Miss Meteor by Tehlor Kay Mejia

Author:Tehlor Kay Mejia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperTeen
Published: 2020-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

Lita

JUNIOR CORTES IS actively trying not to smile as he unlocks the Meteor Meteorite Museum.

He’s smiling in a way that can only be about Chicky. It’s brighter than the morning flaring behind him.

“I . . . ,” I stammer. I came here to try to convince him to show up somewhere Chicky will be, but from the look on his face, they already figured all that out.

Which makes me feel both happy and even more useless than before.

Junior goes in and holds the door open behind him. “How’s your pursuit of the crown going?”

I try to laugh. It comes out hoarse and sad. “Nonexistent. I’m not doing the pageant anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” I ask. “Are you serious? Have you not witnessed the disaster I’ve made of the last few days?”

“Don’t take all the credit.” He turns on the overhead lobby lights. “You didn’t make a mess of everything alone. You had the help of the Four Sisters of the Apocalypse.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You’re right, it’s not.” He clicks on the ancient air-conditioning unit, which will take a full hour to work up to cooling this place. “You also had the help of possibly the worst human being at Meteor Central High, who managed to take out you, his own teammate, and a priceless artifact of town history.” He points to the display case where the sadly dented bicycle now leans against a wall.

This is one more thing I like about Junior Cortes: he thought about the bicycle.

Buzz was too nice to ask, and nobody else even bothered.

“You’re really gonna let those jerks scare you off?” Junior asks.

“Um, yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I am.”

Junior turns on the flickering spotlight over the rock, another part of the museum that needs warming up before open hours.

“What if I have a proposition for you?” he asks in a voice of a 1950s private investigator.

Not fair. He’s speaking the language he knows gets to me, the language of Bruja Lupe’s old movies.

“What kind of proposition?” I ask. I can’t not ask.

“You get back in the pageant”—he pauses, like he’s still considering—“I’ll try out for the cornhole team.”

“What?” I ask. “Why would you do that to yourself? Those guys are jerks. They call you Picasso behind your back.”

“I know that. I also know they’re too stupid to realize I take it as a compliment.”

I appreciate what he’s trying to do. Chicky’s told me how good he is, from all those bored hours throwing beanbags into his stunningly painted cornhole boards. If he makes the team, Meteor Central High has a shot at the championship again. It might make everyone hate me and the Quintanillas a little less.

But it’s not worth Junior having to deal with Royce and the whole team.

“To my knowledge, there’s only one guy on the team you can stand, and he’s out for the season,” I say. “So why would you subject yourself to the rest of them?”

“Why are you subjecting yourself to this pageant?” Junior asks.

“Because I wanted it a long time ago, and I thought I could never have it.

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