Best Friends for Never by Vrettos Adrienne Maria

Author:Vrettos, Adrienne Maria [Vrettos, Adrienne Maria]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2016-05-09T16:00:00+00:00

The staircase is narrow and dusty and dark, and for a second, I wish Zooey was with me, but I push myself to go all the way up on my own.

Whoa.

It is basically one huge room covering the whole span of the Trading Post. The roof starts just a few feet from the floor, slants up on both sides, peaking high overhead. And the place is packed. Not in a messy way, but in an every-square-inch-is-being-used way. Rows and rows of heavy wooden bookshelves cram the floor, the taller ones in the middle and shorter ones along the edges where the roof stretches down. Framed photographs and paintings of all different sizes are mounted haphazardly to the wood paneling, reaching almost all the way to the high peak of the roof.

A long, faded rug runs the width of the attic between rows of shelves, from the top of the stairs to a huge, old-fashioned green metal desk at the back.

“Hello?” I call, and when no one answers, I start to scan the list of titles on the bookshelf closest to the stairs. With an excited gasp, I pull out a short and slim volume called Trepan’s Grove Traditions. It’s a hardcover book with a clear, crinkly library cover over the yellowing white dust jacket. I flip it open and see it’s old but not super old, written in 1988.

“Done and done!” I whisper excitedly. I’ll have the jinx broken by sundown.

The book opens, as I’d expect it to, with the poem.

Make a promise before you think, and you could get a Harvest Jinx!

Fall Harvest Festival visitors to the picturesque town of Trepan’s Grove, Massachusetts, will hear a lot about the Harvest Jinx, the folksy town legend that warns all who make a promise on Harvest to keep a promise on Harvest, whether you want to or not.

I’m so entranced by what I’m reading that I don’t notice someone approach me, until a hot breath ruffles the short hair at the nape of my neck.

“Ahhh!” I jump around and raise my hands in karate-chop formation.

And much to my surprise, it’s Maude smirking back at me. “I startled you. How exciting.”

I blink at her, my voice caught in my throat.

“What’ve you got there?” she asks, folding her arms over her chest.

“Nothing?” I answer, quickly hiding the book behind my back.

She eyes me through a pair of perfectly round plastic-framed glasses in bright yellow. They clash spectacularly with the purple full-body jumpsuit she has on. She nods toward my arm, the one holding the book from sight. “That’s town property, you know. Don’t make me apprehend you.”

“I wasn’t … I’m not … ” I falter. “It’s for a project.” I hold the book out to her. She takes it, the fabric of her jumpsuit crinkling as she does.

“Hm. The jinx,” she says, glancing at the cover of the book and then back up at me. “Aren’t you a little old for this sort of thing? We covered it in second grade.”

“I didn’t grow up here,” I answer, turning as I hear Zooey trudging up the stairs.

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