Loving You by Maureen Child

Author:Maureen Child
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466893429
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER 12

Jonas was at the front of the mob and had to move fast or get run down by the scattering horde of kids spilling out of the school. When the final bell rang, things got crazy as every kid in the building tried to be the first one out. Even the air smelled better once school was out for the day, and everybody was in a hurry to have fun.

Somebody crashed into him from behind, yelled, “Sorry,” and kept running. Jonas didn’t even look up. Instead, he kept counting his money. For the third time, he flipped through the dollar bills and smiled to himself when he got up to, “Nine. Nine whole dollars.”

“You already counted it like a hundred times,” Alex said, and elbowed him in the ribs. “Whatcha gonna do with it?”

“I told you. Tasha’s birthday.”

Alex grinned and rubbed his palms together. “Yeah, or the game center at Bullwinkle’s.”

Jonas thought about it for a minute and almost caved in as visions of Space Blasters dazzled his brain. But then he remembered Tasha and shook his head. “Uh-uh. I’m gonna get Tasha something nice.”

“Not with nine bucks.”

“Dave Hackett’s gonna buy a picture, too, so that’ll be five more.”

Alex shrugged, tossed his dark brown hair out of his eyes, and trudged along beside Jonas as he headed for the front of campus. A cold wind pushed at them and the boys ducked their heads and charged through it like they were tackling a linebacker. Black clouds stacked up in the sky, bouncing into each other, and the distant roll of thunder whispered a warning.

“You have the picture?” Dave yelled as he raced up to join them. With his blond hair shaved short, Dave Hackett looked like a bald fifth grader. But nobody told him that, ’cause Dave was kinda big and he might not like it and a black eye was hard to explain to people.

“Yeah, I’ve got it.” Jonas dropped his backpack to the ground, then knelt beside it and tugged at the zipper. Pulling out a blue San Jose Saints folder, he opened it and took out his last signed picture of Nick. Holding it carefully at the edges, Jonas stared down at his father’s smiling face and felt bad about selling his last picture. But he needed the money and Nick said he’d get him more, so that’d be okay, and besides, he had Nick for real now. The pictures weren’t all he had of him anymore. Now he didn’t have to pretend to know Nick and stuff. Now he could see him all the time.

“Okay, here.” Jonas stood up and handed the picture over before he could feel bad about it.

“Cool.” Dave took the picture and looked at it for a second. Then he frowned. “Hey, how come he signed his name different?”

“Huh?”

Dave scowled at him. “I saw the picture Tommy Malone bought off you and the handwriting looked different than this one does.”

“So?” Jonas had noticed that, too. But it didn’t really matter. “Can’t

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