Richard Read

Finally Thirteen Richard Read

Everything changes when you're thirteen! When they were in sixth grade, Calista Snipe and her best friends, Skyler McCray and Tabitha Tyler, narrowly escaped being kidnapped by Flash and Joint, two subordinates of crime boss, Wee Willie Sturgis. That horrific event is behind the children as they now prepare to enter Parkington Junior High. They soon find that the junior high school presents its own set of challenges and hurdles. Four elementary schools send students to Park Junior. The kaleidoscope of new faces, seventh and eighth grade students, is at first overwhelming. In addition to the familiar but always stress producing tasks encountered with academic assignments, Cali, Sky, and Tab must now make new friends, must take on new activities, and deal with the tantalizing and embarrassing excitement of their budding sexuality. The three friends are soon involved with eighth grader Talia Murphy, who helps a classmate expand her junior high drug trade; with Bill Baxter, who has an exceptional athletic talent and a keen interest in romance with almost every girl he meets; with Melanie Kent, a girl blessed both with physical precociousness and extremely affluent parents; with Leantos and Lee Ann Mosley, eighth grade twins who also happen to become Cali's, Tab's, and Sky's first African-American friends; and with Pablo Cruz, who is using amphetamines to enhance his athletic skills and is involved with older youths who often attempt to manipulate younger students into providing sexual benefits. In the meantime, the children's past nemeses, senior high student, Carl Huff, and Wee Willie Sturgis continue to practice their illegal dealings. Is it possible that the criminal behavior of Huff and Sturgis will once more impact the lives of Calista, Tabitha, and Skyler?