At Wits' End - Kenzie Reed Page 0,2

a Ken Griffey Jr. baseball card from the store in downtown Greenvale. He was Donovan’s favorite Mariner.

It was easy for her to sneak away. Her aunt and uncle were always busy with the vineyard. And next door, her Uncle Vito and his family were busy with their dairy farm. She spent a lot of time in the woods by herself, and nobody minded at all.

It had rained yesterday, so she walked very carefully, holding up the hem of her dress. She trudged through the woods and gingerly climbed over the stone wall that separated their properties, then trudged some more until she reached their house.

The Witlockes had a giant vineyard, twenty times bigger than her aunt and uncle’s vineyard, and they used machines instead of people to pick the grapes, and made what her aunt and uncle scornfully called “juice-box wine.” Their house was big and gray and funny-shaped in some weird modern style, and had a lot of tall windows.

It wasn’t a very friendly looking house, but it was much bigger and fancier than the little white farmhouse where she stayed with her aunt and uncle. She paused to squint up at it. She should probably try to like it a little bit more, even if the hedges were so perfect that they looked like walls of plastic wrapped around the boxy-looking house. After all, she’d be living there when they got married. Wouldn’t she? Probably. She couldn’t imagine Donovan wanting to live in the Ribaldis’ house, and there wasn’t that much extra room there anyway.

All of the fourth graders were in the yard by the side of the house. Most of them were climbing on the big fancy obstacle course, the one she’d only ever heard about but never seen.

Donovan, who was wearing jeans and a yellow polo shirt, looked different somehow. His normally carefree slouch was gone; he stood straight, hands jammed in his pockets, stiff with tension. He was scowling and talking to Brooke Cornwall. Brooke had long blonde hair that she could sit on, and a necklace made of real pearls, and her daddy was the mayor.

Sienna self-consciously brought her hand up to her explosion of jet-black curls. She suddenly wanted to go home, but it was too late. Donovan had spotted her, and a few of the other kids were looking now too.

“Donovan?” she called out tentatively. He stopped talking to Brooke, twisted around very slowly and deliberately, and glared at her.

She stood perfectly still, like a deer in a hunter’s sights. He heaved a huge sigh and walked across the lawn until he reached her. He stood there looking down at her, hands shoved in his pockets.

“What are you doing here?” His voice rang through the air. Everyone was staring now. The sneer in his voice was an icicle to the heart.

“Well?” he said impatiently.

Tears burned in her eyes and threatened to spill down her cheeks. This wasn’t fair. She hadn’t done anything to deserve this. She wanted to cry out in protest, but she was a Ribaldi. And Ribaldis didn’t grovel to anyone, especially Witlockes.

“I wanted to give you this,” she said, and she lashed out at him with her foot, going to kick him right in the family jewels. Unfortunately, she tripped and went right into a mud puddle.

As she fell, she felt the sting of gravel scraping her knees. Her white dress was ruined. Her special dress! The dress her mother had sent her.

Behind Donovan, everyone started laughing. Their laughter sounded like the howling of wolves.

“Well, thanks, Ribaldi,” he scoffed. “Guess you couldn’t afford a real present. Since your farm’s going broke.” He wasn’t even using her first name anymore.

She lay there, stunned, the laughter of the fourth-graders washing over her like dirty sewer water. Her heart was a giant bruise in her chest.

He heaved a massively annoyed sigh and leaned down, holding out his hand to help her up. “Are you going home anytime today? My friends are waiting for me.”

If you stumble, make it part of the dance.

She leapt to her feet, landing in the deepest part of the puddle, and mud exploded all over him, splattering him from head to toe. It got in his eyes and mouth, it dripped off his hair and his chin, it stained his shirt and jeans.

“Hey!” he shouted furiously, spitting dirty water.

“Happy birthday from the Ribaldis,” she said, and spun on her heel. As she marched back home, she held her head high until she was far enough away that nobody