Marianne Elizabeth Hammer (top young adult novels TXT) 📖

grabbed her waist as she walked into the hall. “You look great.”

“Thanks,” she said, barely audible. “I love you, you know.”

Patrick touched her face and laughed a little. “Don’t do that, baby. You’ll mess up your mascara.”

Marianne blinked away the tears that had just sprung up and nodded as he kissed her cheek.

Marianne was not impressed. Everything was obviously very expensive, but luxury isn’t easy to appreciate when it’s butt ugly. The one plus was that she got to drink ice water out of a pretty champagne flute. Christian felt bad for neglecting to buy water bottles, so he’d set her up in style. She and Patrick were leaning against the wall away from the crowd, soaking up all the rose-colored glory of the living room.

“Seriously,” she said. “It’s like one of those packrat houses from TV, except everything’s carefully crammed into curio cabinets.”

Patrick laughed into his soda.

“Heaven forbid that any dust get on the cut crystal unicorns.”

Patrick squeezed her arm. “Just wait till you see the fountain out back.”

She smiled. “Can’t wait. I’m gonna go get more water, kay?”

Marianne watched her feet so she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone as she walked down the hall and through the swinging kitchen door. Halfway across the kitchen, she spotted something on the tile and jumped back automatically.

“What is it?” said someone behind her.

Marianne spun around. That someone was gorgeous, stylish, and tall, with the most badass fro Marianne had ever seen. The girl stepped into the room, letting the door swing closed behind her. “What is it?”

“A newt,” said Marianne.

The girl screamed, “A what?” and then bounded forward across the kitchen in her awesome, spike-heeled boots and leapt onto the island. She scrambled up on hands and knees, knocking over an ugly iridescent vase.

“Wha—No!” Marianne ran forward, but it fell to the floor and smashed into a million rainbow pieces at her feet. Right along with her champagne flute.

The girl stared straight at Marianne’s face. “Is it gone?” she whispered.

“No, you overreacting person,” said Marianne. “It wasn’t actually a newt.”

“But you said it was a newt.”

“So what?” Marianne glanced over at the thing and then back at the fro-girl. “Who would ever see a newt? It just looked like a newt.”

Fro-girl was still on her hands and knees. “Do you even know what a newt looks like?”

“I’m the one who saw the thing.” Just then, there were some loud voices outside the kitchen door and they both turned to look.

“Crap,” said Fro-girl. She slid across the island, used Marianne’s shoulder to hop down, and then dragged Marianne across the kitchen. “In the pantry!”

Hiding seemed like a strange choice, but what the hell. Marianne climbed into the little closet after Fro-girl and sat down in the cramped space. “Is it Christian?”

Fro-girl smacked her on the ear to shut her up and closed the door on them. They waited there in silence and darkness for a full minute, but the kitchen stayed empty. Right then, it started to dawn on Marianne how much worse being found in the pantry would be than being found with the broken glass. “Hey psycho,” whispered Marianne. “I think we should go clean up now.”

“Agreed,” said Fro-girl. “I think I’m sitting on a dustpan.”

“How convenient.”

“We’ll need a broom.”

“I’ve got some of those,” said Marianne, feeling the wall behind her.

“What? More than one?”

Marianne twisted around to reach farther down the handles. “I don’t know. Maybe the others are mops.”

“More than one mop?”

Marianne twisted again, a cardboard box cutting into her back. “No, no... one broom, two dust mops, one—What the hell does it matter?”

“I don’t know. Don’t you think it’s fun to poke around in people’s stuff? Two dust mops is a real score.”

Oh geez. “You keep a list or something?”

“Just in my head. I once found a peanut butter jar of fingernail clippings.”

Marianne turned her head toward the girl in the blackness. “Whoa. You get fifty buttinsky points for that one. Only three for the mops, though.”

“Sweet! Nobody ever wants to play with me. My boyfriend always yells at me for snooping.”

“What a jerk,” said Marianne. “You should leave him.”

“Oh, I did. Last month. But not because of that. He was just being kind of shifty, you know? I mean, I wasn’t going to stick around for that kind of thing, especially because—”

Too much information. Marianne coughed. “Can we go now?”

“You’re a bit rude. Did you know that?”

Marianne exhaled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to... Ahh! Something slimy just touched my foot!”

Wow. The girl was like a gazelle. She sprang from the pantry and back onto the kitchen island before Marianne could even snicker to herself. Marianne grabbed the broom and dustpan on her way out. “Okay, now I’m actually sorry. That one was rude.”

Fro-girl sat down Indian-style on the counter and tapped her fingers on the granite. “I think I like you, little girl.”

Marianne swept up the glass and stuffed the now-homeless wad of silk sunflowers into a drawer. “We should put some money in the drawer, too. I’ve got a twenty in my pocket.”

“I’ll put in another twenty, and then you’re going to show me the newt.”

Marianne shut the drawer on the money and then walked over to the water dispenser. She pointed to the thing. “I’m pretty sure it’s just a piece of dead grass.”

Fro-girl walked over very cautiously and stared at the newt-shaped weed. And then she started hyperventilating. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, wheezing in and out, in and out.

“Are you okay?” asked Marianne, before she realized that Fro-girl was laughing, not having a panic attack. “Yes... I get it,” said Marianne. “This makes me majorly lame.”

Fro-girl started cackling and sunk down onto the floor between the island and the stove, leaning against the back of the cabinets. “It—It’s a newt.”

Marianne nodded. “I know, right?”

Fro-girl pointed at Marianne and managed to speak through her hysteria. “No! No, it looks nothing like a newt!”

Marianne snorted and then composed her face so she could defend herself. “I came upon it unawares.