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“On your side, then. Maybe she could move in with your mother.”

  “Give me a break. My mother’s eighty.”

  “There are other alternatives besides relatives.”

  “Don’t go there, Andrea. I’m not putting my own daughter in foster care for your convenience.”

  “Not convenience, safety. Who knows what sort of upbringing this girl has had. She could be into drugs or … worse. But maybe you don’t care about Emma.”

  “Of course I care about Emma. I’ve always taken care of your daughter.”

  Your daughter. My father’s words were like a shard of ice through my heart.

  “Besides, I’m sure Nicole’s done a fine job raising her. She was always a sensible woman.”

  “Unlike me, I suppose.”

  “Who said anything about … never mind. I know you’ll see reason in this. The girl is coming to live with us, and that’s final.”

  And with that, a door slammed.

  I’d known better than to ask Mother any questions, but the day before, she’d come into my room without knocking and sat on my bed. Taking me by the shoulders, she’d said, “Don’t worry, Emma. This is just temporary. Your father loves you. We won’t let anything change that.”

  Which is when I started worrying that it would.

  Now, I stared down at Lisette. I still couldn’t see her face. She’d pulled the piece of fabric from her bag. It turned out to be a shawl, which she sniffed deeply before draping it around her stooped shoulders. She knotted the broken bag, then pulled it the rest of the way toward the doorstep. Guilt tugged at me, urged me out. I knew I should go down the ladder. I didn’t. In my lap, my hands were working. I pulled out a page of Vanity Fair, then a second. Only when my hands were so full of the crumpled, ripped pages that I couldn’t hold any more did I stop. What was I doing?

  Lisette rang the doorbell. No one answered. She rang a few more times, then she sat down on the garbage bag and cried some more, great, racking sobs that shook her shoulders. We sat that way for a long time, me in the tree house, Lisette sobbing by the door.

  It struck me for the first time that my father was a jerk. A real jerk who’d left his wife and daughter and had never seen her again, just like my own father had. Lisette and I were the same.

  Finally, the air was quiet. This was my chance, my one chance. I had to sneak down when she wasn’t looking.

  The tree house creaked as I made my way down the ladder. Instead of walking toward the porch, I went in the opposite direction, toward the street.

  Just as I reached it, she looked up. She stared at me full in the face and smiled through her tears.

  In that moment, I knew I hated her.

  Lisette was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, more beautiful than Courtney or any of the popular girls at school, more beautiful than my dolls. She looked like a grown-up, like one of those people on Inside Edition. Her eyes were the same color as the sparkling, royal blue shawl, and her lips were large and a shade of red my mouth only got if I drank a red Slurpee. I knew the girls at school would soon make her their queen, and that made me hate her even more.

  “Are you Emma?” she said, and I could only nod, frozen.

  “Oh, God! I’m so glad!” She rose to walk closer to me. Her eyes fell on my book. I should have left it in the tree house.

  But Lisette’s eyes grew even wider. “Wow, you’re reading that?” When I nodded again, she said, “You must be really smart.”

  I went through a big-time internal debate about whether to nod again or deny it. Finally, I said my first words ever to my new stepsister.

  “Well, I’m bad at math.”

  “Really? Math’s my favorite. I’m bad at English. Maybe we can help each other out.” Then, she opened her arms and said, “Oh, Emma, I know we’re going to be just like real sisters.”

  And, in that moment, I really wanted to believe her. A sister had to love you, right?

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  TUNE IN

  to Tea Time with Team Epic Reads

  Books by Alex Flinn

  Beastly

  Bewitching

  Towering

  Three Beastly Kendra Chronicles

  Four Beastly Kendra Chronicles

  Beastly: Lindy's Diary

  A Kiss in Time

  Cloaked

  Breathing Underwater

  Breaking Point

  Diva

  Fade to Black

  Nothing to Lose

  A Magical Trio

  Mirrored

  CREDITS

  Cover art © 2012 by Howard Huang

  Cover design by Sasha Illingworth

  COPYRIGHT

  HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  DIVA. Copyright © 2006 by Alex Flinn. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harperteen.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Flinn, Alex.

  Diva / Alex Flinn.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Despite her mother’s objections, sixteen-year-old Caitlin determines to pursue her dream of becoming an opera singer by attending a performing arts school in Miami.

  ISBN 978-0-06-056846-7

  EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2012 ISBN 9780062208231

  [1. Singers—Fiction. 2. Self-confidence—Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 4. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F6395Div 2006 2005028765

  [Fic]—dc22

  CIP

  AC

  First HarperTeen paperback edition, 2007

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALEX FLINN loves fairy tales and is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling BEASTLY, a spin on Beauty and the Beast that was named a VOYA Editor’s Choice and an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. Beastly is now a major motion picture starring Vanessa Hudgens! She also wrote A KISS IN TIME, a modern retelling of Sleeping Beauty, and CLOAKED, a humorous fairy tale mash-up, as well as BREATHING UNDERWATER, BREAKING POINT, NOTHING TO LOSE, FADE TO BLACK, and DIVA. Alex lives in Miami with her family. Visit her online at www.alexflinn.com.

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