"People behind us would like to strangle you she told him.
"They all in a rush to get nowhere," he replied and didn't speed up.
The moment we pulled up to the entrance. Alanis leaped out of the car, slamming the door behind her and crying, "Finally. I nearly had another birthday."
"Don't be sassy, Alanis. You be careful, and don't you fret Miss Jordan into any trouble," Lester Marshall called to her. He nodded at me. "Alanis knows how to reach me when it's time for you to come home."
"Thank you," I said and got out.
"C'mon," Alanis said, grabbing my left wrist and tugging me hard. "Hurry before he decides to park and stay here, too. He can haunt you worse than any ghost,"
I looked back at her grandfather. He was still parked, watching us, a look of worry on his face. Before we entered the mall, he pulled away.
Alanis led me into the mall to the food court, where two of her girlfriends were waiting. They waved as soon as they saw us.
"This is Nikki, and that's Raspberry," Alanis told me when we stepped up to them.
Nikki wasn't much taller than I was, if she was any taller. Her light brown hair was cut stylishly over her ears and midway down her neck. She had large turquoise eyes and shapely thin lips, but her nose was just a little too big for her face. As to her figure, she looked more like a girl in sixth grade than I did. Ian would say she was doomed to be a late bloomer.
Raspberry, on the other hand, had a heavy bosom, wide hips and was taller than all three of us. Her reddish blond hair looked like it had dripped freckles down her bloated cheeks. She wore a thick, brassy-looking bracelet and a ring of some kind or another on almost all her fingers. When she turned to look at me closer. I saw she had a tattoo on the right side of her neck.
It looked like a butterfly.
"This is Jordan," Alanis said and put on a smile that made it seem like I was some sort of an
accomplishment. The two girls ran their eyes up and down my body and smiled back at her.
"Third grade?" Nikki asked.
"Going into," Alanis underlined.
"How old are you really?" Raspberry asked
me. When she spoke, her whole face became animated. Her eyebrows lifted and her cheeks seemed to rumble, as if they hadn't been attached to her bones.
"I'm seven."
"She's lying," Nikki told Alanis. "She just moved here, so you don't know for sure anyway. She can tell you anything she wants."
"I'm not lying.'" I said.
"We know your great-aunt," Raspberry said. "Why would your family send you to live with her unless you were in trouble? What you do? Did you get pregnant or something?'"
"No! I didn't do anything."
All three were staring at me now. I realized Alanis really hadn't believed everything I had told her and wanted her friends to consider me.
"I was left back," Nikki admitted. "They said I wasn't ready for social intercourse:, so I didn't go to first grade until I was seven instead of six. Okay." she said, putting her hands on her hips. "Now it's your turn to tell the truth."
"I did," I whined, tears coming to my eyes.
"You're making her cry. Nikki." Raspberry said. "Mavbe she ain't lying."
"I believe her." Alanis finally declared. "It's okay." she told me. "My granddad says she ain't lying about what happened to her parents, and if you're nice to her, she'll tell you all about her brother. Ian, and why he's in a mental institution. Right. Jordan?"
I nodded.
"That's a story I want to hear," Raspberry said,