Excerpt from BE MINE
by Sabrina James
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“I hate Valentine’s Day!” seventeen-year-old Jennifer Harris exclaimed.
Jennifer’s best friend, Violet Wagner, stared at her over the black rims of her cat-eye-shaped glasses. “I thought you only hated Christmas? Now you’ve added Valentine’s Day to the list?”
“Have you seen this?” Jennifer waved at Violet the memo she had found inside her locker that morning. “Have you?”
“Uh, no,” Violet said, taking off her pink parka and unwrapping the long pink scarf wrapped around her neck. “I just got here and I’m still freezing. It’s so cold outside. I feel like a Popsicle! They say we might get a snowstorm this weekend.” Violet’s blue eyes glittered with excitement. “Wouldn’t it be cool if it lasted until Monday and we got a snow day?”
Jennifer ignored Violet’s wish, shoving the memo in her face. “Read it! Read it!”she insisted as Violet took the memo in her gloved hands. “Principal Hicks strikes again! First there was that Secret Santa memo in December and now this! Does he live to make me miserable?”
Violet skimmed the memo and then handed it back to Jennifer. “I don’t understand what all the drama is about?”
“Once again, we’re made to feel inferior because we don’t have boyfriends!”
Violet opened up her locker to hang her parka and collect her books for her morning classes. As she did, her own copy of the memo floated to the floor. “I don’t think Principal Hicks is conspiring against students who don’t have boyfriends or girlfriends.”
“Well, it feels that way,” Jennifer grumbled.
“You’re just mad because you didn’t have someone secretly crushing on you the way some of the other girls did during the Secret Santa exchange,” Violet said.
“And now those girls have boyfriends for Valentine’s Day,” Jennifer said. “My Secret Santa was a freshman who gave me a six-pack of Wint O Green LifeSavers!”
“Hey, he wanted you to have minty-fresh breath. You should be flattered! Obviously, he was hoping for a kiss! It’s not too late. I bet he’d let you give him one for Valentine’s Day.”
Jennifer scowled. “He didn’t get one then and he’s not getting one now. And don’t mention that day to me!”
Jennifer had always hated Valentine’s Day. The reason was that she’d never had a boyfriend on that day. Sure, she’d gone on a number of dates since junior high, but she had never had a long-term boyfriend the way some of the other girls in her class had. Every Valentine’s Day she would get to see those girls get boxes of candy and bouquets of flowers and hear about their Valentine’s Day dates. When was she going to have her first real Valentine’s Day?
“You know I’m happy to be your date for Valentine’s Day,” Violet said as she picked up the memo and stuck it into her oversized shoulder bag. She closed her locker and started walking down the hall with Jennifer. “We can rent some chick flicks and pretend we’re the ones falling in love.”
From Be Mine. Copyright © 2009 by Sabrina James. All rights reserved.
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