Weekend Read Free Page A

escorted her to the door. As they crossed the basketball court floor, the audience granted them a brief respite. But the second they were out of view, they flew back into ecstasy.
    Shani left her place in the stands and hurried to the girls' showers. There she found Kerry slumped on the bench that ran in front of the lockers, Angie standing nearby. The place was otherwise deserted. Kerry was more confused than upset. She did not understand what the big deal was. Her dance pants had ripped and she had flashed her underwear. So what? Shani agreed with her that there was nothing to worry about. She was lying. She didn't tell Kerry that those flesh-coloured panties she'd been wearing could be mistaken for bare flesh, at a distance. That theyhad been mistaken for Kerry's backside, by more than one person.
    As Kerry began to change into her street clothes, muttering about how she hoped the confusion would get cleared up quickly, the three of them made an interesting discovery. Someone had replaced Kerry's nylon dance pants with blue cottonpaper pants of the same size. No wonder they had ripped. Normally, Kerry would have immediately spotted the switch. But she had been in a hurry before the pep rally, and hadn't detected the difference in the fabrics.
    When Kerry remembered how Lena had soaked her underwear, forcing her to be late, Shani immediately put two and two together. The connection was obvious. Lena must have figured Kerry would discard the wet panties. Lena must have also been thesomeone who had switched the dance pants. She had undoubtedly been hoping that Kerry would be caught flashing her bottom. This fortunately hadn't happened, but it easily could have. Lena later denied the accusations, but she did so with a sly smile, and her deepest admiration for whoever had thought up the plan.
    In the following days, Angie and Shani told anyone who would listen that Kerryhad been wearing underwear beneath her dance pants. Few believed the truth; they apparently preferred not to. Kerry had to endure ceaseless catcalls. She also lost Sol to Lena. Shani had been disgusted with him for deserting Kerry in her hour of need, but he swore that the pep rally incident had absolutely nothing to do with their break up. He explained that Lena had simply made him an offer that he couldn't refuse.
    Shani checked on Kerry in the front seat before opening the annual to page fifty-eight. As a further example of how unreal Kerry's "flash" had been, there had been at least a dozen people taking pictures at that pep rally and not one of them had caught anything even remotely x-rated. Nevertheless, tucked in one corner there was a small black and white picture that had captured all but the "highlight" of the afternoon. It had been taken from the rear of the audience, and showed the crowd on its feet laughing and pointing at an innocent smiling Kerry, whose life was about to come to an end. There was nothing for the guys to gloat over, but it clearly brought back the day. Park had been on the yearbook staff. Shani would have to speak to him about who had allowed the picture in the annual.
    Was it a coincidence, Shani often asked herself, that Robin's accident had happened less than a month after Kerry's humiliation?
    "Hey girls," Angie said. "Looks like we're no longer alone. Sol's van is just up ahead."
    Shani tossed the annual aside and peered between Angie and Kerry. The glare of the blazing sun made seeing difficult, but it was clearly Sol's faded black Dodge. Farther down the road, perhaps a half mile, was a solitary brown clay building, probably the Margarita Ville Canteen. That meant they were almost there. But who cared? Huddling near the rear of the van, beside Sol and Park, was a guy with the smoothest walk this side of England.
    "Flynn!" Shani cried.
    "God, Shani, not in my ear," Angie said.
    Shani grabbed her Rolaids and downed the whole roll as if it were candy. The furnace in her stomach roared on unchecked. She had been dying to see