Here's Lily

by Nancy Rue

  “Bowwows Anonymous?” The words were out, but Art immediately put up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. Lost my head. Won’t happen again.”

  But Lily waved him off and turned to Dad. “Do you mean I can sign on with the agency?”

  “Absolutely. Your mom and I have seen a lot of God in what you’re doing there. You can keep it up if you want to.”

  “I can’t believe it!” Lily said. She squeezed her eyes shut and let the thrill go through her. She could hear Joe and Art smothering their snickers, but that was really okay.

  You can’t get to me now, she thought happily. I’m going to be a professional model!

  All the way home that night she envisioned herself posing in front of the cameras, wearing a smile and clothes from Old Navy. It was a perfect vision, like a reflection in a pool that didn’t have a ripple, until Mom dropped a pebble right in the center of it.

  She came into the tiny bedroom they were sharing at the Comfort Inn just as Lily was getting ready to slip under the covers and daydream some more until she fell asleep.

  “How do you feel?” Mom asked.

  “Sensational!”

  “I meant your face.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot all about it!”

  “Well, let’s not ‘forget’ to change your bandages tomorrow morning before we go to church.” She plopped down onto the bed, then sank back against the pillows with a huge sigh. “You know, it’ll probably be a while before Kathleen sends you out on any jobs. It’s going to take time for these burns to heal up.”

  “I can wait.” Lily found herself sitting up very tall in the bed. Reni had been right. She did feel like a girl in a book, very brave and heroic.

  “That’ll give you time to rearrange your schedule too.”

  “What do you mean?” Lily asked.

  That was when Mom dropped the pebble. “Your girls group,” she said. “You won’t be able to meet with them every day if you’re going out on jobs.”

  “But that’ll be just, um, once in a while,” Lily said.

  Mom shook her head. “From what Kathleen told me—and granted, we only spoke briefly—but she said once you’re completely well, she plans to keep you very busy. I didn’t realize it, but she has contacts in New York, Chicago even. One woman who was at the show tonight from Boston asked Kathleen specifically about you.”

  “No, she did not!”

  “What is that expression anyway? Whatever happened to ‘Shut up’?”

  Lily felt her stomach turning over. “So I’m going to be going out to auditions, like, all the time?”

  “I told her not during school hours, and she agreed. But it does mean right after school in most cases. These folks like to get their work done during the business day. Luckily, Dad’s schedule is such that once he’s back in the driver’s seat, he’ll be able to drive you.”

  Mom gave her dry little non-smile. “Right now, of course, you two are a real pair. I bet I’ve dealt with a mile of sterile gauze in the last two days . . .”

  But Lily didn’t hear the rest. Her mind was squealing to a stop and leaving long tire treads in her head.

  I can’t go to all the Girlz Only meetings? she thought. But what about Zooey and Suzy? They’re just getting started on their God-confidence. And Reni—she’s my best friend—I can’t just dump her to go do whatever. And what about . . .

  What about me?

  Suddenly the thought of being in New York with a bunch of people who might not be as nice as Kathleen, who might be like—like Cassie’s mother or something— suddenly that was the loneliest thing she could think of.

  Have God-confidence, she told herself sternly.

  Lily looked over at her mother, who had drifted off to sleep in midsentence. Lily pulled the covers up over her and snapped out the light. Then she lay there in the darkness, trying to get the ripples out of her perfect vision. But God-confidence didn’t make them disappear.

  By Monday morning, it seemed like everybody from the school custodian to Ashley Adamson had heard some version of all the things that had happened to Lily since last Thursday.

  “I heard you burned your whole house down and now you’re gonna be on Dateline,” Marcie said before Lily could even get her backpack off.

  “Somebody told me there was a fire during some fashion show you were in,” Leo said.

  “Maybe we ought to have a lesson about rumors today,” Ms. Gooch said. “How’s your father, Lily?”

  “Was he in the fashion show too?” Daniel said.

  One person who didn’t add anything to the discussion was Shad Shifferdecker, and for almost the first time since Saturday, Lily focused her attention on him.

  He was sitting in his usual spot, one row over from Lily, and he was slouched down in typical Shad fashion, one shoulder higher than the other, one foot hooked into the book rack under the desk. But, not at all like usual, he was paying absolutely no attention to the conversation going on around him. He was rolling a pencil up and down on the desktop, watching it as if it were hypnotizing him.

  Huh, Lily thought. Maybe I did impress him after all.

  No. Maybe God impressed him. Maybe my prayers are being answered, and he isn’t going to tease me anymore now that he’s seen me onstage.

  Just then Shad looked up, and his eyes hooked onto Lily’s. They narrowed.

  “What are you lookin’ at, freak?” he asked. “Dude, it creeps me out when you stare at me like that!”

  But the only thing Lily was thinking at that moment was that she wasn’t gritting her teeth. Not even a little bit.

  That was so encouraging that at first break she asked Reni and Suzy and Zooey to wait for her by the tree. Then she went right up to Shad at the water fountain and said, “So how come you came to my modeling show after all?”

  He turned around, mouth still dripping, and wiped his lips on his shirtsleeve. “It wasn’t my idea, I’ll tell ya that.”

  “You didn’t go to the mall?” Lily said.

  “I guess not if I was at your stupid thing. Duh!”

  “But I thought you always went to the mall on Saturday.”

  “So I didn’t go last Saturday. Sue me!”

  Lily shrugged. So far, nothing had changed with Shad Shifferdecker. He was just as obnoxious as ever.

  “Are you done interrogatin’ me?” he said.

  Lily was about to say no, that she had a few more questions, when out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Reni and Zooey waving frantically to her.

  “I have to go,” she told Shad.

  “Like I care.”

  Lily tossed her hair and took off at a brisk walk for the tree.

  “Thanks for giving me an excuse to come over here,” she said to the Girlz. “He’s just as hateful as he ever was—”

  “We found out why Shad was at the show!” Zooey said. Her little round face was flushed pink, and she was squeezing the life out of Suzy’s arm.

  “You did? How?” Lily asked.

  They both looked at Suzy, who gave the expected nervous giggle.

  “Suzy’s mama works at the high school,” Reni said.

  “She’s a secretary over there,” Zooey put in.

  “She heard Mrs. Shifferdecker talking because Mrs.

  Shifferdecker teaches at the high school.”

  “And guess what?” Zooey asked. Lily was sure she was about to explode like a bobbing pink balloon.

  “What?”

  “Shad doesn’t ever hang out at the mall on Saturday. His mother drags him wherever she goes! If she comes up to the school to work in her classroom, she makes him come with her so he won’t get in any trouble!”

  Zooey had to stop for breath, and Reni dove in. “Saturday she must have been working at the school and stuck him in the auditorium to watch whatever was going on to get him out of her hair.”

  For a minute, all Lily could do was stare at them. She waited for the big bubble of triumphant laughter to fly out of her throat, or at least the string of “I knew
Shad Shifferdecker was a liar!”

  But all she found herself doing was looking at Suzy.

  “Did you tell Reni and Zooey all that?” Lily asked her.

  Suzy nodded.

  “It was the most I ever heard her say all at one time,” Zooey put in.

  “All at one time?” Reni raised her hands. “It’s the most I ever heard her say period. The whole time I’ve known her.”

  “Wow.” Lily did feel a bubble in her chest, but it felt good, like how being proud feels. She smiled. “You’re getting confidence, Suzy.”

  “I am?” Suzy smiled too. And then, of course, she giggled.

  “But we have to get rid of the giggle at the end of every sentence,” Lily said. “We can work on that.”

  “Can we have a meeting today?” Zooey asked. “I miss them.”

  “We can have a meeting today,” Lily said. And to herself she said, “And maybe every day.” She still wasn’t sure about this modeling thing. She was going to have to talk to God about it some more.

  Just then the bell rang, and the Girlz linked arms to head for the building.

  “Let’s all try to walk the exact same way,” Lily started to say.

  But she was interrupted by a scream that split through the schoolyard noise like a chain saw. All four of them had to stop short to keep from being plowed into by a tousle-headed figure holding the back of her head.

  “That’s Kresha!” Zooey said as the girl flew past.

  “What happened?” Reni said.

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Lily started to scan the schoolyard with her eyes and spotted three boys folded in half and clutching at their sides as if they were in pain, though their faces were all twisted with laughter.

  “I mighta known it was Shad and them,” Reni exploded. “What have they done to their hair?”

  The four girls looked curiously as Shad, Leo, and Daniel straightened up. Lily let out a disgusted puff of air. All three of them had their hair completely messed up and sticking out, the way Kresha’s always was. Leo was holding a brush, and Daniel had a can of mousse.

  “Those evil boys tried to trade hairdos with her.” Lily narrowed her eyes. “I’d bet a hundred dollars.”

  “I’d bet a thousand,” Zooey said. Her face was the color of a strawberry.

  “They’re evil,” Suzy said. Her face turned suddenly so fierce that Lily wanted to laugh. But instead she folded her arms and tossed back her hair. “Kresha needs to be in the Girlz Only Group. Anybody have any objections?”

  “She needs to be,” Reni said. “First thing we need to do is help her find a different ’do so they can’t tease her about it anymore.”

  Lily shook her head. “They’d still tease her. And they’re still gonna tease us, no matter what we do.”

  Zooey now looked like a confused strawberry.

  “Then what’s the point of the club?” Reni said. “I thought we were trying to make it so Shad would never have any reason to tease us.”

  “I don’t think that anymore,” Lily said. “I think we just need to have so much confidence that it doesn’t bother us anymore when he teases us.”

  Zooey rolled her eyes. “You’re talking about self-confidence. My mama talks about that all the time. She says I don’t have any.”

  “No,” Lily said. “I’m talking God-confidence.”

  “Are you girls joining us in class?” Ms. Gooch called to them from across the schoolyard. “Or should I have your desks brought out here?”

  They broke into a run, Suzy zipping out in front, Zooey trailing behind. Lily linked her arm through Reni’s.

  “Let’s ask Kresha to sit with us at lunch and invite her into the group,” Lily said as they ran.

  “Okay.” Reni paused. “Lily, what’s God-confidence?”

  Lily tilted her head to think. “It’s how I walked right up to Shad Shifferdecker today and asked him how come he was at the middle school Saturday and not the mall.”

  “No, you did not!”

  “And when he was hateful to me, it didn’t cut me in half like it used to.”

  “Girl, that was brave.”

  “Nope,” Lily said again. “That was God.”

  “I never heard that at church.”

  “I didn’t learn it at church.” Lily let her smile meet in the back. “I learned that at modeling school.”

  Check out this excerpt from the

  next book in the Lily Series!

  Lily Robbins, MD (Medical Dabbler)

  Psst! Snobbins!” Lily Robbins didn’t have to look up from the pizza boxes she was carrying to know that voice. It was Shad Shifferdecker—the most obnoxious kid in the entire sixth grade. She tossed her mane of red hair and, as usual, ignored him.

  And, as usual, he persisted. That was one of the things that made him so obnoxious.

  “Snobbins!” he hissed again. “Are you gonna eat all that pizza yourself? Dude!”

  Lily just kept moving toward the door out of Papa John’s. Just a couple more steps and I’ll be away from the absurd little creep, she told herself. And the sooner the better.

  She leaned against the glass door and pushed herself out into the freezing January air.

  “See ya tomorrow,” Shad said behind her. “If you can get through the classroom door—”

  The door slapped shut, and Lily hurried toward the maroon van where her mom was waiting with the motor running and the heater blasting. But even though Lily couldn’t hear him anymore, she knew Shad wasn’t finished with her. He never was.

  Don’t look back, she warned herself. Or you’ll see something gross.

  Still, just as she reached the van, she caught a glimpse of her mom’s face. It was twisted up into a question mark as she stared inside Papa John’s. Lily couldn’t help it. She took a glance over her shoulder—and immediately wished she hadn’t.

  There was Shad at the door, his whole jacket crammed inside his T-shirt and his cheeks puffed out to three times their normal size so that he looked like a demented version of the Pillsbury Doughboy.

  “You are so not funny!” Lily wanted to shout at him.

  Instead she flipped her head around and stomped toward the van. Or, at least she tried to. On her second step, her heel slid on the ice, and she careened crazily forward, juggling pizza boxes and heading for a collision with the frozen ground.

  The pizzas hit first, with Lily right on top of them. She could feel the warmth of the grease through the box against her cheek. The smell of pepperoni went right up her nose.

  Above her she could hear the van window on the passenger side going down.

  “You all right, Lil?” Mom said.

  “Yeah,” Lily answered through her teeth.

  “Is the pizza all right?”

  Lily moaned and peeled herself off the pile of slightly flattened boxes. “I bet all the topping is stuck to the cardboard now,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mom said. “Just get in the van before you freeze your buns off—and our dinner gets cold.”

  Lily did, although she wasn’t as worried about her buns or the pizza as she was about the story Shad Shifferdecker was going to spread to their whole class tomorrow. But she didn’t even risk a glance inside Papa John’s as she climbed into the van and examined the top pizza.

  “I think it’s okay,” she said while Mom was backing out of the parking place and mercifully leaving Shad behind. “Just some pepperoni stuck to the lid, but I can peel that off.”

  “And I would if I were you,” Mom said dryly, “before your brothers get a look at it and want to know what happened.”

  “Mom, please don’t—”

  “How much is it worth to you for me to keep my mouth shut?”

  Mom’s mouth was twitching the way it always did when she was teasing. She never smiled that much, although the twinkle in her big, brown doe-eyes usually gave her away.

  “You’re not gonna tell,” Lily said.

  “Who was that delightful ch
ild in the pizza place?” Mom said, lips still twitching. “Friend of yours?”

  “No, he is NOT! Gross me out and make me icky!”

  “Come on now, Lil. Don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.”

  “I can’t stand Shad Shifferdecker,” Lily said, inspecting pizza number two. “He cannot leave me alone. He’s in my face all the time, telling me my hair looks like it’s on fire, or my mouth looks like I got stung by something big, or my skin’s so white it blinds him when I’m out in the sun.”

  “Charming,” Mom said. “How’s the one with the works? Art will go ballistic if his sausage is mixed up with his Canadian bacon.”

  Lily pried open the lid to the pizza on the bottom and wrinkled her nose. “How do you know whether it’s messed up or not?” she said. “It always looks like somebody already ate it to me, with all that stuff on there.”

  “Lily, hold on!”

  Mom’s arm came out and flattened against Lily’s chest. The van swerved sharply and suddenly felt as if it were out of control. Lily looked up just in time to see a pair of taillights in front of them disappear as the car spun around. Headlights glared in their faces.

  “Mom!” Lily screamed.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and, for some reason she couldn’t figure out, clutched the pizza boxes against her. She felt the van lurch to a stop, and she waited for the crash that was surely going to kill them both. But all she heard was her mother’s gasp.

  “Oh, dear Lord!”

  Lily opened her eyes again. The other car had spun once more and was sailing across the road, straight toward a pickup truck coming from the other direction. As Lily and her mother watched, the two vehicles slammed together and crumpled like . . . like two pizza boxes. Metal smashed. Glass broke. And then it was as quiet as snow itself.

  “Dear Lord,” Mom said again. Only this time her voice was quiet and grim as she reached for the cell phone and punched in three numbers.

  “Do you think anybody got hurt?” Lily said.

  She knew the answer was obvious, but it was the only thing that came into her head.

  “There’s been an accident on Route 130,” Mom was saying into the phone.