The Win Over


 Contents
 
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Contents
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 Chapter 21
 Chapter 22
 Chapter 23
 Chapter 24
 Chapter 25
 Chapter 26
 Chapter 27
 Chapter 28
 Acknowledgments
 About the Author
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Start of content
 Dedication
 Contents
 Chapter 1
 Acknowledgments
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Pagebreaks of the print version
 
 Cover Page
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 iv
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 To my tías with love and gratitude
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 Chapter 21
 Chapter 22
 Chapter 23
 Chapter 24
 Chapter 25
 Chapter 26
 Chapter 27
 Chapter 28
 Acknowledgments
 About the Author
 Copyright
 
 
 
 
 
 
 At first Lucinda Mendoza thought her sister was exaggerating. Raquel could be a little dramatic that way. But maybe it was true. Maybe there weren’t any stories worth digging into at Dad’s house in the middle of California farmland. Was that really such a bad thing? Wasn’t the calm kind of … nice? Especially after months of chaos.
 Lucinda sat on the grass, her legs stretched in a wide V. She leaned over the left leg, reaching for her toe, and watched Juliette dip a white T-shirt, its front a constellation of knots and rubber bands, into a bucket of bright pink water.
 Raquel, Lucinda’s twin, knelt next to Jules, notebook open to a clean, blank page, pen raised and ready to make note of anything that happened. Anything at all.
 Nothing did.
 Jules swirled the shirt in the water with a stick she had pulled off one of the oak trees that Dad’s small ranch, Los Robles, was named for. “I’m not sure how long it’s supposed to sit in there,” she said, frowning into the punch-colored stew.
 Raquel peeked over the edge of the bucket. “Let’s start with a few questions while we wait,” she said. She tapped her pen against her teeth. “What gave you the idea to tie-dye your clothes in beet juice in the first place? Is it a trend? Are kids our age trying to get back to the basics? Reviving old-school, all-natural techniques? Giving up fast fashion?”
 She sat up on her knees. Her eyes glimmered. Lucinda recognized the flash of a new idea.
 “That could be a great angle, actually,” Raquel continued, scribbling furiously into her notebook. “Are you doing this … beet juice thing … for environmental reasons?” She inched closer to Jules. “To make your own clothes and take action against a system that creates millions of tons of textile waste each year?”
 This was getting desperate, even for Raquel, who, as editor of their school news site, the Manzanita Mirror, charged toward stories with a stubborn persistence that could be a little intimidating if you weren’t used to it. Lucinda met Jules’s nervous glance, rolled her eyes, and stretched over the other leg.
 “I guess?” Jules answered finally. “I mean, honestly, I just thought it would be cool to see how it would turn out. Since we have all those beets and everything. I didn’t want them to go to waste. That’s good for the environment, right? Reducing waste?”
 Lucinda laughed, her brown curls tumbling into her face.
 Raquel slumped and tossed her notebook and pen beside her.
 “Don’t be mad,” Jules said, her cheeks turning as red as the beet water. “I do care about the environment. It’s just that I didn’t know all that stuff you were talking about. Let me read about it tonight, then we can do the interview tomorrow.”
 Raquel pulled a clump of crabgrass out of the dirt. “That’s not how it works,” she said. “I have to find a story, not create one.” She raised her eyes and shrugged. “But I’m not mad. And even if it’s not a story, this is fun to watch.”
 Jules’s shoulders relaxed. The nervous lines between her eyebrows disappeared. She reached into the bucket and lifted out the shirt. It emerged, dripping, a vibrant flamingo pink. She held it up with a squeal of surprised delight, not seeming to mind that it was staining