Free Gift Horse by Terri Farley

for the freshman basketball team, she hadn’t made the last cut.
    Mrs. Santos didn’t explain. Instead, as the bell rang for class, she handed each girl a list.
    â€œWe’d like your help in putting together a major community project that will involve as many students as possible. Those,” she said, nodding at the lists, “are students who haven’t turned in the forms stating their intentions.”
    Crossing all of her fingers and hiding them behindher, Sam stood, then summoned the courage to ask, “Do we still have to bring this project in front of the student council?”
    Mrs. Santos must have noticed her quavery voice, because she nodded slowly, looking sympathetic. “You do,” she said. “In fact, Rachel will be abstaining from all community service projects votes until you two have come up with something.”
    Rachel gave Sam a stare that actually seemed hot. It blazed between the two girls, but if the principal noticed, she showed no sign.
    â€œAnd, of course, if you girls can’t come up with something, you know my safety net project. That’s all set up and ready to go.”
    The dump. Looking for one bit of fun she could wring out of this morning, Sam glanced at Rachel to see her reaction. The rich girl looked frozen, except that her bottom lip pushed out in a pout.
    Mrs. Santos folded her hands on her desk. She smiled and leaned back in her chair. “Good luck, girls. Now you’d better get to class.”
    They left the office side by side, neither speaking as they jostled across a campus now crowded with students.
    When Rachel noticed Daisy and her other friends approaching, she veered away from Sam.
    â€œJust leave the bloody thing to me,” Rachel said, reviving her faint British accent to sound properly put-upon.
    Sam could have taken that, but as Rachel wassurrounded by the perfume and popularity of her own little clique, she fluttered one hand in Sam’s direction and added, “I’ll tell you what to do.”
    That was too much. And she didn’t care what Daisy, Rachel, or any of those girls thought of her.
    â€œFat chance!” Sam snapped back. Hands on hips, she stood until Rachel turned around, her lips parted in disbelief.
    â€œI beg your pardon?” Rachel accompanied the carefully spaced words with a glare. “What did you say?”
    Wishing they hadn’t attracted quite so many fascinated onlookers, Sam drew herself up to her full height and took a breath. “I said: Fat bloody chance!”
    Sam thought she heard a few scattered cheers as she hurried off to class, but she wasn’t sure. Mostly, she was wondering what she’d gotten herself into.

Chapter Seven
    â€œS o what are you going to do?” Jen Kenworthy turned to Sam as they rode the bus toward home. Behind her glasses, Jen’s blue eyes rounded with curiosity and she twisted the end of one white-blond braid around her index finger.
    â€œI’m thinking, but I’m not coming up with anything.” Sam leaned back against the bus window.
    Jen studied her for a full minute. When she talked next, Sam wondered if her friend could read her mind.
    â€œI know you’ve never been into the whole rah-rah student council thing, but now you’d better get into it.”
    â€œThose girls hate us,” Sam protested in a whisper.
    â€œThey don’t hate you, or me,” Jen said. “Thatwould mean that they know we exist. They have much more important things on their minds.”
    â€œLike shoes,” Sam said, returning Jen’s sarcastic smile. “And mascara.”
    â€œExactly,” Jen said. “But I’ll tell you, if Mrs. Santos wants a dynamite idea for a community service project, you’d better come up with something. If she says you’ll be sorting garbage, you will.”
    Sam had a feeling Jen was right. “Since I’ve pretty much alienated Rachel, I guess I’m on my