Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

Author:Sarah Dessen [Dessen, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2012-03-29T01:46:48+00:00

It was the Friday of the Winter Athletic Ceremony that it happened. After last period I was supposed to go to a cheerleading meeting, then home to meet Rogerson, who wanted me to go to the mall to help him buy a birthday gift for his mother. After that, I would return home to shower, change, and ride back to school with my parents and Boo and Stewart for the ceremony, where I’d get a corsage from some football player. This would be followed by us all sitting through an endlessly boring speech by Principal Hawthorne detailing the “virtue of competition” and the “lessons we learn from teamwork” that we’d all heard the year before, and the year before that, while we waited for Cass to get her trophies. Finally I would be given a cheap plaque, my mother would take about a dozen pictures (in all of which I would have a partial—or no—head) and somehow, eventually, it would be over.

By 3:15, it was clear I needed something to help me get through this. I drove to Corinna’s with one eye on the clock, just wanting a few minutes of peace.

When I got there she was in her uniform—today, her button said SUPER STEAKS! THE NEW SENSATION!—and rolling change on the coffee table while watching reruns of the Newlywed Game.

“I have to make at least a hundred bucks tonight after tipping out,” she explained as I sat down, taking the bowl as she passed it to me, the lighter balanced on top of it. Now she didn’t even bother to ask me before she packed it—we had a routine, a system. Rogerson had even begun to give me my own small supply of pot, as well as a bowl, tiny and white ceramic with a wizard painted on its tip. With it, my bag, cigarettes, and a lighter, I was like Barbie all over again, just with different accessories.

Now Corinna exhaled, blowing out smoke as she stacked pennies, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Dave’s out of work at least till next week and the power bill’s due Monday. Plus I wrote a check for groceries that’s gonna bounce if I don’t deposit something tonight.”

I took the bowl and lit it, watching as one of the couples on the TV won a new bedroom suite. The woman had seventies hair, all hairspray and feathered bangs, and was jumping up and down, kissing the host. “I’m sorry,” I said. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, well,” she said, piling pennies into a roll and twisting the ends shut. “We’ll make it somehow. We always do.”

Corinna always seemed to be working, but I never could quite figure out what Dave did, exactly. He seemed to do some carpentry work, sometimes, and for a week or two he worked at the Quik Zip, selling gas and cigarettes on the night shift. More often, however, he was in the next room sleeping, where I could hear him snoring sometimes as Corinna and I spoke in whispers so as not to wake him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.