Read Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen for Free Online Page A

games-playing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Shadbolts decided to release you. What with this...fraud. And stories about having celiac disease. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
    This is where you do have some choices. I could throw a hissy fit. Haven’t done that for a while. I’m a littleout of practice. Hissy fits are always great, though, for stirring things up. Shirl looks like she could use a little zap of something.
    Or I could cry. Haven’t done that for a while, either. That time when Wilma came to see me two families ago. When I was still with the Tierneys. Can you believe I actually begged her to take me back with her? Welfare Wilma. She cried, too, and said it wasn’t possible now that she was with Adam and there was the baby, Justin, and another baby on the way and hardly room for the three of them — soon to be four — in their apartment.
    Crying can really mess up your eye make-up.
    Or I could try the silent treatment. That makes everyone so angry they sometimes forget why you’re there in the first place.
    But what’s really sticking in my mind is Miss Barclay and her diamond brooch. And how she asked if I was coming to the lodge again. I know whatever I do now, I can’t do anything to mess up seeing her next week.
    That means apologizing. I don’t have much practice with that, but how hard can it be?
    â€œI’m sorry,” I say.
    â€œWhat were you thinking?” asks the sunset tie. “What was more important than school?”
    â€œNothing,” I mumble. And then I add, “I was... confused.”
    That’ll light up buttons for both Mussbacher and Gossling. Confused. Social workers and guidance counselors love that word.
    â€œConfused?”
    Jackpot. They repeat it at the same time.
    â€œAbout what’s important,” I say. “I didn’t really like school when I first got here. But I’m liking it a lot more now.”
    â€œWhat’s caused the change?”
    The third degree — and I better not slip up. Don’t say anything about modeling. They’d jump all over that, go on forever about learning to walk before you can run and how you need to finish school before you can even think of anything else.
    â€œ
Great Expectations
,” I say. “I can’t believe how good that book is. Every day we get to talk about what we’ve read in a literature circle.”
    â€œWeren’t you reading it two days ago when you signed my name to this note?” Finally Shirl talks. Tears are beginning to come. “Please excuse Tamara. Her celiac disease has flared up.”
    â€œWhat is all this nonsense about celiac disease?” Mr. Mussbacher gives me his double-whammy look.
    â€œI thought I had it,” I say. “There was a show on TV about it and...well, I thought maybe I had it.”
    â€œShe does shy away from anything with flour in it.”Shirl gives up a search for a Kleenex in her purse and grabs one from a box in the middle of the conference table. Counselors are always ready for criers.
    â€œYou want to have a doctor check that out?” says Mr. Gossling.
    Oops. Going to doctors. One of my least favorite things to do and I can just imagine what kinds of things they might do to test your digestive system.
    â€œI think it was...” Choose your words carefully, I think. “A false alarm. I guess it was a false alarm.”
    â€œWhat? You ate a doughnut and discovered it didn’t kill you?” Mr. Mussbacher isn’t buying it.
    I smile at him.
    â€œMainly I just don’t like real starchy food. It’s always like...well, like lead in my stomach.”
    â€œHoney, you could’ve just said,” Shirl sighs. “Heaven knows it wouldn’t hurt all of us to cut down, eat more...vegetables.”
    It sounds to me like she’s having a hard time getting that last word out.
    â€œWe may be getting a little off track here,”