Green Eyes and Ham by Mary Penney

Author:Mary Penney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

Fey and I waited outside the gym for Deuce to pick us up. After the ice had come off her ankle, Fey wanted to keep dancing. Coach told her she could as long as it didn’t hurt. We learned to find a less hectic area to dance. Fortunately, Bijou and Becca steered clear of us after that.

“That was some frolic!” Fey said, laughing. She lifted up my hand and whirled herself under my arm. “I’m starving, are you? I ate about a half dozen cupcakes, and I’m still hungry.”

I shoved my fists into my coat pocket and felt the gift certificate folded up in there. After they’d announced my name, I’d asked Coach if she would draw another ticket. I’d told her it just didn’t seem right for someone on the team to win. She’d laughed, thumped me on the back, and told me I needed to practice being a winner.

I did not feel like a winner at all. I felt like an accessory to fraud.

Micah had witnessed the conversation between me and Coach, and shook his head like I was completely hopeless.

“Ham! Wait up!”

I turned. Micah was in front of the gym by the door, and waved me over.

“Be right back,” I said to Fey. “I’ll just be a sec!”

Micah pulled my sleeve and led me over to the side of the gym. “Why did you try to give back your winning ticket?”

“Did you fix the raffle to make me win? You said before the drawing that I was going to win. How did you know that?”

He shot me a grin. “I might have thrown in a few extra raffle tickets with your name on them,” he said. He looked quite pleased with himself.

“Did you pay for them?”

“No! Why would I do that? Besides, you deserved to win. You bought more tickets than any other kid. I just wanted to make sure you did win. Didn’t want some entitled jerk who only bought one to get the prize. Besides, it’s not like you and your mom are rolling in the dough. That prize will come in really handy.”

“MI-CAH!” I whisper-screamed. “That’s cheating! If Coach found out, you and I could both get kicked off the team.”

“We’re not going to get caught. I ‘accidentally’ threw away all the ticket stubs so she wouldn’t be able to figure it out.”

I leaned up against the wall and closed my eyes. He was unbelievable.

“Hey,” he said, tugging on the front of my jacket. “Why are you getting so bugged about this? I did it because I like you.”

“I like you, too, but what you did is wrong!”

“Fine. Here, give me the gift certificate,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ll give it back to Coach.”

“But what will you tell her? And does Bijou know what you did?”

“Of course not! I’m not stupid.”

No, not stupid, I thought. Just reckless, and a cheater. That he did it because he “liked” me did not make me feel any better.

“Look,” he said. “I’ll figure out something to tell Coach.

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.