Lush by Natasha Friend

Author:Natasha Friend
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

On Monday, the girls are waiting by my locker. They scream when they see me. Sammmmmmy! Then there’s the hugging.

They don’t have a clue.

“How are you?” Tracey says.

“Fine,” I say.

“You look good,” Vanessa says.

“Yeah? You should have seen me on Friday.” I make myself laugh, a little heh, heh, heh. “I was one big pus-ball.”

Tracey wrinkles her nose. “Gross.”

Well, she’s right. Pinkeye is gross. I got it once in third grade. The whole class did. Conjunctivitis, the school nurse called it. We had to put drops in our eyes every morning, ointment at night.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m not contagious anymore.”

Everyone nods.

Why shouldn’t they believe me? I’ve never lied to them before. Not technically.

I open my locker, take out my English binder. “How’s the Danny Harmon situation?” I ask Angie, changing the subject. “Any developments?”

Angie just looks at me, shakes her head. That’s when I realize she hasn’t spoken a word since I got here. Tracey and V. have been doing all the talking.

I pretend to be busy in my locker, looking for a pen, but really I’m thinking. About the series of phone calls my mother made over the weekend, “private” ones, from my dad’s office, which she doesn’t know has a vent in the ceiling that happens to connect to the floor of my room.

Patrick has had a medical emergency, she told my father’s boss. He’s going to need some time off.

At least a month, is what she said. Six weeks at the most…No, no, nothing like that. His doctors anticipate a full recovery…Yes, of course he understands that the Feingold project will have to continue without him.

Next was Luke’s preschool teacher, who my mom wanted to give a “heads-up” about the “accident” Luke had on Thursday night. Nothing serious. Just a few stitches.

I stopped listening after that; I’d heard enough. But now it occurs to me that there may have been other calls. Like to Angie’s parents.

Or maybe I am just going crazy.

“Angie,” I say, “what was the math homework?”

Angie rolls her eyes. “Review problems. Stupid chapter seven quiz tomorrow.”

“Cool,” I say.

“Excuse me?”

I take out my assignment book and write Algebra Quiz, a casual scrawl. “Don’t worry. We’ll study seventh period, ’kay?”

“Whatever. I’ll bomb it, anyway.”

“Hey.” I punch Angie lightly on the shoulder. “Nice attitude.”

The bell rings. Bodies start moving. I can breathe again.

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