Free Until It Hurts to Stop by Jennifer R. Hubbard Page A

in the grass near the court, thumbing through my mushroom guide. I know the names in this book by heart now, from false morels and liberty caps to parrot mushrooms and destroying angels. I can reel them off like a memorized poem. It fascinates me that my book labels certain mushrooms as poisonous while acknowledging that some people do eat them. The book speculates that the differences in mushroom toxicity may be due to the fact that mushrooms live off different materials in different places. They absorb what they live on.
    While I consider the line between food and poison, the game provides soothing background noise: the irregular beat of the guys’ feet as they run and pivot; the shuffling; the squeaking halts; the sudden thunder of the fast break.
    Sylvie flops down beside me. Her eyes follow the clump of boys who migrate back and forth between the two baskets like a pendulum. “Do you think they’d let me play?” she asks. She leans forward, and her leg muscles strain, as if she has to keep herself from jumping up and joining in. She’s on the girls’ team during the winter.
    “They’re in the middle of a game now. Grudge match, very serious, out for blood. But I bet they’d let you play another time if you came at the beginning.”
    “Maybe I would, if I didn’t have so many meetings. I’d be at Spanish club now, but it got canceled at the last minute.”
Her arrival has changed the air on court. Some of the guys run faster, make bolder grabs for the ball, deal out rougher fouls. It doesn’t matter that Sylvie prefers girls and they know it. She’s beautiful, she’s watching them, and they play harder. I, on the other hand, inspire them about as much as the concrete water fountain at the side of the court.
In books and movies, popular girls are mean, but not Sylvie. She’s popular because she talks to everyone and volunteers for everything. She remembers names. She puts birthdays in her calendar and sends out personalized birthday messages. Yet she doesn’t do it for the sake of being popular. When Sylvie asks how you are, she wants to know. She genuinely cares about whether you got that role in the play, or how long you’ll have to wear the cast on your arm.
“I don’t know how you keep up with everything,” I say. It would exhaust me to keep track of so many people.
“Yeah, Wendy’s been complaining that we don’t have enough time together. Which is ironic, because the last three times I called her, she was busy.” Sylvie scrolls through her messages. “She hasn’t even texted me today.”
“Listen, Sylvie—did you hear anything about a party at Vanessa Webb’s this weekend?”
“On Friday? Yeah. I can’t go because that’s the night of my cousin’s wedding.” She looks up from her phone. “I got a new dress for it, but now I’m thinking it’s a mistake. It’s garnet, and it kind of washes me out.” She tilts her head and studies me. “It would look perfect on you, though, with your dark hair and eyes. Why don’t you wear brighter colors?”
Because I’m just trying to get through high school without anyone noticing , I think. “I don’t know.”
“The skirt would be the right length for you, too. If my legs were in as good shape as yours, I’d wear skirts all the time.”
I look down at my jeans. Raleigh always said my knees were too knobby, so I hide them as much as possible. But maybe hiking has built up my leg muscles?
Or maybe Sylvie’s only being nice.
She scrolls through her messages again, frowning. “Wendy didn’t text me yesterday, either.”
But my mind is on the party, on trying to prepare for it any way I can. “What do you know about Vanessa?”
“She’s on a couple of committees with me—she organized the bake sale. And she helps me out with math sometimes.” Sylvie starts typing. “I’m going to see if I can get ahold of Wendy.”
I was hoping to hear something juicier about Vanessa— anything to indicate she’s less than perfect. Even just an