Free Husky by Justin Sayre

libretto,” I say, still looking at Renée.
    â€œSo you have to read to listen? That sounds like a lot,” says Allegra, going back to her phone.
    â€œIt’s like a musical. You use the book just to find out what’s going on,” says Sophie.
    â€œMy uncles Mark and Phil, they’re gay. They took me to see
Wicked
,” says Allegra. And then she looks at me, right at me, and says, “It sucked.” And as quickly as it happens, she’s gone again. Back to her phone, far away from here and these losers. Me, in particular.
    And that’s it, I hate her. Hate her. Forever. I want to put her in Ellen’s video game and let Ellen blow her up with all the other zombies. I want to force all the gluten I can get my hands on into her mouth and watch her puke or die or whatever would happen. I want her phone to explode in her face. I want her gone, and I want her gone now. It’s not like we’re friends. And the “sucked” was all about me. Not
Wicked
. Everyone knows
Wicked
is great. Charlie even tries to defend it, but that’s not the point. Not at all.
    Hannah stops moving her dolls and grabs my face, pushing it to hers, and smiles her biggest smile at me. Hannah always tries to save the day. But this time, she’s too late.

CHAPTER 8
    I couldn’t stay for dinner at Ellen’s. Hannah started to cry a little until I promised that I would come over another day. I had to leave. Charlie wanted me to stay too. Sophie knew better and hugged me good-bye, but Allegra stayed.
    The thing that made me crazy was being not even a person to Allegra. Being nothing at all. She barely looked up at me, and the only person she ever really talked to was Sophie, all in this weird girl whisper, which sounds exactly like snakes. Honest. Snakes. That can’t mean they’re saying good things, right? And then her laugh, which is just gross, because it’s not really a laugh, she just opens her mouth and breathes. It’s fake. Fake and Mean and Awful and the Worst Evah. If I were assigning adjectives, those would all be hers.
    By the time I ride home, I’m sweaty and winded and all I want to do is go to bed. In the dark I want to lie there and stop thinking about everything and maybe listen to
Aida
. Maybe. Maybe just lie there. Sometimes with me, the quiet is just as big as an opera. Maybe bigger.
    But when I open the door, Nanny is standing there with her pocketbook in her hand and waiting for something. That something is me.
    â€œWhat time do you call this, now?” she says to me.
    â€œWas I supposed to be home?” I ask. I don’t think I was, really. I wouldn’t have forgotten, especially today. But before I can find out—
    â€œLook at the state of you. How can you go to Martinetti’s with me and the Mrs. like that?” She looks me over as she sucks her teeth. “Go upstairs and put on something, now, and don’t diddle around up there or we’ll be late and I won’t have it.”
    I start up the stairs two at a time, because when Nanny won’t have something, that’s pretty serious. I didn’t remember having to go with her to Martinetti’s tonight and especially with the Mrs. I would have remembered,because I would have been worried about it all day. But it would have been a great excuse to leave Ellen’s even earlier.
    The Mrs. are both nice and usually one at a time I can handle them, but the trouble starts when you put them all together, all three Mrs., it’s a lot. Too much, really. They all talk over each other and their accents are confusing, jumbled up all on top of one another. It’s a mess. And they always have a thousand questions for me, that I think they want the answers to. But they don’t wait for me to answer them. So for me it’s a night of nodding or looking off or apologizing to other tables with my eyes for all the noise. I either get really ignored or have to be at the