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    Separate Sisters
    Separate Sisters
    Separate Sisters
    Ebook75 pages1 hour

    Separate Sisters

    By Nancy Springer

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    About this ebook

    Perfect Trisha and troublemaker Donni couldn’t be more different—but neither of them knows what to do when their parents get a divorce

    After Donni and Trisha’s parents split up, Donni goes to live with their dad and Trisha goes with their mom. Donni is nothing like her older sister, Trisha the Perfect, who gets good grades and never does anything wrong. All Donni is interested in is art. Since the divorce, she’s been in trouble practically every day. But after she smears paint on another girl’s shirt and an adult asks her about the divorce, all hell breaks loose.

    Since Donni is always in trouble, no one seems to notice that Trisha is also having a hard time with things at home. With no one to confide in, Trisha pours her heart out about everything—her parents, her sister, her hopes for the future—in her journal. What she wants more than anything is for Donni to talk to her about how she’s feeling. But after Donni does something terrible, maybe unforgivable, the two sisters might never be friends again. 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateDec 30, 2014
    ISBN9781497688872
    Separate Sisters
    Author

    Nancy Springer

    Nancy Springer is the award-winning author of more than fifty books, including the Enola Holmes and Rowan Hood series and a plethora of novels for all ages, spanning fantasy, mystery, magic realism, and more. She received the James Tiptree, Jr. Award for Larque on the Wing and the Edgar Award for her juvenile mysteries Toughing It and Looking for Jamie Bridger, and she has been nominated for numerous other honors. Springer currently lives in the Florida Panhandle, where she rescues feral cats and enjoys the vibrant wildlife of the wetlands.

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      Book preview

      Separate Sisters - Nancy Springer

      CHAPTER ONE

      So I had what I wanted. Living with Dad. Mom not on my case anymore.

      I had to be happy, right?

      So I was in art class painting an attack heart. I was supposed to be painting the three gourds and an eggplant Mrs. Antonio had arranged up front, but it was Valentine’s Day and I know girls are supposed to love Valentine’s Day, but I hate it, I hate holidays and birthdays and all mushy occasions, so I was painting an attack heart, a long, messy, bright red, spear-shaped heart flying through the air with its sharp point about to kill—something, it needed something to attack, so I quick painted somebody with lots of red hair, and with the red still dripping on the brush I dipped into the black and painted big black letters I LOVE YOU TO DEATH.

      There was this really annoying girl with too many pink plastic hair clips in front of me, and there was still a lot of paint on my brush, so I painted a big black attack heart on her back, right on her itty bitty, skinny-mini top from some French shop at the mall. She squealed like a guinea pig, and it was washable paint, for God’s sake, like they use any other kind in school? So Mrs. Antonio came running. When she got there I was slapping black paint all over my painting, like the black letters I LOVE YOU TO DEATH had rained down on it, because I had suddenly realized that the person with a lot of red hair was my sister, Trisha.

      What is going on? Mrs. Antonio wanted to know, and to cooperate and demonstrate I reached out and put some more black paint on the annoying girl.

      A little while later I was sitting in the office waiting to talk with the vice-principal when my sister, Trisha the Perfect, walked past.

      She saw me, and her mouth formed a soft O shape, and she came in. Donni, what happened?

      That’s the nine thousandth thing I can’t stand about my sister, she’s such a pet. She can walk into the office and they act like she’s faculty, like she belongs there. They don’t even ask her for a pass.

      Go away, I said.

      She didn’t go away. She sat down beside me. She was wearing dark slacks, just like the ladies who worked in the office, and a heather green scrunchie, and a heather green sweater that belonged to Mom. She and Mom swapped clothes a lot. But Mom wouldn’t have touched my clothes without rubber gloves. I was wearing my favorite old, ripped high-topped All Stars, my favorite old, ripped baggy jeans, and my favorite old, ripped Texaco shirt, and I sure didn’t need any doodad to hold my hair back because I keep it cut short.

      All that, and people still say me and Trisha look alike because we both have red hair, though Trisha helps hers along with hair coloring, which is what she insists on saying instead of hair dye, and perm. We both have the same sort of boxy faces with jaw angles and cheekbone angles and short noses and freckles and green eyes. And I guess we both have two arms and two legs. So we look alike, big deal.

      Trisha is only ten months older than I am. People say we look like twins, not just sisters. I say we should have been twins separated at birth.

      Trisha asked, Are you in trouble again?

      Nooooo, I’m helping out the administration by holding this chair down. Leave me alone.

      Even though Trisha is only ten months older, she is in eighth grade in all honors classes. I am in sixth grade because I got held back in kindergarten for being immature. Since then that’s kind of become my middle name. Donni Immature Ross. I only see Trisha in school now because she lives with Mom and I have moved in with Dad. Next year, assuming she doesn’t fail, which is not likely as she is an advanced-placement gifted-class genius and gets straight A’s except in phys ed, she will be in the high school and I will hardly see her at all.

      Good. Great. I can’t wait.

      Trisha got a look like an orphan calf, which she does really good, her eyes huge and pathetic under her curly bangs. She said, Donni, why don’t you tell me things anymore?

      Now she was trying to make me feel bad, and okay, I admit I don’t understand me, I kind of wanted to talk to her. But then a tornado of emotions lifted me right out of my chair. I landed on my feet and stamped my Chucks and screamed at her, Get out of my FACE just leave me ALONE!

      Young lady! a secretary barked at me. Trisha got up and backed out the door, her face white and taut.

      I sat down feeling like an eggbeater was working on me, like I was a cake mix. I hated her, she was so tame, tame, TAME.

      Donni. Mr. Billet poked his head out of his door, probably hoping he’d kept me waiting long enough to make me sweat.

      I went in and sat in the vinyl chair. Mr. Billet’s office was utterly boring. Tan fake-leather chair, tan fake-wood desk, tan fake-something shelves. The only picture on the walls was Washington Crossing the Delaware.

      Mr. Billet’s face wasn’t boring. Kind of like Mr. Potato Head.

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