Fake Me A Match – Lauren Barnholdt (1)

My mouth waters. I’m definitely not worried about looking like a heifer at the party, so I say bring it on. • • • Three hours later, we’re all stuffed to the gills. We’ve eaten appetizers (calamari, mozzarella bread, and fried zucchini dipped in tomato sauce), entrees (chicken marsala, filet mignon, roasted red pepper ziti, and chicken and broccoli alfredo), and desserts (tiramisu and Italian mascarpone cheesecake.) “Oooh,” Blake says, as we walk to the car.

“I’m going to have to spend, like, three hours in the gym to work all that off.” “You’re so skinny,” I say. “A little bit of food isn’t going to hurt you.” “So what did you think?” my mom asks as she unlocks the doors to our van. “Loved it,” Blake says. “Except for the fact that I’m going to have to be rolled home.” “Me too,” I say. “But Angeline, what was up with her?” “Yeah, she’s definitely a little bit cuckoo,” Blake says. “You’ve never met Angeline, Avery?”

my mom asks. She glances at me in the rearview mirror. “No,” I say. “Why would I?” “She lives around the corner from us,” my mom says. “That’s how I know her. She brought us that delicious zucchini bread a few weeks ago.” I vaguely remember something about zucchini bread being brought to our house, and my mom making some kind of really big fuss about it, but once I heard that vegetables were in bread, I decided I wasn’t interested.

I rest my head against the window and lapse into a food coma as we pull around the corner. “See?” my mom says. “There’s her house.” “That’s her house?” I say at the same time that Blake says, “That’s her house?” I turn around and we look at each other. “Angeline is Sam’s grandma!”

we say at the same time. And then we burst into giggles. I vaguely remember my mom mentioning something about Sam’s grandmother being a caterer, but I totally forgot! “Speaking of Sam, how’s the birthday party planning coming?” “Good,” Blake says quickly. She turns around and looks at me.

“Right, Avery?” “Right,” I say, figuring out that her tone means she probably doesn’t want to mention that it’s morphed from a birthday party into something called a “Last-Minute Leap.” “Wanna take Princess and Gus for a walk?” Blake asks me as we pull into our driveway. “We can walk off some of the food we just ate.” “Sure,” I say.

“I’m going to get a glass of water and grab a sweatshirt, and then I’ll meet you out front with Gus in five?” “See ya there,” she says. She heads toward the garage to grab Princess’s leash, and I guzzle a glass of water from the kitchen, then run upstairs to my room.

Thank you so, so much to: Fiona Simpson, for taking over with such grace and amazingness. Kate Angelella, for loving this book from the moment I told her the idea, and for helping to make it the best it could be. Alyssa Eisner Henkin, for being the best agent a girl could ever ask for—I am so lucky to be working with you! Everyone at Simon & Schuster, for working so hard on my behalf.

My mom and my sisters, for being my best friends. Jessica Burkhart, for being the other half of Team Barnhart and an amazing friend. Scott Neumyer and Kevin Cregg, for their support. And Aaron, again, always, for more than I can say. OceanofPDF.com OceanofPDF.com one SO I’M KIND OF IN THE MARKET FOR A new best friend.

Reasons: 1. My old best friend, Sophie Burns, has apparently decided that we are not friends anymore. I’m still not clear on the exact reasons for this, but from what I can tell, it has something to do with us starting seventh grade. At the beginning of the year she found some new, more popular friends (Kaci Mitchell and K.J. Reynolds), who love to do nothing except talk about boys, boys, boys. And when they’re not talking about boys, they’re texting them, following them, or getting their hair highlighted in order to be noticed by them.

Don’t get me wrong, I like boys as much as the next person. (Especially Kevin Hudson, who, as far as I’m concerned, is the cutest boy at Heights Middle School, so totally cuter than Sam Humphrey, who everyone thinks is the cutest boy, but who definitely isn’t due to his arrogant personality.) I just don’t think they should be talked about and obsessed over all the time. 2.

Everyone needs a best friend. Under normal circumstances, getting a best friend this late in the game would be almost impossible. I mean, everyone at my school either already has a best friend from elementary school, or they’ve already found their new middle-school best friend and ditched their old best friend for no reason (read: Sophie Burns). Which is why it’s totally lucky that I’m getting a new sister. And not a baby sister either.

(Which would actually be a disaster, since who wants a baby crying and screaming and making messes all over the house?) No, I’m getting a real, honest-to-goodness thirteen-year-old stepsister. Her name is Blake (I know! How cool is that name for a girl?), and she’s coming to live with us. Like, today. “Do you think she likes green?”

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: db3cd92bc4312c10
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,273,815 bytes (1.215 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 177
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 291.11 minutes
• Total Words: 58,222
• Total Characters: 306,935
• Average Words per Page: 328.94
• Average Characters per Page: 1734.1

Most Frequent Words

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