Page 1 of Feel Free to Scream

1

CLAIRE

You don’t need a new notebook.

I stare at the perfectly sized, pale blue leatherbound piece of stationery foiled in gold, and my heart sinks.

Claire, you need to buy a week’s worth of dinners more than you need a fifty-dollar notebook!

I dare to flip the cover open, and god, the page is so thick and smooth. There are little doodles in the margins, too.

I’m mentally calculating my budget, wishing I could have worked a few extra hours at the diner back home before I flew to Thorn Falls. I have a little money to spare, it’s true, but it’s the start of the month, and I haven’t yet found a part-time job here.

Then again, starting next week, the school’s dining hall will be open, and my scholarship covers every meal, so I don’t technically need much money.

No, Claire. Put the notebook down. It’s not going anywhere. You can come back for it at the end of the month.

I hate conceding to the voice of reason, sounding strangely like my grandmother’s inside my own head. I’m no longer at home—I’m alone, without any family or friends around to count on. I can’t start with frivolous purchases. I’ve only just put the book down when a little hand reaches out to take it.

“Oh, it’s so pretty! Like a princess’s journal!”

I look down with some surprise, and see the most adorable little girl, with stick- straight golden hair and the biggest amber eyes.

My face breaks into a smile. She wears a cute dress with a big bow at the waist. If anything looks like a princess here, it’s her.

“It matches your dress, too,” I say with a grin, as she presses the book against her chest.

I know the feeling, kiddo.

The girl looks up at me and blinks several times. “Oh!” is all she says.

“What? Do I have powdered sugar all over my face?” I shouldn’t have eaten that beignet on the go, but the smell knocked me out as I passed by the store in the mall. I truly didn’t have a choice.

“No,” she assures me. “But you’re too beautiful. My dada says that when a girl looks like she’s perfect, it’s because she’s wearing lots of makeup. He says no one is as floo—flo…”

“Flawless?” I offer.

She nods eagerly. “Flulesh,” she repeats after me, butchering the word.

“Well, your dad’s right. I’m certainly not that.”

“Are you wearing lots of makeup?”

“No,” I admit. “But that doesn’t mean I’m flawless.”

I can’t believe I’m having a conversation about beauty standards with a six-year-old on a Saturday morning, but if it helps the little girl grow up to realize that perfection doesn’t exist, I’m happy to discuss it all day.

I tug at the end of the fishtail braid thrown over my shoulder. “My hair’s all over the place unless I tame it like this. It's like it explodes all around my head. I had a buck tooth, until I wore braces for three whole years. If I don’t tint my eyebrows, I look like I don’t have any, because they’re too pale. And in the summer? I turn as red as a lobster after an hour in the sun.”

Her eyes widen. “A lobster?”

Children are so literal. “Maybe more like a piglet. Oink, oink,” I add, squishing my nose.

She laughs so hard I think she’s going to stop breathing.

Suddenly aware that we’ve been chatting for a while, I turn my head. “Are you here with your family?”

The little girl looks around, and I see her face switch from laughter to panic when she realizes there’s no one around us except the sales clerk staring at us with amusement. “Da! Da was right here. Da!” she screams.

---