Free Stars So Sweet by Tara Dairman Page B

infuriated, and embarrassed her enough. She barreled past him into the wings, where she spotted an emergency exit. Without breaking her stride, she slammed through the heavy door.

Chapter 10
    DON’T CHICKEN OUT
    A S GLADYS STORMED DOWN THE SIDE street that led away from school, she considered the possibility of homeschooling more seriously than ever before. Her parents both worked full-time, so there was the small issue of who would teach her . . . but Aunt Lydia could take care of French lessons, and there were surely online programs she could do for the rest of it.
    As long as she never had to show her face at school again, she was game for anything.
    Well, except for the fact that
Hamilton
was homeschooled, and Gladys really didn’t want to follow in that boy’s footsteps. She could only imagine how pompously he would crow about being a leader in educational trends if he found out.
    Ugh. Why did every decision in her life have to be so complicated?
    One choice was simple, at least: Gladys knew she wanted to get as far away from DTMS as possible. As she hoofed the long blocks to Mr. Eng’s, she regretted not having ridden her bike that morning. She would have preferred to go straight home, but she’d promised her aunt she would stop in on her first day of work. And maybe, if things weren’t too busy, they could start to plan for how to pull Gladys out of middle school for good.
    The bell rang overhead as she pushed open the Gourmet Grocery’s door. Gladys had expected things to be under better control now that Mr. Eng had help, but in fact, the shop looked worse than ever. The light was still out in the cheese fridge, two produce bins were empty, and the spice wall was partially dismantled. Standing in front of that wall having a discussion were Mr. Eng and Aunt Lydia—and Mr. Eng didn’t sound happy.
    â€œI simply asked you to restock the cinnamon,” he said, “not to rearrange the entire wall!”
    â€œI—I’m sorry,” Aunt Lydia stammered. “I just had this vision of how nice the spices would look rearranged by color, and—”
    â€œBut that wasn’t the task you were assigned!” Mr. Eng snapped. “The spices are arranged alphabeticallyso that customers can find them easily. Please put them back the way you found them, and then finish restocking.”
    Aunt Lydia stared at the tiles at her feet. “Of course.”
    Mr. Eng turned on his heel and stalked back into the storeroom; there were no other customers in the shop just then, and in the heat of the exchange, he hadn’t even heard the bell over the door ring. Gladys was starting to wonder whether she could just back out of the store quietly when Aunt Lydia spotted her.
    â€œMy Gladiola!” She hastily wiped her eye, smudging eyeliner across her cheek in the process. Then, placing the bright yellow bottle of turmeric she was holding onto the nearest shelf—not the right one at all, Gladys noticed—she hurried over to hug her niece. “
Bonjour, bonjour!
How was your first day of school? My first day here has been
magnifique
!”
    Clearly, Aunt Lydia was exaggerating; even if Gladys hadn’t just overheard Mr. Eng scolding her, she looked exhausted and slightly disheveled. There was no way Gladys could now dump her own problems at her aunt’s impractically sandaled, slightly swollen feet.
    â€œOh . . . my day was fine,” Gladys lied. “I mean, a few bumps along the way, but nothing serious.”
    â€œThat’s my sweet star,” Aunt Lydia said, giving her a squeeze. “Mature enough to handle anything life throws her way.”
    Gladys couldn’t help but chafe at this undeserved praise.
Yeah, really mature,
she thought.
Ready to quit school just because someone embarrassed me!
    In any case, she was pretty sure that her aunt needed her help right now more than she needed her aunt’s. “Hey, Aunt