Swish by Elena Delle Donne

Author:Elena Delle Donne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2020-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The rest of the week was focused on practice and schoolwork, because I knew I had a busy weekend ahead: a game on Sunday, a booster club meeting on Saturday afternoon, and on Saturday morning, the Buddy Club was getting ready for the takeover of the Valentine’s Day Dance.

Going to the Buddy Club meeting meant that I was going to miss out on a training session with Dad and Zobe, but Dad had understood.

“I’ll go over the lesson with you on Sunday night,” he promised as he dropped me off at the school. Zobe whined in the back seat when I got out of the car, and I patted him on the head.

“I’ll miss you, boy. Be good in school!”

He replied with a loud woof, and I laughed.

I made my way to Ms. Ebear’s classroom, where I found all the kids from the Buddy Club, and a few extra ones. Katie, Gabrielle, and Dylan were busy cutting out paper hearts from construction paper, and Cole, Emily, Faith, and Satoko were writing messages on them with markers. They’d already finished a whole bunch of them, which I saw overflowing from two paper bags.

“Wow, you guys did so many already!” I exclaimed.

“We got a lot done on Wednesday,” Ms. Ebear said, taking a sip of coffee. “I think we’re ready to start putting them on lockers. Can I get a locker team going?”

I raised my hand, and so did Dylan, Katie, and Gabrielle.

“Great!” Ms. Ebear said. “Katie and Gabrielle, you do the sixth-grade lockers. Dylan and Elle, take the seventh grade. Then you can both tackle the eighth grade together. Come back here when you run out.”

Ms. Ebear handed Dylan and Katie each a roll of masking tape, and she gave me and Gabrielle a bag of hearts. I riffled through them as Dylan and I made our way down the hallway.

The hearts were the same colors as those candy hearts—pink, yellow, light blue, and pale green. Curious to know what had been written on them, I started reading them aloud.

“ ‘Make Today Great,’ ” I began. “ ‘Today Is Your Day.’ ‘Believe in Yourself.’ ”

When we reached the seventh-grade lockers, Dylan started breaking off pieces of the masking tape.

“I’ll tape, you stick on the hearts?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said, and we got to work.

“I guess this dance will be a lot less stressful than the cotillion,” Dylan remarked.

“No kidding,” I said.

“I mean, though, it wasn’t that bad,” Dylan said. “At least I had you as my partner.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said hesitantly. Where was Dylan going with this?

I handed him a paper heart, and my mind drifted off, thinking about the cotillion. I had been miserable, knowing I had to wear a dress. Avery had helped me out by bringing a sparkly hoodie for me to wear when the formal dance part was over, so I felt more like myself. And by then we could dance with whoever we wanted to, and I had danced with Amanda, jumping around and laughing. In the end, it had been really fun.

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