Read My Life in Dioramas for Free Online Page B

Tonight, it would be shut for sure.
    I opened the window and popped out the screen and set it aside and knelt down, hanging out as far as it felt safe. “Ready?” I called out.
    â€œReady.” Naveen took a few sort of running steps and hurled the bag up at me.
    I caught it, barely, by the ties of the bag.
    â€œYes!” Naveen pumped his fist in the air.
    â€œYou’re the best!” I said.
    â€œGood luck.” He got back on his bike. “Keep me posted!”
    I watched as he rode off. Was a crush supposed to feel like this? With Naveen, I could be myself in a way I wasn’twith anyone else, not even Stella. But I was pretty sure that was just a special kind of friendship and that a crush was supposed to be different. Naveen waved from the corner where he turned toward home.

8.
    â€œWhatcha doing?” my dad said . I was “reading” in my beanbag chair. He’d come up, on my mother’s orders, to tidy the desk, which looked like it had been attacked by wolves.
    â€œJust reading.” I turned a page to make it seem official. Was my mother ever going to leave the kitchen and let me get on with it?
    My dad basically shoved everything that was on top of the desk into a drawer, moved a lamp a few inches, and stepped back, impressed with himself. “Can it wait?” he asked me. “I could use your help out in the shed.”
    Right then my mother went into the laundry room, so I said, “Can I just finish this chapter?”
    â€œSure.” He looked tired and sort of sad.
    â€œI’ll be out in five minutes?”
    â€œGreat.”
    As soon as he left, I got up and flipped the beanbag over and cut through a few stiches on the bottom seam. I was pretty sure I’d be able to sew it closed again, no problem, if it ever recovered from the stink. I put the scissors back in my room and went out back, adrenaline pumping through me.
    My dad was standing outside the shed, both doors wide open, scratching his head. I went to his side and took in the view. Skis and snowboards and a boccie set and a croquet set and the badminton net and more, all crammed in there. Behind them—pushed up awkwardly against the back wall—were my old pink plastic table and chairs. The curtains my mom and I had made together were faded from the sun.
    â€œRemember when this was your clubhouse?” my dad said.
    â€œI do.” I just hadn’t thought about it in ages.
    â€œI’m not really sure what your mom expects me to do with this stuff.”
    I shrugged. I wasn’t about to give my father any brilliant ideas on how to make this shed more appealing to people. “Seriously,” I said. “It’s a shed.”
    â€œExactly!” He closed the doors and latched the hinge.
    But when he turned to go, I opened the doors again and took another look. My cousin Ellen and I had spent one afternoon out here, making dresses out of construction paper and modeling them over our swimsuits. And one night, my dad and I camped out here, or tried to, until I got scared and we gave upand went up to Big Red instead. I used to sit on the edge of the doorway, watching my parents play croquet with their friends while I slurped an ice pop. I thought I had outgrown that pink desk, those flowery curtains. Now I regretted ever feeling that.
    I usually spent some time on Saturdays at the ballet barre in the barn, practicing pliés and stretching to keep myself limber between classes, but today I just wasn’t in the mood. All this stuff about dance troupe competing was really exciting. But it was sort of a new thing to stress about. And Stella’s attitude wasn’t helping. Anyway, she’d see. I’d postpone the sale just long enough and make it to Dance Nation and everything would be awesome.
    I went upstairs and texted Stella. Skating?
    She wrote back, Affirmative.
    I shouted down to my mom from the loft. “What time are we going skating?