Leona''s Unlucky Mission Read Online Free Page A

why it would,” Leona said. “We’ll just all go on more missions. We can pick up one Starling’s slack. Especially a Starling like Scarlet. I never trusted her anyway.”
    â€œOh, Leona!” Libby’s eyes flashed protectively across the table. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
    â€œStar apologies,” muttered Leona. “But you didn’t live with her….I’m just saying I wasn’t surprised.”
    Sage, meanwhile, tugged on her lavender braids, thinking. “Remember what Lady Stella told us all when she met with us for the first time? If we didn’t want to be part of this mission, she would find another Starling who did. What if she’s finding another one right now to make us twelve again?”
    â€œMaybe…” Vega nodded.
    â€œWell, I’m going to miss her,” Libby said, “even if she did say more with her drums than she ever did with her mouth. I mean, she used to—”
    â€œWait! Hold your stars! What did you say?” Leona gasped. How in the universe had she gone so long without considering what losing Scarlet really and truly might mean?
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” asked Libby.
    â€œDrums!” Leona gulped. “Maybe our mission can succeed without Scarlet. But what about my band?”

    Leona had hoped against hope that Scarlet would show up for their usual band practice, but she didn’t, to no one’s surprise. The rest of them—Sage on guitar, Vega on bass, Libby on keytar, and Leona on vocals—waited for a few starmins in their Lightning Lounge rehearsal room, tuning up and trading riffs.
    Suddenly, a scowling face framed by blue bangs appeared in the doorway, which Leona had left open—for Scarlet, she had hoped. She regretted the mistake immediately and reached out the hand that wasn’t holding her microphone to wave the rehearsal room door closed.
    Unfortunately, because Vivica, the nosy Starling, was standing in its way, the door politely refused to close on her, which was how doors on Starland worked.
    â€œWe’re busy,” Leona growled.
    Her bandmates nodded.
    Vivica was just about the only Starling at Starling Academy who no one liked having around.
    â€œBusy doing what? Not making music, that’s for sure,” Vivica said, laughing. She closed her eyes, enjoying her joke.
    â€œWhat we need is a little privacy,” snapped Leona.
    â€œWe’re rehearsing,” Libby explained. She even flashed Vivica a generous star-salutations-for-understanding-now-please-get-out-of-here grin.
    Instead of backing out of the doorway, though, Vivica glided in.
    â€œOh…is this your little band?” She fired a look at each of them: Libby, Vega, Sage, and Leona. “I thought you had a drummer, too.”
    â€œShe’s late.” “She quit.” “She’s missing.” “We do.”
    The whole band answered Vivica at the same time with four different replies.
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œWe don’t need a drummer, if that’s what you’re wondering,” said Leona.
    Quickly, her bandmates agreed.
    â€œWe’re good.”
    â€œAll good.”
    â€œThanks, though,” said Libby, who could never stop trying to please.
    â€œI know how badly you wanted to be in the band,” Leona said, trying to sound sympathetic as she tossed her mic from hand to hand. “Sorry you didn’t make it.” She shrugged. “But there’s always starchoir, I guess.”
    Vivica had tried out for the band, along with the hydrongs of other Starlings who had turned up.
    Leona could still remember the knots that had formed in her stomach when Vivica stepped onto the band shell to audition—for lead vocals, Leona’s own part, no less! Fortunately, the Ranker knew what it was doing and Leona made the band. She’d had to wait stardays for the results, though—the longest stardays of her life.
    She