Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

Author:Jessica Knoll [Knoll, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, Contemporary, Adult, Romance
ISBN: 9781476789637
Amazon: B00LD1OITO
Barnesnoble: B00LD1OITO
Goodreads: 22609317
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2015-05-12T04:00:00+00:00

Mr. Larson had warned us it would happen. Two weeks of grammar, immediately following our discussion of Into Thin Air. This announcement had elicited a dramatic groan from the class and a playful grin from Mr. Larson, one I imagined he gave all his dates, right before slipping his hand underneath the blond weight of their hair and leaning in for a soft kiss.

Given the grueling grammar course I’d suffered through at Mt. St. Theresa’s, this news was disappointing but also, to my surprise, fueled me with a sort of territorial adrenaline. Try me, I’d thought back in September. Gerund phrases, the present participle, noun modifiers—I’d wipe the floor with these amateurs. Now, with Mr. Larson gone and my competitive spirit blunted, I was just grateful for the opportunity to coast.

The substitute they’d brought in to replace Mr. Larson, Mrs. Hurst, had the body of a ten year-old boy and bought her clothes—khakis and pastel-colored button-downs—at GapKids. From behind, she easily could have been an upper schooler’s annoying little brother. Her daughter was a senior at Bradley, and because she had gotten into Dartmouth early decision and had a large, sharp nose and eyes ringed with purple commas, I’d assumed she was a harmless book nerd. But years of dismissal from pretty girls and boys who weren’t that horny had turned her into a bitter gossip. Her mother, seated at the head of the classroom, one bony ankle draped over the other, had my number from the get-go.

She started on me the day somebody brought in doughnuts—left over from the yearbook meeting earlier that morning. Mrs. Hurst cut the remaining Krispy Kremes in half, even though there were eleven doughnuts and only nine students, more than enough for everyone to have a whole. I assumed she did it so that we could sample other flavors, and took half of a Boston cream and half of a powdered sugar.

“TifAni,” Mrs. Hurst clucked disapprovingly. “Geez. Leave some for the rest of the class.”

Her insults landed softly like that, enough to arouse a cautious titter from some students, hesitant to get involved with social politics. Honors English, which was filled with the children of Ivy League stage mothers, wasn’t her ideal audience (she would have had better luck with the mean degenerates in Chem), but she would take what she could get.

My friendship with Arthur had not escaped Mrs. Hurst. That combined with the fact that Arthur was the smartest person in the room—head of the table included—and not exactly modest about it, and he may have had an even bigger bull’s-eye on his forehead than I did.

One morning, a particularly convoluted explanation of the appositive phrase prompted Arthur to scribble his own example on the note the two of us had been passing back and forth, something we did all the time, even in the cafeteria, when we could speak freely. “Mrs. Hurst, the dumb-ass new teacher . . .” I slapped my hand over my mouth to catch my laugh, but a high-pitched sliver escaped.

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