Here's Lily Read Online Free PDF Page A

the answers to all their questions.
    â€œYou’ll have some kind of interview,” Mom explained. “Then they’ll decide if they want you, and we’ll decide if we want them to want you—or something like that. Now can we drop it between now and then, or are you going to drive us crazy until we get there?”
    â€œI’ll drop it,” Lily said.
    But she didn’t “drop it” from her own head. She could think of almost nothing else until Saturday.
    She used her half hour on the computer she had to share with Joe to look up the Rutledge Modeling Agency. All the girls on the website seemed so perfect that she couldn’t imagine herself fitting in. Still, Kathleen had invited her. Maybe she would look like them when she was done.
    When she wasn’t memorizing the website, she e-mailed Reni. Called Reni. She would have texted her too, if she’d had a cell phone.
    Lily did tell Reni about the modeling thing, of course, and they whispered about it at school every chance they got—a fact that didn’t escape Shad Shifferdecker. It suddenly seemed like every time they put their heads together, Shad appeared with his hand cupped around his ear.
    At Friday afternoon recess, the two girls were sitting against the fence in the corner farthest from the building under the only tree on the playground. It finally looked like they were safely out of Shad’s earshot, so they didn’t whisper as they picked up gold- and rust-colored leaves from the ground and made confetti out of them while they talked.
    â€œI so can’t wait until Saturday,” Lily said. “Only . . . I’m a little freaked out. What if they don’t want me after they talk to me?”
    â€œWhy wouldn’t they want you?” Reni said. “Kathleen already said you were beautiful.”
    â€œI don’t know—”
    But Lily never got to finish the sentence. Something suddenly dropped out of the branches over their heads and hit the ground in front of them with a heavy thud. It obviously wasn’t an autumn leaf.
    Reni screamed. Lily jumped up, grabbed a stick, and held it over her head, ready to pound whatever it was. She’d learned a few things growing up with two brothers.
    But she stopped with the stick in midswing. “Shad Shifferdecker!” she said, gritting her teeth. “You were spying!”
    Shad picked himself up from the dirt and brushed some of it off his huge T-shirt, which hung down to his knees. The boys weren’t allowed to wear clothes seven sizes too big to school, but Shad somehow got away with it. She was pretty sure that underneath, the waistband of his jeans hung down that far too, and his boxer shorts were probably sticking up above them like he was a gangster or something. The thought of it was disgusting.
    â€œBig deal,” Shad said, beady little eyes snapping. “You didn’t say nothin’ I was interested in. Me? I hang out at the mall on Saturdays.”
    â€œDoing what?” Reni said.
    â€œAnything I want.”
    â€œAnd your mom lets you?”
    â€œMy mom doesn’t ‘let’ or ‘not let’ me do anything. I’m practically on my own now.”
    Lily felt her lip curl. She couldn’t have cared less what Shad did on Saturdays. He could be out robbing convenience stores for all she gave a rip. What she did care about was how much of their conversation he’d heard, and how much he would carry back to Leo and Daniel so they could get in her face about it later.
    â€œIt isn’t nice to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations,” Lily said.
    Shad smiled, and his braces glittered in the sun. “I dropped all right. You didn’t even know I was up there. Duh! I heard everything you said for the last hour.”
    â€œWe haven’t even been here an hour,” Reni said.
    Lily folded her arms across her chest so she’d appear casual. “What did we say