Rachel's Valentine Crush by Angela Darling

Maybeyou’re right. Maybe that line is about choir and not glee.”
    Rachel felt a little hope stirring inside her heart, but tried to ignore it.
    â€œSo, what do you think about the L-O-L line?” Tammy continued. “Did you and Brody joke around a lot in choir?”
    â€œNo,” Rachel admitted. “Like, never. Did you guys? In glee club?”
    â€œYeah,” Tammy said. “Practically after every rehearsal.”
    â€œOh,” Rachel said. “So . . . that’s probably it, then. That’s probably the clue.” She tried to act like it was no big deal, but the smile she forced across her face was hardly convincing.
    â€œWho knows,” Tammy said with a shrug. “Whatever the clue is, it’s definitely not easy to figure out. But good luck, Rachel. If I’m not Brody’s crush . . . then I hope it’s you.”
    â€œMe too,” Rachel said. “Wait, that didn’t sound right.”
    Tammy’s laugh, as beautiful as her singing voice, rang through the hallway. “No worries,” she assured Rachel. “I know what you meant. See ya.”
    â€œSee ya,” Rachel repeated. She opened her lockerand started loading her backpack, oblivious to everyone else in the hallway. Tammy was just trying to be nice, Rachel thought, forcing herself to face the truth. Because, sure, the music line could be about choir or glee club. But the LOL part—that’s got to be all about her.
    And not me.

chapter 6
    WHEN RACHEL GOT HOME, SHE went straight to Grandma Nellie’s scrapbooking cupboard. “Grandma Nellie?” she called. “Can I take some more of your supplies?”
    â€œOf course, honey,” Grandma Nellie replied. “Anything you want. Did you decide to give scrapbooking a try?”
    â€œYep,” Rachel said as she loaded up on paper, glue, and ribbon. “I worked on it a little bit already the other night. Now I have some more pages I want to add.”
    â€œGood for you, Rachel! I bet it will look great,” Grandma Nellie said. “Have fun!”
    In her room Rachel started playing Songs from My Heart as she arranged the supplies on her desk. Then she used her hole punch to make a series of holes around the edge of a new scrapbook page. After weaving a prettypiece of crimson ribbon through the holes, Rachel pulled out a sheet of the lined pink paper and was ready to start writing.
    The most embarrassing choir practice ever turned out to be the best. It was last winter, and practically the whole town had the flu. When I got to practice, I was the only soprano. So whenever I sang the soprano part, it was like a giant solo. So if I hit a wrong note, everybody would know that it was me.
    At first my voice was small and squeaky, like a mouse. Halfway through the song Mr. Jenkins stopped us. I knew he wasn’t going to be happy, and it was all my fault.
    But instead, he started talking about why we sing at church. He talked about how singing was a miracle, and if you managed to lose yourself in it, it was beautiful no matter what.
    For the next song, I just closed my eyes and pretended that I was home alone, singing where nobody could hear me. And it worked! I just lost myself in it and it felt great.
    When the song ended, I was a little bit dizzy and breathless, but I didn’t even care. And then—this had never happened before—everybody started clapping and cheering. For me!! Mr. Jenkins was smiling so big.
    Then, after practice, Brody came up to me. I had just started noticing how incredibly cute he is, which made me feel a little nervous around him. Brody said, “Rachel! That was amazing! I didn’t know you could sing like that!” And then Brody asked me why I wasn’t in glee club at school.
    I wanted to tell him why not—that I wasn’t allowed to even try out—but I couldn’t. The last thing I wanted was for Brody to think my dad was crazy