Free Katy's Homecoming by Kim Vogel Sawyer

chatted as Grampa drove, their soft voices an accompaniment to the grit of tires on gravel. The familiar routine — worship, dinner with her grandparents, visiting — should have blanketed Katy in comfort. But today she had to continually blink, an attempt to control unsettling tears that pressed for release.
    Annika bumped her with her elbow and whispered,“Are you okay?”
    Katy looked out the window and didn’t answer. She wasn’t okay. She wouldn’t be okay until she’d finally made a decision about homecoming. Why hadn’t Dad decided for her? Letting her be grown up and choose for herself was proving to be too hard.

Chapter Nine
    Jewel stared at Katy. “You can’t be serious.” Cora and Trisha exchanged looks. Katy held her hands out in a gesture of
what?
Jewel snorted, rolled her eyes, and turned to Cora and Trisha. “She’s serious.”
    Katy leaned against the school’s brick exterior and folded her arms over her chest. Yesterday’s sunny sky had disappeared under a cloak of gray clouds. She wished the bell would ring so they could go inside. She also wished Shelby would join them instead of hanging out with Jayden and his friends. Somehow Shelby always understood Katy better than Cora, Trisha, or especially Jewel. Shelby would listen and see Katy’s reasons for declining the opportunity to be the sophomore class homecoming attendant.
    Katy said,“If I can’t do it, they’ll just choose someone else, right? I mean, if the seniors voted for the attendants, there’s got to be a second-place girl.”
    Jewel huffed. A little cloud of condensation hung in front of her face for a few seconds and then whisked away on the breeze. “Yeah, but who’d want to be recognized asthe
second-place
girl? There’s no glory in being runner-up.” Jewel scowled. “Especially runner-up to
you.
I mean, who knows why they picked the weird little Amish girl in the first place, but no way would anyone want to do it knowing it was only ‘cause you turned it down.”
    “Jewel, don’t be mean,” Trisha chided. She turned to Katy. She looked worried. “I think Jewel’s right. It would be so, like, embarrassing to even do it knowing you got it by default.”
    Cora hugged herself and bounced in place. “The thing is, if you turn it down, the sophomore class won’t be represented. So if you tell the principal you can’t be the attendant, they’ll probably just have Michael stand up there by himself.”
    “And wouldn’t
that
look stupid.”
    Katy cringed at Jewel’s derisive tone.
    Jewel pulled the furry collar of her coat up around her jaw and glared at Katy. “Look, Miss Has-To-Be-Difficult, if you back out, you’re proving everybody in the school right — that you’re just a weird girl who doesn’t belong.”
    Katy hung her head. Her chest felt tight and achy. She hoped she wouldn’t cry.
    “Jewel!” Trisha stared at the other girl in open-mouthed disbelief. “That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said!”
    Jewel shrugged. “I’m just speaking truth, girlfriend.” She looked skyward and flipped her hands outward, as if petitioning the heavens. “Boggles the mind that they even chose her. It’s gotta be some big colossal joke.” She whirled on Katy, giving her a squinty-eyed look. “But if you turn it down? Big mistake.
Big
mistake.” Jewel stomped off, her long hair—dyed reddish-purple this week — swinging.
    Cora scuttled close to Katy. “Don’t let her bother you. You know when she gets in a bad mood, she takes it out on anybody around.”
    Katy glared at Jewel’s retreating back. “Well, I’ve had about enough of her dissing
me.”
    Trisha and Cora burst out laughing.
    Katy turned her glare on them.
    They laughed harder.
    Katy started to walk off, but Trisha grabbed her arm and held her in place. After a couple of snorting sounds, she brought her laughter under control. She squeezed Katy’s arm. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have laughed. But there you are in your little cap,