CHAPTER THREE #2
I hoped Charity and Orla might invite my mom to sit with them, but she was already seated so far away from them they didn’t even notice her. Plus, they were so busy talking to each other they didn’t pay attention to anyone else.
The excitement of Charity Hargrave walking in had died down.
I looked around the room, trying to determine who Cara and Olivia were.
Now that I’d seen their mother, I was no longer scared of how pretty they might be.
I was terrified. If their mom looked like that, then they were probably every bit as beautiful as she was.
Other kids started streaming in. I saw several pretty girls, including a girl who was staring at me.
She had smooth blonde curls and big, brown eyes.
She also had a friendly smile. I grinned at her, and I felt more relaxed.
She was the kind of pretty I could talk to.
Maybe this wouldn’t be a bad summer after all.
That’s when the commotion started. It was like a low murmur of voices that grew as the large group of teens standing around parted and revealed two of the prettiest girls I’d ever seen. I sucked in a breath, and I heard Lufton do the same next to me.
There were actually three girls standing together, but only two of them caught my eye.
The trio were dressed in identical dark pink dresses with bows in their hair.
Two of them were short with long, shiny black hair, and were so pretty it was hard to look at them.
It was also hard to look away from them.
The third was much taller and very thin, with wildly curly long, blonde hair. She wasn’t ugly or anything, but next to the other two girls she looked plain, skinny, and kind of awkward. But I didn’t look at her long.
Because the one who seemed to be the oldest made my insides feel funny when I looked at her.
She was the prettiest of the three, but more than that, she already had a curvy figure.
She wasn’t straight up and down like most of the girls there that day.
I found my eyes straying to her chest of their own volition. I sighed with wonder.
“My God,” breathed Joseph, “who is that?”
We all stared, but I noticed the Whittaker boys roll their eyes. That was the last clue I needed.
“You know,” I said to the group “I’m pretty sure that must be Cara Hargrave.”
“Oh, it is,” said Declan, looking bored. Then he got an evil smile on his face. “And who wants to put a frog down her dress?”
I turned in horror and awe. “A frog? Do you have frogs on you right now?”
“Yep. I have three.” He looked impressed with himself.
“Why do you want to put a frog down Cara Hargrave’s dress?” Lufton asked.
“They’re my neighbors. I think of them almost like I do my sister, Siobhan,” he pointed to a pretty girl talking to the blonde Hargrave girl.
“All except for Willa Hargrave. Look at her. Ugh.” He pointed to the plain girl with curly blonde hair who was standing with his sister.
“She always thinks she’s right. She’s such a know-it-all.
My frog is going down her dress. Here, Edward, you put this one down Cara’s dress.
Who wants to put a frog down Livy’s dress? ”
Lufton pushed into the crush of boys. “I’ll do it!”
“Why?” Declan narrowed his eyes at him. “Everybody knows whoever wants to put the frog down Cara’s dress wants to see her boobs.” I flushed guiltily when he said this. “But why Olivia?”
Lufton just stared at Olivia, and I could practically see hearts in his eyes. “Because she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. She’s like… magic.”
We were all quiet at that. How was Lufton in the same category as the rest of us? One of our English teachers at school had once told him he had the soul of a poet. I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but I did now. And it was the truth.
“Acceptable answer,” said Declan, grinning. Aidan just stared at Lufton for a moment before looking away. “Okay, boys, here are your frogs.” He opened his palm revealing three tiny frogs. “Try not to hurt them if you can help it.”
“The girls?” I asked.
“No.” Declan looked disgusted. “Who cares about them? I’m talking about the frogs. Don’t hurt the frogs.”
“Oh. Okay.”
We all stood there while the dance instructor, Mrs. Kafter, a tall stork-like creature with a strange, flowy leotard outfit on, was talking to us.
I couldn’t listen to a word she said because I had a tiny frog in my hands and now that Declan had mentioned Cara Hargrave’s boobs, I couldn’t quit thinking about them.
Or looking at them, apparently. I realized I was staring at the front of her dress, so I looked up quickly only to see a pair of emerald green eyes staring back at me.
My mouth opened slightly. Could she possibly know what I was about to do?
Or, even worse, what I’d been thinking about?
She smiled at me, and I swear I went weak in the knees. I’d never understood what that meant before. I did now. Because she was so beautiful, I thought I might actually faint when I was dancing with her.
“The first dance will be boys’ choice,” the dance instructor called out.
Luck was on our side. The only three boys to lurch forwards were Declan, Lufton, and me.
All the other ones hung back, too shy to put themselves out there.
I went immediately to Cara, who smiled up at me innocently and almost made my heart stop with how gorgeous and sweet she was.
Lufton practically knocked Olivia down in his eagerness to get to her side.
The only problem was Declan.
“What? Oh my God, no!” Willa Hargrave looked traumatized at the thought of dancing with Declan Whittaker. “Please, please don’t make me,” she turned to Mrs. Kafter with pleading eyes.
“Boys’ choice, my dear. You’ll get another partner soon enough.” Then she had some of her students from previous years help her with demonstrating the first steps of the dance we were supposed to learn.
I was starting to sweat. What was Cara going to do when I put the frog down her dress? Would she scream? Would she hit me?
I could hear Declan and Willa talking next to us.
“Why would you choose me to dance with? I know you’re up to something.” Willa’s plain face was beet red with fury.
Declan held his hands up in mock surrender. “Maybe I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” he said smoothly.
Willa wasn’t having it, though. She stomped on his foot. “You’ve never thought I was pretty a day in my life.”
“Ouch! Dammit, Willa,” he hissed, limping a bit.
Where was his frog? I looked but couldn’t see any sign that he was holding it in either hand. Maybe he was keeping it in his pocket.
The other boys took forever to make their choices, some even having to be pushed forward by their mothers.
This left me in the awkward position of standing with Cara Hargrave with nothing to talk about while we waited for the music to start. It was only a couple of minutes, but it felt like a year.
“My name is Cara,” she said, smiling sweetly.
“Uh… yeah… I’m, uh, Edward,” I managed to choke out. I could barely look at her. All I could think about was putting the frog down her dress. I looked for a gap between her skin and her dress. The only one was the bodice of her dress. I gulped. My God. I really was going to see her boobs.
She looked at me funny. “Are you alright? You’re kind of… sweaty.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, trying to look normal.
I looked over to see Lufton staring lovingly into Olivia Hargrave’s eyes.
She was looking back at him like he had escaped from an asylum.
“What is wrong with you?” I heard her ask him.
He just sighed and tried to pull her closer. She elbowed him in the chest.
Declan and Willa had gotten into a shouting match at this point.
“You are the worst human ever born!” Willa whisper yelled at Declan, who just smiled back at her.
“At least I am a human,” he said smugly. “You’re like some kind of robot that has to be perfect all the time.”
Finally, the music started to play, and I tried to imitate the moves the student dancers were demonstrating.
I gasped outright when I realized I was supposed to put one of my hands on Cara’s waist and then hold her other hand.
What was I going to do with the frog? In desperation, I dropped the tiny frog down the bodice of her dress as I reached for her hand.
I did not, in fact, get a glimpse of her boobs. I was too nervous to even try to look. My mind had been totally focused on getting rid of the frog.
She had no idea what I’d done. She smiled at me, a trusting look on her face, and put her hand in mine.
What the hell? Could she not feel the frog?
I stared down the front of her dress so hard, I’m surprised her mother didn’t come and jerk her away from me.
And then the frog poked its head out of the neckline of her dress, right at the lowest v-point.
I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was staring at me. I was pretty sure it winked.
Desperately, I looked to see what was happening with Declan and Lufton. Willa was still giving Declan a hard time. Every time he tried to touch her hip, she jerked away, and when he tried to hold her hand, she gripped his so hard I could see the pain on his face.
“Dammit, Willa,” he cursed again.
“Language,” Mrs. Kafter said, as she looked over her small wire-rimmed glasses at Declan and Willa.
What was Declan doing? Had he deposited his frog yet?
Lufton must’ve dropped his frog. He had to have.
He couldn’t be that smooth and still hold a frog in his hand.
He had one hand on Olivia’s hip and the other holding her hand, gliding across the floor like Fred Astaire in those old dance movies my grandmother used to watch before she passed away.
It was obvious he didn’t need these lessons at all.
Had he come just to be close to girls? I smiled and shook my head.