Episode 3: Falling Short: The Extraordinarily Ordinary Life of Cassandra Jones: Southwest Cougars Eighth Grade, #3

By Tamara Hart Heiner

She's done it now.

 

Cassandra's in the in-crowd. She's finally popular, finding a spot with her new friends, changing how she looks, and becoming the girl she always wanted to be. Or is she? Slowly Cassie realizes that the popular girls can't seem to tell the truth and spend as much time fighting as being friends. Will Cassie ever fit in here?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tamark Books
• Release date: Nov 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223815358

Tamara Hart Heiner

I live in beautiful northwest Arkansas in a big blue castle with two princesses and a two princes, a devoted knight, and several loyal cats (and one dog). I fill my days with slaying dragons at traffic lights, earning stars at Starbucks, and sparring with the dishes. I also enter the amazing magical kingdom of my mind to pull out stories of wizards, goddesses, high school, angels, and first kisses. Sigh. I'm the author of several young adult stories, kids books, romance novels, and even one nonfiction. You can find me outside enjoying a cup of iced tea or in my closet snuggling with my cat. But if you can't make the trip to Arkansas, I'm also hanging out on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. I looked forward to connecting with you!

Book preview

Southwest Cougars Year 2: Age 13

The Extraordinarily Ordinary Life of Cassandra Jones

Tamara Hart Heiner

ebook edition

copyright 2018 Tamara Hart Heiner

cover art by Tamara Hart Heiner

Also by Tamara Hart Heiner:

Perilous (WiDo Publishing 2010)

Altercation (WiDo Publishing 2012)

Deliverer (Tamark Books 2014)

Priceless (WiDo Publishing 2016)

Goddess of Fate:

Inevitable (Tamark Books 2013)

Entranced (Tamark Books 2017)

Kellam High:

Lay Me Down (Tamark Books 2016)

Reaching Kylee (Tamark Books 2016)

The Extraordinarily Ordinary Life of Cassandra Jones:

Walker Wildcats Year 1: Age 10 (Tamark Books 2015)

Walker Wildcats Year 2: Age 11 (Tamark Books 2016)

Southwest Cougars Year 1: Age 12 (Tamark Books 2017)

Tornado Warning (Dancing Lemur Press 2014)

ebook Edition, License Notes:

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Don’t miss the other books in the Cassandra Jones saga!

Walker Wildcats Year 1: Age 10

Download the first episode here!

Or get the whole box set here!

Walker Wildcats Year 2: Age 11

Download the first episode here!

Or get the whole box set here!

Southwest Cougars Year 1: Age 12

Download the first episode here!

Or get the whole box set here!

Episode 3: Falling Short

CHAPTER ONE

Attitude Adjustment

She had reached the point of desperation.

Cassandra Jones hated mornings. She hated the cold. And most of all, she hated her monthly turn helping her dad on his paper route, bending and rolling and wrapping rubber bands so he could toss them out the window onto the driveway and grass of the still-sleeping customers.

Today was no different. One hour into the delivery route, it started to rain. Cassie groaned. The addition of rain to the papers was a much more grueling exercise. Now not only did she have to wrap rubber bands around the papers, but she had to stuff them into plastic baggies.

Work faster, Cassie, I need more papers! Mr. Jones said.

She grumbled under her breath. Like she wasn’t already going as fast as she could? Did he think she in some way enjoyed this? Her fingers stumbled over each other as she shoved the papers into the plastic. The water came down harder, managing to filter through the open driver side window and to the middle row where she sat. She tried to keep her fingers dry, because if they got wet, the paper would stick to them and would smear the ink, still hot from the printing.

There was absolutely no part of this that was fun. How many more times could she suffer this if it meant they didn’t have to move away from Arkansas?

What if I got a job back in Texas? her dad asked.

Cassie paused. Her family had moved from Texas a few years ago, and for the longest time, all Cassie had wanted was to move back. She thought of her best friend in Texas, who she hadn’t spoken to in three years.

I don’t know, she said. Maybe that would be okay.

Well, we’ll see. Nothing’s happened yet. Her dad reached his hand onto the console for more bags of papers, but there were none. Cassie! More papers!

I know! she snapped, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand.

The sun had just started to rise when Cassie and Mr. Jones arrived back home. Streaks of orange and pink filled the sky, but Cassie’s eyes no longer wanted to stay open. She stopped in the bathroom long enough to wash the majority of the black ink from her fingers and face, where it seemed to gather whenever she brushed her hand to her skin. And then she stumble to her bedroom and fell on her bed, dreams of sleepy mornings and moving to a new town flooding her mind.

*~*

It seemed Cassie had barely shut her eyes before her sister Emily was shaking her shoulders and telling her to get up.

Wake up. It’s time to get ready for church.

It couldn’t be. She had barely fallen into bed. But Cassie rolled over toward the window and saw the sun rising in the sky. She felt like she could sleep another five hours.

Her sister had already left the room, but Cassie managed to pull herself out of bed. Her stomach rumbled. Cassie paused in her closet to choose a dress before going to the kitchen for breakfast. She picked the black dress with white polkadots and pulled it on over her frame. It fell loosely around her hips and she tied the sash, turning backward and forward and looking over her shoulder to see how it fit. It looked pretty good. The positive thought energized her enough to go to the master bathroom and examine her reflection in the mirror.

She put in her contacts first. Her dark brown eyes, unhindered by frames and glasses, stared back at her. The hair fell just past her shoulders, straight and without even a hint of curl. She plugged in the curling iron to try to rectify the situation and admired the way the dress hung loosely on her slender shoulders.

Her mom’s scale was tucked behind the toilet, and Cassie pulled it out, curious. She wasn’t supposed to obsess over her weight or weigh herself very often, but she couldn’t help herself sometimes. She