The last thing April Grace wants is more change in her life―but that’s exactly what she gets! Plus, April has a new mystery to solve when Myra Sue starts sneaking around and acting very suspicious! From snooty new neighbors to starting junior high to getting a new baby brother to having her grandmother get a boyfriend, April Grace has had enough change to last until she is at least 87 years old. But when it rains, it pours, and April Grace is in for the ride of her life when her prissy, citified neighbor Isabel becomes her gym teacher and a long-lost relative suddenly reappears and throws everything into a tizzy. On top of that, April’s sister, Myra Sue, has been hiding something and sneaking around. April needs to find out what is going on before her silly sister gets herself into trouble again. More important, will April find the grace she needs to handle her topsy-turvy life and forgive past wrongs? Girls will fall in love with April’s humor and completely relate to her as she deals with family, friends, drama, and both the humor and the heartache that are part of growing up. Chocolate-Covered Baloney Confessions of April Grace By K.D. McCrite Thomas Nelson Copyright © 2012 Kathaleen McCrite All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4003-2068-4 Chapter One When the Preacher Says Things Are Gonna Change, He Knows What He's Talking About January 1987 Our preacher scared me out of a year's growth. He stood right up there in the pulpit on that first Sunday morning of 1987, looked at us all, and calmly announced, "Things are gonna change." Well, let me tell you, I have had enough change for any sixth-grade girl, and when Pastor Ross said that, I opened up a hymnbook and started reading the words to all those familiar songs just so I wouldn't have to listen. Melissa Kay Carlyle, my best friend, was sitting on my left in the pew where we always sat. As long as we were quiet during church, our folks allowed us to sit together away from them. She passed me her church bulletin. "Why are you reading songs?" she had written in the margin of the back page. "B-cuz," I wrote back. "???" And she had underlined it three times. "I do not want to listen to the sermon," I wrote. She read that, and her hazel eyes got big. She twisted her mouth and gave me a measuring stare. I shrugged and went back to reading the words of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." You see, in the past few months, my home has been disrupted, my life has been interrupted, a place on my face has erupted, and I just want things to calm down and be the way they were this time last year. This time last year I was in elementary school, not junior high. My fourteen-year-old sister, Myra Sue, who is the biggest Blond-Haired, Blue-Eyed Drip you will ever meet, had not totally lost what tiny scrap of good sense she had. My grandma had still been a cookie-baking, old-fashioned lady with gray hair and ugly shoes who liked to sit in the rocking chair a lot, instead of getting her hair cut and dyed and going through a Total Makeover until she hardly looked like herself. Last winter at this time, we had never heard of the citified Ian and Isabel St. James, and there had only been two kids instead of three in our household. Boy, oh boy, if there was gonna be more change in my life, I'd rather it were the kind I could spend on chocolate bars. Chapter Two Myra Sue Reilly, the Sneak of Rough Creek Road * * * That afternoon, after the family finished Sunday dinner, I washed the dishes and straightened the kitchen. This has become my Permanent Job, and let me tell you, it is not something I wish to make a career of. When I finished rinsing out the sink, I looked out the kitchen window at Grandma's little red-roofed house across the hay field. Her white Corolla was still not there. You want to know where she was? I'll tell you. She was at the Methodist church where she'd been invited by the minister, Reverend Trask Jordan, to come for the service and to stay for a New Year's potluck celebration afterward. We Reillys attend Cedar Ridge Community Church and have done so since time began. Reverend Jordan likes my grandma. Likes , as in he'd like to be her boyfriend. He's been inviting her over and over again to visit his church. (Just visit , mind you. Not become a member or anything because he "doesn't want to take folks away from their own churches.") The other day, he drove his bright-red Mustang to her house while Daddy and I were there, and he invited her right in front of us. Grandma's face got all red, and her mouth opened and shut a couple of times. Daddy said, "I think you should go, Mom. You'll enjoy it." She gave him a funny look and blurted out, "Yes, okay, thank you," like she was afraid she'd forget the words if she didn't say 'em loud and fast. Then Daddy laughed, and Reverend Jordan chuckled. I just sat there thinking about the whole thing. I wish that preacher had invited me to go, too. If I'