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  Flirting with Disaster

  Copyright © 2010 by Sandra Byrd. All rights reserved.

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  Designed by Jennifer Ghionzoli

  Edited by Stephanie Voiland

  Published in association with the literary agency of Browne & Miller Literary Associates, LLC, 410 Michigan Avenue, Suite 460, Chicago, IL 60605.

  Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Byrd, Sandra.

  Flirting with disaster / Sandra Byrd.

  p. cm. — (London confidential ; #4)

  Summary: When forwarding a text message gets fifteen-year-old Savvy Smith in big trouble, she begins wondering if there is such a thing as luck and, if so, how it relates to God, but to find out she must put her advice column, her ministry, and her friendships at risk.

  ISBN 978-1-4143-2600-9 (sc)

  [1. Schools—Fiction. 2. Advice columns—Fiction. 3. Text messages (Telephone systems)—Fiction. 4. Luck—Fiction. 5. Christian life—Fiction. 6. Americans—England—London—Fiction. 7. London (England)—Fiction. 8. England—Fiction.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.B9898Fli 2010

  [Fic]—dc22 2010026062

  For Elizabeth Byrd,

  My beautiful, smart, and funny daughter.

  I’m glad we’re thisclose. Happy sweet sixteen!

  Chapter 1

  Forward this to 10 friends within 2 hours & something good will happen in your life 2day and 2morrow. But if you don’t then something bad will happen 2day and 2morrow. This is real and not a joke!

  I rolled my eyes. Hazelle, really? She seemed so no-nonsense, I could hardly believe she’d fall for that kind of thing.

  The text came in on Sunday night, just as I was getting ready to throw a load of clothes into the washing machine. I was surprised to get a forward from Hazelle—she hardly ever texted me.

  I shut the washing machine lid and didn’t give it another thought.

  Mostly.

  I went upstairs and strummed my guitar for a while, then texted with Penny, my bestie, and Gwennie and Jill and some of my other friends. In spite of myself, I kept glancing at the clock to see if the two hours had gone by. Then I reminded myself how stupid that was and went back to texting. After a while my in-box was full, so I erased everything in there.

  With a start, I realized that I’d gotten rid of the forward from Hazelle. So now I couldn’t send it on.

  What does it matter? I asked myself. I don’t believe in that kind of stuff anyway.

  I brought down a second load of clothes, tossed the first one in the dryer, and threw a heaping scoop of snowy white laundry powder into the machine with the dirties. I shut the door, and the machine began to shake its hips and swirl my clothes back and forth like a hula skirt.

  Later that night I headed downstairs to pull my wet clothes out of the washer. I untwisted them as I pulled them out.

  “Oh no!” I shouted loudly enough that my mother could hear me over the telly she was watching in the next room with my father.

  She came running into the laundry room. “What?”

  I held up my jeans, my favorite jeans, the only jeans that fit me perfectly and helped me look effortlessly fashionable on no-uniform Fridays. Big white streaks ran through each leg like badly healed scars. I handed them to Mom and pulled out one of my favorite hoodies, one that my cousin in Seattle had given me just before we moved to London last year. Ruined. My bright pink Juicy jacket looked like it had permanent stains all over it.

  “What happened?” Mom held up the jeans and clucked. “What did you put in here?”

  I tapped the plastic tub of laundry detergent. “This.”

  “Ahhh, that’s bleach powder, Savvy.” Mom pointed to the larger tub in the laundry cubby. “This is the detergent. I’m sorry.” She looked genuinely sorry, too—she knew the worst part of all was my jeans. They were the first expensive piece of clothing I’d bought with my own money. “At least your socks are really bright.” She held up my white anklets.

  “Big comfort,” I said, wondering how I could have made such a mistake when I’d done the first load right. I gathered up the ruined wet clothes and tossed them into the dustbin.

  As I went to bed that night, I lay there wondering how I was going to get the money to buy new jeans. I knew things were tight for my parents too—so tight that we weren’t even going to leave London to visit Seattle this coming summer. My mom would buy me some Levi’s, but I knew she wouldn’t fork over the money for designer jeans.

  I mourned the loss and thought how close the word denim was to the word demon. One last time I glanced at my phone, which was sitting on top of my closed Bible, to see if Tommy had texted (he hadn’t) and then tried to push away fears about Hazelle’s forward and future impending disasters.

  Chapter 2

  Even though we normally had our school newspaper staff meetings on Tuesdays, Jack had called one on Monday morning for some reason. Officially, I was only the paper delivery girl. Unofficially, secretly, I also wrote the popular advice column, Asking for Trouble. I was eager to get my own byline—soon, Jack had promised—but for now I was glad to be writing . . . and helping people. And as I was learning, deeds done in secret often had more power than the ones everyone saw. The plan had worked out well so far.

  So far.

  As Jack called the meeting to order, I stood as far as possible from Natalie, my evil nemesis. She gave me the dead fish eye, and I lobbed it back at her. Well, really. She could have Rhys, my former May Day Ball date who ended up going with her instead. They deserved each other. I didn’t know why she disliked me, but the feeling was definitely mutual.

  “Now that the end of the school year is approaching, we need to turn our minds to some serious business,” Jack began. I still hadn’t gotten used to the idea that summer break didn’t start until July here. “As you know, next year I will be moving up to sixth form, and so will Melissa. That means the paper will need a new editor. By tradition, anyone who has been on the paper staff for a year or more is eligible for the position.” Jack looked around the room, but his gaze lingered just a second longer on Hazelle and then on Rodney, the sportswriter.

  “We’ll be having elections sometime in June, date to be announced. As far as I can see, the election will be open to Hazelle, Rodney, and Alex, should they desire to have it. However, if you feel I’ve overlooked you and you’d like to be
considered, please let me know right away.”

  He clapped shut his notebook. “With that, let’s get back to business as usual so the next edition of the Wexburg Academy Times can go out on Thursday.”

  Everyone dispersed, and I noted that I had only about three minutes before the first bell. I’d been planning to talk to Jack about the article he’d promised I could write. I needed a deadline and a topic. I was so excited—the first article I’d be writing for the paper with my own byline. But Natalie cut me off and buzzed into his office, firmly closing the door in my face. I took a deep breath and bit back the words on my tongue. My question for Jack would have to wait.

  I walked to maths with Hazelle.

  “This has been an absolutely fabbo day already,” she said. “My grandmother sent me a cheque for a hundred pounds, and my mum gave it to me at brekkers this morning. Brian sent me some great snaps of us at the ball. And now the editor election. I doubt if Rodney and Alex even want it.”

  I hoped today would be fabbo for me, too.

  Chapter 3

  At lunch that day I sat at the table full of Aristocats, the uber-popular group I hung on the fringes of, thanks to my friendship with Penny. Apparently they’d all received the same forward Hazelle had sent to me; I couldn’t imagine who in the world they had in common with her. Although they only touched on the subject briefly before moving on to the next topic, Penny happily shared that she’d received an unexpected A on a science project and another girl had gotten her computer back from restriction early after they’d forwarded the text.

  I excused myself early to try to catch Jack, who was sitting at the newspaper staff table, before he left. When I reached the table, I glanced at Hazelle and noticed she was poring over the horoscopes in a magazine.

  “Hi, Jack. I’ll, uh, have the column in to you tomorrow.” I kept my voice low so no one would overhear anything about the Asking for Trouble column.

  “Brilliant.” He looked at me uncertainly and glanced up to wave at a friend. I could tell by the look on his face that he was wondering why I was telling him this. I had to speak up before he took off.

  “I was just, uh, wondering about my article. The one you promised me when I took the photos at the May Day Ball. Do you have a deadline for me, a topic, word count, you know?”

  He returned his gaze to me. “Oh yeah. I’d forgotten. Well, all that will be up to the new editor, right?” He flashed that smile of his at me, which didn’t look at all appealing at that particular moment. “Gotta dash off, Savvy. We’ll talk soon.” With that, he headed off to meet the group of guys who seemed to be waiting for him.

  Up to the new editor? But he’d promised!

  As the students from first lunch left the room, everyone with second lunch began to stream in. I scanned the flow, trying not to look overinterested. I spied Tommy as I was nearly out of the room. I didn’t think he saw me, though. At least, if he did, he didn’t wave or catch my eye.

  Chapter 4

  The second text came after I was already in bed. I saw the backlight on my phone, and I plucked it off the Bible, still closed, on my bedside table. It was a forward, this time from Monique, in my French class, with whom I had exchanged mo-bile numbers, as the Brits say.

  This forward urged me to pass this message along to five people I cared about plus the person who had sent it to me. If I forwarded it, I would have four wishes come true. I sat there in the dark thinking for a while.

  On the one hand, it had been really nice of Monique to send this to me. Like the text said, it meant she cared about me. I didn’t exactly believe the superstition about something bad happening if I didn’t send it on, but I didn’t want her to think I didn’t care about her too. We’d just started to become friends since Madame had changed our seats. Before I could overthink things, I quickly forwarded the message to the first five people in my address book . . . and to Monique. Then I closed my eyes and slept fitfully, with vivid and disturbing dreams.

  Turned out I had no reason at all for that bad night’s sleep.

  When I got to school the next morning, I headed to the newspaper staff room first thing. Jack motioned me into his office and closed the door.

  “I’m sorry I don’t have the column to you yet,” I started, thinking that’s what he was going to talk to me about, even though it wasn’t officially due till the end of the evening.

  “I’m sure it’ll be smashing, as always. Listen, Savvy—” Jack ran his hand through his hair—“I handled things a bit badly yesterday at lunch. What I meant is that of course you’re going to be able to write an article, just as I’d promised. A real article, with a real byline. I’ll notify the new editor candidates about it. We work together for a transition period at the end of the year, and I’ll make sure we set aside some space for you in the paper, say, toward the end of June. I can have you work with Melissa on technique and research till then so you’re ready. All right?”

  “Thank you!” I beamed.

  “Your choice of topic will have to be approved by the new editor. But that’s nothing unusual for any journalist. Part of the job.”

  “Of course,” I agreed, knowing that I could work with anything. Would work with anything. I was going to be a journalist. At this point, anyway, it seemed like Hazelle was a shoo-in for the editor slot. Alex, our typesetter, didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would want to run. Rodney was a possibility, but my hunch was that he wouldn’t get many of the girls’ votes since he only wrote about sports. Hazelle and I had had a rocky start, but I felt like by now she would give me some freedom to write what I wanted. I floated through the rest of the day.

  At lunch, Penny asked if I wanted to see a movie with her on Friday night.

  In fifth period, Madame Antoinette assigned Monique and me to work on the same country project, which meant we’d be getting together to make a dish and find some music from Montreal for our part of the French fair at the end of the month.

  “Thanks for sending back my text,” Monique said.

  “No problem.”

  “Have you had a good day, then?”

  “Great!” And even then, I had no idea how great it was going to get.

  After school, Tommy came up beside me as I walked down the hall with Penny. She knowingly dissolved into a group of other girls, leaving Tommy and me alone.

  “How’s your day been?” he asked.

  I was very aware how close his head was to mine, his brown wavy hair nearly the opposite of mine, blonde and straight.

  “Good,” I said. “I’m going to be assigned a real article for the paper soon.” Last month at church Tommy had discovered my secret, that I was the Asking for Trouble columnist. But he’d promised not to tell anyone, and I believed him. Other than Jack, he was the only person at Wexburg Academy who knew.

  Tommy stopped walking and looked uncharacteristically nervous. “Well, our football team is playing a home game on Saturday,” he started. “Have you been to a game yet?”

  I shook my head. Football—what we Americans called soccer—was very popular here.

  “Would you like to come this weekend?” he asked. “I know that Penny goes to watch Oliver. So it’s not like you’d have to stay there alone while I was playing. And afterward, a group of us heads out to get something to eat together. If you’re interested, well, I’d like for you to come.”

  Was he really asking me to go to his game and then out afterward? With others, of course. I wasn’t allowed to date yet—single dates, anyway—but this was different. Surely my parents would see that.

  “I’d love to,” I said.

  He leaned in thisclose and then touched my shoulder, brushing my hair off of it as he did. “I’m glad,” he said. “Text you later.”

  Oh, my goodness. Best. Day. Ever.

  Chapter 5

  “Mom, Mom!” I yelled as I kicked off my shoes by the front door of our home, Kew Cottage, found at the heart of Cinnamon Street in the little village of Wexburg.

  Predictably, Moml
ike, my mother came rushing to the door, probably alarmed at the intensity in my voice. As soon as she saw the grin on my face, her own face relaxed. “What’s up, Savvy?”

  My sister and her dog, Growl, came running around the corner. I flopped onto the couch, which the Brits call a lounge, and Growl, whose real name was Giggle, barked at me to let me know he was not amused by this false alarm, then retreated to his pillow.

  “Tommy asked me to watch his game on Saturday and to grab something to eat with a bunch of them after the game. Including Penny,” I added to ensure that she’d say yes. Mom loved Penny.

  Mom smiled. “Okay,” she said.

  “And I’m going to write an article for the paper with my own byline by the end of the school year.”

  “Great!” my sister, Louanne, said, her strawberry blonde French braid coming loose from the form I’d put it in before school.

  “And Monique and I are partners for the French project.”

  “Bark!” Growl said. I reached over and patted his head. I was feeling mighty magnanimous. After a bit I got up off the couch, fixed a bowl of Weetabix for myself, and went upstairs to do my homework. All of this good stuff because I’d forwarded one little text!

  Later that night I sorted through the questions that had been submitted for the Asking for Trouble column. I had to have it submitted to Jack by tonight so it would be ready for Thursday’s edition of the paper. Normally I looked up a Bible verse that was the silent backbone of every answer I wrote for the paper. It was important to me that my answers be based on the Truth. Tonight I didn’t even need to look up a Scripture that I would base my answer on. I knew this one by heart.

  God works in mysterious ways.

  Just like every other lesson God let me share with people, I’d had to learn this one for myself first. And if those text forwards weren’t mysterious ways that God was working in my life, well, then I didn’t know what they were.