Paula Chase - Keeping It Real

To any and every one of us who heard

that we were acting white. Our Black

is just as beautiful.

PAULA CHASE is the co-founder of The Brown Bookshelf, an award-winning organization designed to increase awareness of Black voices writing for young readers. She is the author of the acclaimed novels So Done, Dough Boys, and Turning Point. Paula Chase lives in Maryland.

www.paulachasebooks.com

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This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the authors imagination and are not to be construed as real.

KEEPING IT REAL . Copyright 2021 by Paula Chase. 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.

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Cover art 2021 by Joelle Murray

Cover design by Sylvie Le Floch

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chase, Paula, author.

Title: Keeping it real / Paula Chase.

Description: First edition. | New York : Greenwillow Books, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2021] | Audience: Ages 812. | Audience: Grades 46. | Summary: Fourteen-year-old Marigolds family owns Flexx Unlimited, a hip-hop lifestyle company, and she attends the elite school Flowered Arms Academy, but she has never felt entirely comfortable in the mostly White school, and she prefers to hang out with Justice, relatively new to the school, but a star basketball player; so enrolling in Style High with him, a trainee program funded by Maris family, seems like a good way to spend the summeruntil she meets Kara, who obviously hates Mari and seems determined to turn Justice against her.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021036676 (print) | LCCN 2021036677 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062965691 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780062965714 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: African American girlsJuvenile fiction. | African American familiesJuvenile fiction. | Apprenticeship programsJuvenile fiction. | Fathers and daughtersJuvenile fiction. | SecrecyJuvenile fiction. | SistersJuvenile fiction. | FriendshipJuvenile fiction. | Young adult fiction. | CYAC: African AmericansFiction. | ApprenticesFiction. | Fathers and daughtersFiction. | SecretsFiction. | SistersFiction. | FriendshipFiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.C38747 Ke 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.C38747 (ebook) | DDC 813.6 [Fic]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021036676 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021036677

Digital Edition OCTOBER 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-296571-4

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-296569-1

21 22 23 24 25 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FIRST EDITION

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K ara came in hating me.

I was an uppity Hill girl, to her.

And she was just another charity case my parents loved to take on to prove they were still Pea Head and Nut from around the way.

We could have gone on forever never meeting if it werent for Justice.

A re you going to say happy friendversary or what? I bugged my eyes out at my phone. Justices shoulders, broad and toned from the basketball teams mandatory morning workouts, took up most of the screen. That and his tank top, bright white like hed just taken it out of the package, against the dark wood of his beds headboard.

You working real hard to get me with this friendversary stuff, huh?

He was laid back, headphones on so his mother wouldnt hear me talking if she burst into his bedroom, something she did whenever he was on the phone. First it was annoying, then I realized why she did it.

We were only in the eighth gradefor one more day at leastbut Jus was already getting sniffs from colleges to play ball. One time, Ms. Lisa came in the room and went off. I mean it, Justice. Dont let one of these little White girls get you thinking their daddy be fine with you calling them just cause you winning games for Flowereds.

I could tell hed heard the conversation a million times because he cut his eyes my way but then kept it respectful with, Ma. Its Marigold. You can stop tripping, thanks.

Then, like she hadnt just thrown much shade, she came overhead peeking into the cameraand waved. How you doing, Mari? Hows your mom?

I liked Ms. Lisa. She was OG real. And that explained why Justice had no chill. Hed say stuff off the rip like just because it was the truth it couldnt hurt peoples feelings. I always acted like I was good with whatever real gems he dropped. If I didnt, hed say I was bougie or worse, that I was being Flohis way of saying I was acting like the rich, White kids at our private school, Flowered Arms.

Bougie barely bothered me. Mainly because I was.

I was not Flo, though.

Right on cue, Justice said, Friendversary must be a Flo thing. I cant fade it.

Youre literally the Flowered Arms poster boy, Mr. Ball So Hard, I said, calling him by the name the posters all around our school called him. Had him flexin shooting a three-pointer. Basketball season had ended months ago, but the posters were still there. At least the ones that hadnt been taken by students who had gotten Justice to autograph them.

Id been going to Flo-A since second grade. Justice had only been there since sixth and still some people knew his name and not mine. Did I mention Im the only Black girl in our grade? Now who more Flo?

I refused to let him off easy. You repping whether you like it or not. But whatever. Friendversaries are real. And today is two years to the day that you realized being down with me was where its at. So, give me my cred.