Call the Shots by Don Calame

Author:Don Calame [Calame, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult
ISBN: 9780763661854
Publisher: Candlewick
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

“WE’RE NEXT!” LEYNA CALLS OUT, taking my hand and pulling me up to the front of the room.

“All right.” Mr. Nestman looks at his Mickey Mouse watch. “But you guys are the last ones. I’ve got a commercial audition at eleven thirty, which means I need to be out that door the second the bell rings. The Discount Meat Warehouse waits for no one.”

Ever since the auditions last week, Leyna has wanted to partner up with me on almost every exercise we do in Drama. And since she’s one of Mr. Nestman’s star students, I’ve had to embarrass myself in front of the entire class on an almost daily basis.

Leyna plucks the black blindfold off Mr. Nestman’s desk. “You’ll be the blind man, okay? And I’ll lead.”

“Sure,” I say.

If this were anyone but Leyna, I would be making every excuse in the book to beg off. But I am her devoted Jedi, and I would battle the entire evil Empire for her. Besides, I did betray her honor with Nessa — if only in my mind — and so I feel like I need to make amends.

I take a glance at the obstacles — chairs, tables, traffic cones, broomsticks, boxes — that have been laid out around the room. Of course, they’ll all be moved around once I’m blindfolded, but still, it’s good to have a general idea of the sizes and shapes of things.

Leyna is going to have to try and guide me safely through the course with only the tips of her ten fingers touching the tips of mine. Mr. Nestman has offered a prize — a ten-dollar gift card to DeLuca’s Coffee Corner — to the first team that can successfully navigate the entire path without touching a single object. Five teams have tried so far and only one of them — the surprising tandem of Douchebag Dan and Voluptuous Victoria — has made it even halfway through.

“We can do this,” Leyna says, drawing me in with her intense gaze. “But you have to trust me. Just focus on how my hands are moving. Forget everything else. Can you do that?”

I nod.

“Good,” she says, gently sliding the blindfold over my eyes. And then I feel her warm breath on me as she whispers in my right ear. “Use the Force, Sean.”

Oh, my God. A Star Wars reference. From Princess Leyna. Forget tarot — this is a real sign.

I breathe deep to try and calm the nervous flutter in my lungs. There’s a wonderful toasted-almondy-sweet-honey scent coming off of Leyna. It’s subtle and delicious and intoxicating and I find myself teetering toward her. It takes all of my willpower not to bury my nose in the nape of Leyna’s neck and fill up on her wonderful smell.

It’s not until I hear the scraping and shuffling of the obstacles being moved around the room that I’m startled from my scent-induced trance. I need to focus here. Leyna seems so sure that we can do this, and I really want to do well for her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.