs over to her computer, and with the quick click of a button, I’m seeing Ryder Landry onstage. A song is ending, and a huge auditorium full of kids—mostly girls but boys too—is exploding with screams and cheers. I can hear Madison saying words next to me—something about going to a concert once with Lisa Lee and Kylie Mae—but I’m not really paying attention. I can’t take my eyes off Ryder, who’s moving like a panther or a puma, prowling gracefully through the jungle.
    “Thank you, everybody,” he says. His voice makes me think of a river of warm honey that, for some reason, I want to swim in. The crowd quiets down when he brings the microphone to his mouth and talks like he knows them personally. “I know what it’s like for all of you out there,” he says, “because I’ve been through it too. I’ve had my problems, my struggles. I’ve moved, I’ve changed schools….”
    Me too!
I’m still kind of a new kid at Friendship Community, after all.
    “I’ve lost people who are important to me….”
    Me too! My mom died when I was little, and I grew up with just my dad. Then right when I started to like his girlfriend, Terri, she broke up with him, so I sort of lost her too. I can’t believe how much Ryder and I have in common.
    “I’ve known love and I’ve had my heart broken….”
    Okay, well, he’s got me there. I mean, I love my dad and Toby and Millie, and I guess my uncle Arnie, but I don’t think that’s what Ryder’s talking about.
    “This song goes out to all of you.”
    The giant crowd is silent as Ryder sits on a stool and sings from his heart.
“Baby, I never knew, not until you, the way I could feel, my soul you unpeel, like an onion, I’m not funnin’…”
The lyrics don’t feel like they’re coming through my ears and getting translated by my brain in the normal way; they’re becoming part of me.
    He stops in the center of the stage and looks straight out, his eyes dreamy.
“I like you, baby. At least I think so, maybe. No matter what they say, I won’t go away, from now on it’s just you and me, we’re free-er…than…freeeeeeee!”
He looks into the camera and smiles—not one of his big, gleaming ones; it’s a small, personal smile that feels like it’s for me. The video stops. It’s been two minutes and fifty-three seconds, but it feels like time stood still.
    I think Madison says something to me, but I don’t know for sure. I’m too busy staring into those eyes. At that smile.
    “Uh-oh,” Madison says, shaking her head. “I think you’ve landed.”
    Finally I’m able to look away from the frozen image of him on-screen. “Huh?”
    “You’ve landed. You’re a Lander. That’s what Ryder’s fans are called.”
    “Too bad we don’t know how the love potion works,” I tell her, only half joking. “We could use it on him.”
    “Oh my gosh, that would be unreal!” Madison squeals. Then she stops herself, like she’s realized how far-fetched the idea is. “Yeah, the next time we see him, we’ll have to do that.” She laughs. “But right now, you have to help me papier-mâché his head.”
    Yuck. It’s the last thing I want to do, but now that Madison’s shared Ryder Landry with me, I owe her. So into the goop I go.
    Blech!

I ’m still in a happy state of Landryness when Dad and I take Toby for a walk. Men in T-shirts and women in tank tops are enjoying the almost-summer sunshine, jogging on the dirt path around the lake across from our house. I thought LA would get boring being sunny all the time, but in Ohio I might still be wearing mittens in May. I don’t miss that at all.
    An older man walks by quickly, reading a newspaper. Dad says hello and the man nods back. We see him every time we’re out