Scary Cool (The Spellspinners) by Diane Farr

dismissively, interrupting. “What she has is confidence. It’s all in the packaging, Meg. You aren’t playing up your assets.”
    Meg looked glum. “I’m not allowed to. No contact lenses, remember? No high heels, no push-up bras, no decent clothes—by which I mean, no in decent clothes. My mother thinks I’m a child.”
    “Okay, let’s work within those parameters. We’ll start with the hair, i f that’s all we’re permitted to touch. ”
    Megan does not have bad hair. She has great hair —a mop of dense curls that most straight-haired girls would kill for . But she hates it. So I knew that if she made a change, she’d feel prettier—and that would make her, in fact, prettier.
    And maybe I wouldn’t have to put the whammy on Alvin.
    And meanwhile, all this girl-talky stuff distracted her from asking about Lance.
    I really, really didn’t want to talk about Lance. Because I knew exactly what Meg thought of him, and what she would say if she found out I’d spent yesterday afternoon with him. Worse: E ven when I wasn’t with him, now, I was thinking about him. So I just didn’t want our conversation to go there. Ever.
    Spellspinners don’t need much sleep. Maybe we don’t, technically, need sleep at all. I love to sleep, but if I don’t sleep, I don’t fall apart the way sticks do. So if I want to see Lance—and for some perverse reason, I do—I don’t have to do it in broad daylight.
    School had been in session for less than a week, and already I was planning to live a double life. By day, I’d be a high school junior and Megan O’Shaughnessy’s best friend.
    But my nights I w ould give to Lance.
    And Meg and Nonny need never know.
    Now all I had to do was tell Lance.

Chapter 7
     
    I got my chance sooner than I thought I would. I was on my way home, just gliding around the turn onto Chapman Road , when I heard the distant thrum of a motorcycle. It could have been anybody, but I knew it was Lance. And I knew he was looking for me.
    My heart rate accelerated. I was almost home. There was really nowhere to go. Our house, and the nursery, are the only things on Chapman Road that don’t belong to the Chapmans . But I couldn’t go to either place, because Nonny would have my hide for bringing Lance onto her property . If I sailed on past the house and nursery , Lance would follow—but what if Nonny or Tres looked up at the wrong moment and saw me heading, inexplicably, to the Chapman place? Or, m ore likely, looked up to see what idiot was coming to a nursery on a motorcycle, and saw Lance.
    Nowhere to hide, as usual. This was not the first time I have wished we lived in the city. Any city.
    Mutterin g under my breath, I swerved my bicycle onto the narrow foot path that runs through the field to the creek — the only possible stopping point before coming within sight of the house . With luck, the tall grass would provide some cover. I skidded to a halt, tapped the kickstand down, and walked back to the edge of the path, where I could watch Chapman Road.
    When Lance came into view, I sent him an image of where I was standing. The boy is too smooth to startle. He poured that wicked-looking machine right over to the edge of the path as if that was where he’d been headed all along. Riding that low-slung , gleaming chopper , wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses and all, he looked like a teen idol from a 1950’s B-movie.
    I stepped delicately through the grass toward him, stopping before it thinned out near the road. “ Fancy meeting you here, ” I remarked , feigning surprise .
    “I figured I wouldn’t be welcome at the O’Shaughnessy place.”
    “You aren’t welcome at the Norland place, either. Nonny objects to my socializing with a boy who hit me. ”
    He nodded, unfazed. “I get that. ” He took off his sunglasses. His green eyes were piercing. “ Rune’ s not crazy about my s eeing you, either. But here I am .”
    A breeze stirred the tall stalks of meadow grass, surrounding me