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    Courage, Dana
    Courage, Dana
    Courage, Dana
    Ebook106 pages1 hour

    Courage, Dana

    By Susan Beth Pfeffer

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    About this ebook

    After saving a young boy’s life, a girl finds that fame can be a real headache

    On the last warm day of autumn, Dana and her best friend eat ice cream, gossip, and complain about school. It’s just like any other afternoon until Dana walks home and sees a toddler break away from his mother and sprint into the street. Without thinking, she chases after him, pushing him onto the sidewalk just before a giant blue car would have run them both down. She didn’t mean to do it, but Dana has become a heroine—and her life will never be the same.
     
    Saving the boy makes her the darling of the entire town. She gets a story written about her in the paper, praise from strangers—even a beautiful Persian kitten as a gift from the boy’s mother. At first she loves the attention, but she soon learns that being a celebrity brings hardship, too—and a challenge that will require her to show courage in a whole new way.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateMar 3, 2015
    ISBN9781497681910
    Courage, Dana
    Author

    Susan Beth Pfeffer

    Susan Beth Pfeffer is the author of many books for teens, including the New York Times best-selling novel Life As We Knew It, which was nominated for several state awards, and its companion books, The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In, and The Shade of the Moon. She lives in Middletown, New York.

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      Book preview

      Courage, Dana - Susan Beth Pfeffer

      1

      It had been a pretty average day until I became a heroine.

      We got back our spelling tests, and I’d gotten an 85, which was a relief, since I hadn’t studied for it. I was called on to do a problem in math, and I got it without too much trouble.

      Sharon and I had lunch together, along with a couple of the other girls. We talked about some of the shows on TV the night before, and the book reports that were due on Friday. Only Sharon had read her book all the way through. I still had half to go.

      We played soccer in gym, and I helped my team get a goal. The day was bright-blue sunny, and it was a drag to have to go back indoors. Social studies was the last thing that day, and mostly I looked out the window and thought about what a good time I’d had during the summer, swimming and hiking, and just messing around.

      After school I walked through the playground and saw Charlie Everest teasing Brian O’Shea again. Charlie was the class bully, and he had been since he came to our school in second grade. Brian was new, and I didn’t have much of an impression of him yet. He seemed quiet, maybe a little shy. Bright enough, but not so smart you’d notice. He wasn’t enough of anything to notice. Unlike Charlie, who had always been at least four inches taller and twenty pounds heavier than any of us. A hundred times meaner, too. Right then he was pushing his index finger into Brian’s chest and calling him a sissy and a wimp. Sissy first, then wimp. Brian just stood there, not moving, but not crying either. Charlie usually made kids cry. He’d made me cry more than once in the past five years.

      It was mean of me, but I was glad he was picking on somebody else. A boy too. Boys should be able to take care of themselves against other boys, I figured.

      Sissywimp, Charlie said, the two words becoming one as he jabbed away. Sissywimp.

      I think I would have kicked Charlie by then, but Brian didn’t do a thing.

      Hey, cut it out, one of the older kids said. Now that we were in junior high, Charlie was no longer the biggest kid in the whole school.

      Charlie glared at the boy, but he stopped poking at Brian. Brian picked up his schoolbooks and started walking away.

      He is a sissywimp, Charlie announced, but he didn’t have much of an audience. I heard him mutter Sissywimp one last time, and then I crossed the yard and started walking toward home.

      Where are you going? Sharon asked me. I hadn’t noticed her running toward me.

      Home, I said. Where else?

      Oh, I don’t know, she said, but I could tell from the look in her eyes she was thinking ice cream. Sharon and I have been best friends since kindergarten, and we knew each other’s looks pretty well.

      Why not? I said before she even had a chance to ask. It might be the last warm day until May, and a final farewell-to-summer ice cream cone sounded like a good idea. So we walked the few extra blocks to the Cream King and ordered soft vanilla cones with sprinkles.

      Seventh grade’s okay so far, Sharon said between licks. We’d been seventh graders for two weeks already.

      I like being in junior high, I said. I felt like a baby in elementary school. Especially with Jean in junior high, telling me all the good stuff I was missing.

      Like dances, Sharon said, wiping a spot of ice cream from her jeans. I love Sharon, but she’s the world’s messiest eater. I can’t wait until the Halloween dance.

      Do you think you’ll have a real date? I asked.

      I’m sure going to try, Sharon said. Maybe Jean can help us.

      Jean? I repeated with a laugh. Jean already had a boyfriend, Big Wally, but that didn’t mean she passed her rejects along.

      She might, Sharon said.

      Don’t count on it, I replied, nibbling at my cone. When it was finished, that meant summer was finished too. Of course summer had officially ended the first day of school, but the end of the ice cream cone meant the end of it all permanently. I felt a little sad thinking of it that way, and considered getting a second cone just to postpone the moment.

      Jean’s okay, Sharon said. She lends you her clothes.

      Jean’s fine. I said. She says just as long as I keep quiet at school, so she doesn’t have to tell people she’s my sister, we’ll get along just fine.

      That’s not too much to ask, Sharon said. Just be invisible for a year.

      Did you see Charlie teasing Brian? I asked, taking one sorrowful last lick of ice cream.

      Charlie’s awful, Sharon said, finishing her cone at the same time. I wish somebody would finally put him in his place.

      You mean in jail? I asked, and we both giggled.

      With striped pants, Sharon said. Like in those old comedies. And handcuffs.

      And people bringing him saws in chocolate cakes, I said, and we started whooping with laughter. It took a moment before Sharon had calmed down enough to wipe the few remaining sprinkles off her shirt.

      Who’d want Charlie to escape? she asked. More likely they’ll swallow the key and keep him in jail forever.

      You’re not fooling me, I said. I know you have a crush on him. You’d visit him every single weekend and write him love letters and cry all the time he was behind bars.

      If I loved Charlie, you’d better believe I’d be crying, Sharon said. Poor Brian. Do you think Charlie is going to pick on him all year, like he did to Michael Stevens two years ago?

      I hadn’t thought about Michael in a long time, and hearing his name forced all the good feeling out of me. Eventually Michael’s parents had taken him out of school and put him into a parochial school, just to keep Charlie away from him.

      They won’t let him get away with that sort of stuff here, I said. Someone’ll stop Charlie before it gets that bad.

      It won’t be me, Sharon said. I don’t want to get Charlie mad at me.

      Me either, I said. But I’d really like to hit him sometimes.

      Sure, Sharon said. But I want to live to see eighth grade. Preferably with a face all in one piece.

      I don’t know, I said. A nose job or two might not hurt.

      Two? Sharon shrieked. How many noses do you think I have, Dana? Two? Three? Four?

      Eighteen, I said, and we were giggling again. I know where you keep them hidden, Sharon.

      I may have eighteen noses, but at least I have a brain, she said. Eighteen noses. Honestly, Dana.

      Honestly, Sharon, I said, and it was hard to stand, we were laughing so hard. It wasn’t that we were so funny. It was just that it felt so good to be outside on such a beautiful day. Even if there was school the next day and the day after that and after that for the next nine months.

      I gotta go, Sharon finally choked out. Homework.

      Me too, I said, sobering up fast. Math and social studies.

      And reading your book for the book report, Sharon said.

      That too, I said, and we turned away from each other, since our homes were in different directions. Hey, Sharon …

      Yeah?

      Don’t forget to count your noses when you get home. Your mother might have borrowed one.

      Sharon snorted and I giggled. I felt really good just then. Maybe things weren’t perfect, but as long as the sun was shining and there were still flowers blooming, it was all right.

      Like I said, it was a pretty average day.

      I got to the corner of Main and North streets, just in time to miss the traffic light. I

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