Shannon in the Spotlight by Kalena Miller

Author:Kalena Miller [Miller, Kalena]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2023-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

“MOM!” I holler from my bedroom. “I can’t find my ChapStick!”

I just woke up, and my ChapStick isn’t in its usual spot. I forgot to leave a tube under my pillow before falling asleep, and now my lips are unbearably dry.

“I can’t hear you!” Mom yells back.

I switch from slippers to Vans and run down the stairs. Grandma Ruby is sitting in her usual spot at the dining table with a cup of coffee and a blueberry scone. Mom is standing in the kitchen, rummaging through her purse. She pulls out her sunglasses and then her keys.

“Where are you going? And why are you leaving so early?” I ask Mom.

“It’s ten-thirty,” Grandma Ruby says dryly. “The rest of the household has been awake for several hours, Shannon.”

“Right.” I’m not normally a late sleeper, especially with Grandma Ruby staying in my bedroom, but I didn’t fall asleep until two in the morning. After I got home from the movie screening, I spent an hour texting with Fatima, another hour dissecting every detail of the night with Mom, and then three hours alternating between crying about Elise and fantasizing about Micah holding my hand again. It’s no wonder I didn’t wake up to Grandma Ruby stomping around my room.

“Sorry, sweetie. I have a ton of errands to run,” Mom says. “Are you feeling any better this morning?”

“A little, I guess.” I didn’t wake up crying, so that’s progress. “Except I can’t find any ChapStick.”

“Did you look in your bathroom drawers?”

“Yup.”

“Your backpack?”

“Yup.”

“Bedside table?”

“Yeah, I checked all the normal spots.”

Because I can’t live without ChapStick, Mom keeps a billion spare tubes around our house. In her bedroom, in the laundry room, in sock drawers and linen cabinets. The problem, of course, is that I raid those hiding spots whenever I’m running low. Which inevitably causes me to panic because I can’t find ChapStick when I need it most.

“Oh, I have hiding spots you don’t know about.” Mom crosses the kitchen to the spice rack and starts shaking glass jars and plastic containers. I watch her in confusion. “But seriously, sweetie. You have to tell me before you run out completely.” She pops open a container of Cajun seasoning and out falls the familiar blue and white tube.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Mom tosses the ChapStick to me and grabs her purse. “I’ll be back later,” she says. “Have a good day with your grandmother, okay?”

I nod and wave goodbye, though having a good day seems unlikely. There’s no rehearsal on Saturday, Fatima is still feeling sick, and I made things a thousand times worse with Elise. The only person besides Grandma Ruby I might be able to talk to is Micah, and I don’t have his number. Well, I could probably find his number in the theater directory. But texting him randomly feels bold, and I’m less confident in the light of day.

Grandma Ruby watches as I peel the plastic wrapper off the fresh tube of ChapStick and coat my lips three times. When I snap the cap back on, she snatches it from my hands.

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