Big Boned by Meg Cabot

Author:Meg Cabot
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780060525132
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-11-08T08:00:00+00:00

12

* * *

Play date

(I wish I had one)

Play mate

(Wish I had one of those, too)

Play straight

(No cheatin’ with this one)

No fake

(I really mean it this time)

“Play Date”

Written by Heather Wells

* * *

I don’t have a clue anything out of the ordinary is taking place over on Washington Square West until I round the corner of Waverly Place the next morning, sleepily slurping the whipped cream topping off my grande café mocha. (About which, as Gavin would put it, whatevs. Like I totally didn’t go running yesterday. I deserve a little whipped cream. Besides, whipped cream is dairy, and a girl needs dairy to fight off osteoporosis. Everyone knows this.)

I’m licking off my whipped cream mustache when I see it—or think I see it, anyway: a giant rat.

And I don’t mean your everyday, gray-brown, cat-sized subway rat, either. I mean a GIANT, twelve-foot, inflated, semi-lifelike replica of a rat, standing on its hind legs and snarling directly across the street from Fischer Hall’s front door.

But how can this be? What would a twelve-foot inflatable rat be doing in front of my place of work? Could I be seeing things? It’s true I only just woke up. Relishing the fact that I got to sleep in this morning—no running for me—I rolled out of bed at eight-thirty, and, forgoing my morning shower—well, okay, bath. Who bothers with a shower when you can bathe lying down?—I just pulled on a fresh pair of jeans and shirt, ran a brush through my hair, washed my face, slapped on some moisturizer and makeup, and was out the door at five of nine. Time to spare for that grande café mocha. I didn’t even see Cooper or my dad. Both of them being early birds, they were already up and out—Dad had even taken Lucy for her morning walk. I was definitely going to miss that when Dad was gone, that was for sure.

But it doesn’t matter how many times I stand there and squeeze my eyes shut, then reopen them again. The rat doesn’t disappear. I’m fully awake.

Worse, marching back and forth in front of the rat, carrying picket signs that said things like New York College Doesn’t Care About Its Student Employees and Health Care Now! were dozens—maybe hundreds—of protesters. Many of them were raggedy-looking grad students, baggy-pantsed and dreadlocked.

But many more of them were in uniform. Worse, they were in New York College campus security, housekeeping, and engineering uniforms.

And that’s when it struck. The cold, hard terror that crept around my heart like icy tentacles.

Sarah had done it. She had convinced the GSC to strike.

And she’d convinced the other major unions on campus to strike along with it.

If my life were a movie, I’d have tossed my grande café mocha to the sidewalk just then, and sunk slowly to my knees, clutching my head and screaming, “Nooooooooo! WHY???? WHYYYYYY????????”

But since my life isn’t a movie, I settle for tossing my drink—which I suddenly feel way too queasy to finish—into the nearest Big Apple

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