The Bubble Gum Thief by Jeff Miller

Author:Jeff Miller [Miller, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: cookie429
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2012-12-03T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 30

April 1—Salt Lake City, Utah

Rachel Silvers was thinking about Rolland Feller when she raised her hand and said, “Necesito ir al cuarto de baño.”

“Tome el pase y apresúrese.”

She didn’t really have to use the bathroom—she just wanted a five-minute reprieve from the pluperfect tense. She could stretch it to fifteen if she walked slowly. A hustle to the classroom door and then a leisurely stroll down the halls, counting floor tiles and reading the flyers on the bulletin board. Drummer wanted. Yearbook sales. Tickets to Prom.

Prom.

In some ways, Mount Tyler wasn’t much different from any other high school in America. The administration complained about the budget, and parents complained about the curriculum. Some of the teachers were good and some were bad. There were smart kids and dumb kids and kids in between, and most of them eventually found their place in standard-issue high school cliques, like the Jocks and the AP Geeks and the Vegans and the Boys Who Grew Beards at a Freakishly Young Age. But there was one clique at Mount Tyler that subsumed all the others. And because Rachel didn’t belong to this clique, she felt forever out of place at Mount Tyler High School, forever out of place in Salt Lake City, indeed, forever out of place in all of Utah. Because her parents didn’t believe that Joseph Smith discovered God’s message on golden plates buried in the ground of Hill Cumorah in Manchester, New York, she was a social outcast.

Something looked different in the bathroom mirror, and then she realized it was a smile. And not just a slight smile, but a big, dumb, goofy grin. A very cute boy had asked her out during lunch, and not just any very cute boy, but Rolland Feller. He was a junior—the starting tight end for the football team, a benchwarmer for the basketball team, and he could have played baseball, too, if he’d wanted, which he didn’t. It was just dinner and a movie—a simple little date, but maybe an audition for Prom. And since Rolland hung with the popular crowd, an invitation to Prom could be an entrée into a better life.

As long as she didn’t blow it with Rolland.

Back in Señora Bertlesman’s class, her eyes drifted out the window, watching her brother climb into his beat-up Camry. Early dismissal was the big perk for seniors at Mount Tyler, but Rachel was just a sophomore. She couldn’t leave early. She couldn’t even drive. Not yet, anyway. But next year Jack would be away at Stanford, and the Camry would be hers.

If the bell rang, Rachel didn’t hear it, but she noticed that students were gathering their books and leaving the classroom, so she did the same. She stopped at her locker to pick up some books. A picture of Grace Kelly hung on the inside of the locker door. She tore it down. It made her weird, and she had decided not to be weird anymore.

She felt silly riding the school bus. It made her feel young—like a kid—and she didn’t feel like a kid anymore.

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