Read more
Informationen zum Autor Erin Downing Klappentext Izzy is used to being queen bee-- but will she ditch her mean girl status for a chance at true friendship?Best Friends (Until Someone Better Comes Along) Chapter One Pine trees blurred into a green mess outside the window of my mom’s car as we sped along a bumpy old road to the middle of nowhere. I rolled down my window and inhaled deeply. Ew! I scrunched my nose into a tight little ball and blew out, trying to force the stink back out of my body. Pressing the button to roll my window up again, I flopped back against the leather seat. I’d assumed it would smell pine fresh outside, like cleaning products or candles. But it didn’t. It smelled nasty. It almost felt like I could taste the stink in the air, it was that bad. “I hope this isn’t the ‘fresh wilderness air’ you’ve been promising me for the past month. It smells like excrement.” I smirked, waiting for my mother’s response. She should love my use of such a big word—excrement. It was a big, complicated word. A smart-person’s word. “Don’t be rude, Isabella.” My mom, Sara Hurst-Caravelli, glanced at me in the rearview mirror. Then she focused her eyes back on the road. “I’m not trying to be rude,” I protested. “I’m trying to be honest. You’re always telling me to expand my vocabulary. And wouldn’t we all agree that ‘smells like excrement’ is better than saying ‘smells like—’?” “That’s enough,” she snapped. My mother, she of rose-colored pedicures and coffee-shop lattes, had somehow become even crabbier as we got closer and closer to the end of the earth. It was sort of shocking that she could get any crabbier, but I guess a forced wilderness vacation can do that to anyone. “And I’ll thank you in advance for your change in attitude.” I rolled the window down an inch and sniffed the air again—delicately this time. I figured I ought to give it another chance, just to be fair, but I immediately rolled it back up. It really did smell terrible outside, like something had died and was left to rot by the side of the road. I leaned my head against the glass and stared up into the canopy of pine trees that now hung low and dark around our car. Even though it was only four in the afternoon, it was as dim as twilight inside the shadowed forest. Almost like the trees could sense my mood. “Isn’t this beautiful?” My dad, Alex, mused from the passenger seat. It sounded like he was reading a line off a script. I knew he was about as big a fan of the woods as the rest of us, but he knew he had to put on a good show. He was the reason we were all stuck going on this super family vacation. “Like a wonderland.” Quietly, I murmured, “More like creepy.” This forest was exactly the sort of place freaks and kidnappers might hide out when they were waiting to attack. Thick underbrush and stinky air would provide the perfect cover for any crime. No one would ever find a body, and hermits could hide out for years without anyone spotting them—big, hairy creeps with axes and wooden sticks, just waiting to attack sweet-smelling city girls. I shivered. I could think of no worse place to spend a whole month. Of all the things I could be doing in August, living at some broken-down resort on a lake with a bunch of strangers would probably be, oh, let’s see . . . my last choice. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a choice. Even though both of my best friends had offered me a bed at either of their houses for the month, my parents had insisted that I join them. I guess if my mom was being forced to go, I wasn’t going to get out of our family adventure. Suffering tog Zusammenfassung In this M!X original! Izzy is used to being queen bee—but will she ditch her mean girl status ...
