Party Girl by Lynne Ewing Page A

Nando’s ever sacrificed.
    “Come on,” Nando said. “I’m going to drive you up to the mountains.”
    Nando drove us up the winding roads to the Angeles National Forest in his battered VW Bug. My grandfather said that a city was a reflection of the minds of men and women but that nature was a reflection of the mind of God. I didn’t know what that meant until I stepped from Nando’s car, dry pinecones crackling under my feet, soft pine needles brushing against each other in whispers of welcome.
    I stepped to the edge of the mountain and gasped as I looked up at layer upon layer of stars. I felt the immensityof God, and the last bit of my anger drained from me.
    We sat for hours under that black dome of space, ready to fall off the world into the arms of God. I thought about Pocho and the gang, and I knew all that was behind me now. I’d never forget any of it, but I’d never be it again.
    I gathered pinecones and pine needles before we left so I could take the fragrance home.
    That night the winds blew, rumbling against my window. A branch broke free from the apple tree and hit the glass. I got out of bed, shivering in the cool room that smelled of fresh air and pine needles.
    Ana was at my window, wearing a long, flowing white gown like the ones we had drawn in the sand with sticks. The lace train swept behind her, ruffled by the wind, flapping to the edge of the yard.
    Ana smiled at me, but it was a sad smile. She held up a baby for me to see. I pressed my palms against the glass, hating this barrier between us. I opened the window, and as I did, Ana’s form faded into the thick shadows at the base of the avocado tree.
    But a gentle breeze caressed my cheek, and somehow Ana was there, her breath a whisper in my ear telling me to dance. Vamos a bailar.
    I stood in the moonlight, and my feet started to move, slow and unsure at first. Then I heard music. At first I thought it was my imagination or maybe that Ana hadbrought it with her from heaven, but then I realized it was coming from a neighbor’s home far away. I stopped and listened to the beat, not bold like the music I was used to, but my feet started to move anyway, trying to find the rhythm.
    I danced for a long time, the moon like a halo around me, and finally I could feel Ana beside me again. For only a moment I was with her in heaven, our feet reaching back, urging waves across the ocean.
    Then Ana pulled away from me, her hands lingering on my face, then pushing me gently back to earth. The moon set and the darkness surrounded me, but still I danced, finding my place in this new music, waiting for the first rays of dawn to bathe me in a new light.

 
     
     
Lynne Ewing writes extensively for magazines, television, and film. Her first book for young adults, Drive-By, was an American Library Association Quick Pick and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age.
Ms. Ewing graduated from high school in Lima, Peru, and attended the University of California at Santa Barbara. She spent several years working for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services as a bilingual employee before turning to writing as a full-time career.

SHABANU
by Suzanne Fisher Staples
    Life is both sweet and cruel to strong-willed young Shabanu, whose home is the windswept Cholistan Desert of Pakistan. The second daughter in a family with no sons, she’s been allowed freedoms forbidden to most Muslim girls. Yet her parents soon grow justifiably concerned that her independence and disinterest in “women’s work” will lead to trouble.
    As tradition dictates, Shabanu’s father has arranged for her to be married in the coming year. Though this will mean an end to her liberty, Shabanu accepts it as her duty to her family. Then a tragic encounter with a wealthy and powerful landowner ruins the marriage plans of her older sister, and it is Shabanu who is called upon to sacrifice everything she’s dreamed of. Should she do what is necessary to uphold her