Free Taneesha Never Disparaging by M. LaVora Perry Page A

won’t tell?”
    â€œAll right,” Carli said, all like I-don’t-know-ifthis-is-a-good-idea.
“I promise. I won’t tell.”

CHAPTER 11
    FLOUNCING OUT
    A t my house, Carli and I sat at the kitchen table. In silence, we drank soymilk and snacked on crackers, tuna salad, and cucumbers.
    â€œSo, Taneesha, can I read your speech, now?” Carli asked in a voice that wasn’t as zippity as it normally was when she got on that subject.
    I didn’t want to hear anything about the stupid election. I wished I could wave a magic wand and erase everything that had happened today.
    â€œDid you print it out yet?”
    â€œNo, Carli. You cannot read my dang speech and I wish you’d have kept your mouth shut and not nominated me at all.”

    She hung her head.
    â€œOh. I didn’t know you felt that way. Sorry.”
    Hot blood rushed to my face. I wanted to snatch back my witchy words and unsay them.
    Can’t you do anything right, Taneesha?
    I reached across the table and patted Carli’s hand. “I’m sorry, Carli. It’s not your fault. I’m just—I’m just scared, that’s all.”
    â€œAbout the election?”
    â€œNo! I mean, yes—but that’s not all. That girl. She was mean. What if she comes back tomorrow?”
    â€œWell, maybe she won’t.”
    â€œBut you heard her. She said she was going to make sure I mind my own business. Maybe she’s even planning to do something to you . Haven’t you thought about that?”
    â€œI think we should tell our parents, Taneesha. It’s crazy not to.”
    â€œI don’t want to, Carli. Don’t tell, okay? Let’s just see how things go tomorrow first? Please?”
    â€œI think you’re making a mistake. Sometimes you need help and this is definitely looking like one of those times to me.”
    â€œPlease, Carli?” I hated begging, but I couldn’t
stand the idea of my parents finding out what happened.
    â€œOkay. I won’t tell. At least not before tomorrow. After that, I’m not promising what I’ll do.”
    â€œOkay. That’s fair. Thanks.”
    â€œThanks” wasn’t a big enough word for how I felt about Carli right then. Sure, she’d really messed me up with the whole nomination thing, but saving me from whatever know-it-all advice my parents would dump on me if they knew about the older girl almost made up for it. I’d been dumped on enough for one day. I didn’t need my parents adding to the pile.
    Â 
    By the time Carli and I finished our homework, Mama was home. While she made dinner, we worked on a campaign poster in the living room. I’d had to confess to Carli that when I told her I’d made a poster, I’d really meant, “I have a board that’ll work for poster.”
    I used a purple marker on a giant, yellow-butused-to-be-white poster board I’d dragged up from the basement. It smelled musty, like dragon breath, and had COLOSSAL YARD SALE in huge, red letters on its bad side and lots of black
mildew dots on its “good” side. But it was all I had, so it went with it.
    I magic-markered this on it in big letters:
    TANEESHA
4
PRESIDENT
    Carli and I drew a bunch of colorful flowers all around the slogan for decoration. I tried to make the mildew dots look like pollen springing from the flowers but the more I looked at my artwork, the more I had to admit that my idea had tanked.
    Whatever.
    Once I was done, I propped the poster against the moss-green couch.
    â€œThat looks okay,” I said, real dry.
    â€œWant to make buttons or something? I brought the construction paper in case you needed it.”
    â€œNaw. I think the sign’s enough. I don’t want to overdo it.”
    I didn’t care about the dumb campaign. It took
every bit of my energy to make that poster.
    All I could think about was the older girl, Sasquatch, about how angry she’d looked