Free Out of Bounds by Annie Bryant Page A

hip-hop?” Avery laughed at the thought.
    â€œDillon wants to work as a techie. He’s going to be my best boy.”
    â€œYour what?” Charlotte sounded shocked.
    â€œIt’s like a technical term,” Maeve said to Charlotte. “A best boy works on the electronics and stuff.”
    Kiki smiled. She waved at Dillon across the gym where he was sitting on the benches. He looked totally uncomfortable with Kiki’s blatant attention. Kiki didn’t seem to get it that seventh-grade boys weren’t ready for major flirting. Most twelve-year-old boys were still giving each other noogies and playing wrestling games on the playground.
    â€œToo bad you couldn’t join us,” Kiki said to Maeve. “We’re all meeting at my house this afternoon to discuss our rehearsal schedule.”
    Maeve realized from her tone that Kiki had been setting her up. Kiki knew all along that Maeve was in two numbers. She’d seen the sign-up sheet.
    Kiki popped up from the bench to get some water at the fountain. Anna and Joline followed.
    â€œI thought of a new trick I want you to do in the magic show,” Maeve said, as if nothing unusual had just happened.
    â€œWhat trick?” Charlotte asked.
    â€œI want you to make Kiki Underwood disappear.”
    â€œFunny, Maeve, very funny.”
    P AST , P RESENT , F UTURE
    Isabel didn’t get to school until after lunch was over. When the other girls arrived at art class, Isabel was already there, talking to the instructor. They were discussing Isabel’s art project for the month. Displayed on the wall was Isabel’s art. With her teacher’s guidance, Isabel had created a multimedia collage in three pieces entitled: Past, Present, and Future . It was pretty amazing and very big . It had three distinct panels that fit together—a triptych, her teacher called it. Isabel had worked for weeks on it and her teacher wanted to enter it in an art contest that a bank in Boston ran every year for junior high and high school students.
    Isabel’s work was part painting, part collage. The first piece, the one entitled Past , looked like a child painted it, but better. There were images of Michigan, where Isabel was born, and of Mexico City, where her grandparents still lived in the old family house. There were photos of the family eating tamales in the Mercado de Comida, and others of her little cousins, Pedrito and Miguel Angel. In the lower right corner, a tiny ballerina, Isabel, danced her part in a local production of The Nutcracker . Little Isabel danced as her father looked on.
    The second painting, entitled Present , featured a stage on which a ballerina was sitting down with the other ballerinas around her. Off to the side were a pair of crutches and a caption that said: Dance cancelled…for now…
    To the far right of the center painting, a happy Isabel emerged into a different kind of ballet, a water ballet.
    The girls knew the story by heart. Isabel had been a serious ballet student, but she had damaged the cartilage in her knee. It would have taken mega surgery before Isabel could dance again, and the doctor said her knee would always be at risk for more damage. So Isabel had to give up on ballet.
    She was depressed about losing ballet for a long time. But one day, her mother took her aside and said to her, “Isabel, no more moping. When one door closes, another opens…So keep your eyes open, sweetheart…some little bird will fly in and tell you what to do next.”
    And something did happen. One day her mother and sister took her to see some paintings of the artist Frida Kahlo in Mexico. Isabel could not believe her eyes. Such color, such images. Isabel had never seen paintings like that. They were so alive and colorful…and a little ugly, too.
    For some reason Frida’s paintings appealed to Isabel. Maybe, thought Isabel, it was because the paintings reminded her of the world…sometimes beautiful