Willa by Heart Read Free Page A

to answer the questions. Normally, the boys would have bolted, but we had a hook. One of them would win a date with my friend Suzanna Jubilee Blazer, the southern-belle beauty-pageant-winning daughter of the Blazer Buick family I mentioned before.
    Tina sent the completed questionnaires to AuntAmber, who fed the information into her computer. The matching couples were announced at the dance. I never got to go to the dance after all the work of planning it because I broke my foot during a yodeling accident that morning. It’s a long story. Anyway, it all turned out perfectly in the end. JFK left the dance early and came to the inn. He threw a stone up at my bedroom window to get my attention.
    When I saw him standing there so beautiful in his tux, I nearly fainted. I changed into my pink gown, spritzed on some perfume, and hobbled down the stairs. We danced in the barn, and he gave me the locket. It was the most romantic night of my life. Now we are officially a couple. We talk every day, go out to dinner and the movies….
    But as I’m remembering that night he gave me the locket, I start getting angry again. Ruby Sivler has that effect on me. You see, just when JFK gave me the locket, and I was laughing and crying, so happy, he said, “Guess who my match was for that compatible couple thing?” I said, “I don’t know, who?” all the while screaming hopefully,
“Me, me,”
inside.
    â€œIt was you,” JFK said, “and another girl too.”
    Ruby Sivler.
I was sure of it. Ruby’s been after Joseph since seventh grade. I just knew she’d find a way to fudge the answers so she’d appear to be his perfect match. I started fuming inside, thinking how I’d get back at Ruby for cheating, when all of a sudden JFK said, “But the eleventh question broke the tie.” JFK and I were the real perfect match after all. Of course. And before I knew it, I kissed him. I kissed him. I kissed him
first.
And we slow-danced while cupid fluttered above us up in the rafters….
    â€œWilla?” Tina says. “Earth to Willa.”
    â€œSorry. I was thinking about how Ruby fudged the compatibility test so she could get matched with Joseph at the dance. When is she going to stop being such a sneaky …”
    Tina has a weird look on her face. The look she gets when she’s hiding something. “So,” Tina says, picking up the Hotties catalog. “What else should I order?”
    â€œTina?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’re hiding something.”
    â€œNo, I’m not.”
    â€œYes, you are.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œTina, stop it. Tell me. What?”
    Tina’s face scrunches up like,
Are you sure you want to know?
    My heart is pounding. This can’t be good. “Tell me, Tina, what?”
    â€œOkay.” Tina sits back down on the bed. “Now, don’t start getting all worried, I worry about you worrying so much, but there was this girl at the Valentine’s dance—”
    â€œWho? What girl?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Tina says. “She was wearing this glittery eye mask, you know, like they do at a costume ball, and everybody was wondering who she was. Then Dr. Swammy—oh, he looked handsome in his white tuxedo—”
    â€œStick to the story, Tina.”
    â€œOkay, sorry So Swammy announced the Compatibly Cupid Dance and started naming the couples. He called out me and Jessie. Oh, I wish you could have seen how hot Jessie looked … okay, sorry, and then Swammy called, ‘JosephKennelly and Willa Havisham,’ and then, “Joseph Kennelly and Mariel …’ somebody or other.
    â€œEverybody was like, ‘Mariel who?’ Some guy shouted, ‘Way to go, Joe, two for one.’ And then the girl with the mask in the green gown edged her way forward and stood right next to Joseph. ‘Is that Willa?’ Jessie asked me. And