Possessing Jessie by Nancy Springer

Author:Nancy Springer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497688810
Publisher: Open Road Media Teen & Tween

Chapter Nine

The next morning Jessie made sure to be on time for school, because she wanted everybody to see her purring into the parking lot in the black Z-car. She wore Jason’s black American Outfitters T-shirt, his black jeans, and her–or maybe his, really–new black Oakley shades, and she rolled in like a visiting raja, relishing yet ignoring the shouts and squeals of the onlookers.

She parked the car diagonally across two spaces, which was strictly against the rules. Walking tall, she wore her sunglasses into school, also against the rules. The other kids kept their distance from her and watched her silently, acting more impressed now than hostile. No shouts of “pervert.” Instead, one of Jason’s teammates from wrestling, a tall, broad-shouldered blond boy named Shane, walked up to her. Jessie’d had a crush on Shane, who was her age, since middle school. Mutely she adored him almost as much as she had adored Jason. He had never noticed her, had never spoken to her before, and she had never spoken to him.

Now here came Shane calling, “Hey, um, Jason.” He said the name like yeah, right, but he was smiling. Challenging, yet not unfriendly.

As if in a dream, Jessie could not feel the floor under her feet. Yet she did what she had to do, answering promptly in her Jason voice, “Yo, Shane, ’sup?”

“That’s what I want to know. What’s up.”

Jessie answered only with a smile. Shane’s smile pulled it out of her while she struggled against it, so it may have looked like a girly smile or it may have looked more like a boy smile.

It seemed to puzzle Shane. He loomed over her, scowling. “Let’s see how Jason you really are. Dead End Bend tonight at dark, all right?”

Jessie shrugged. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Shane mimicked, turning to walk away. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he shot over his shoulder as he left.

Jessie felt her heart pumping honey. Shane, talking to her! Interested in her! Life had never been so exciting before.

And it continued that way. The minute she walked into homeroom, the teacher ordered, “Take off those sunglasses, Miss Ressler.”

Jessie stared. Instead of her usual homeroom teacher, it was Coach, the one who had made her cringe at the door on her first day dressed as Jason. If it weren’t for that memory, Jessie might have taken off the sunglasses like a good girl. Really, she knew, she was still Jessie and she needed to make good grades and stay out of trouble. But the way Coach said “Miss Ressler” made it sound like being Jessie was equivalent to being a garden slug. She did not answer, only shrugged and slouched back in her desk chair, arms crossed over her chest, chin up, grinning defiance the way Jason might have.

“Jessica Ressler! I’ll give you one more chance. Remove your expensive but nonfunctional eyewear.”

Ooooh, sarcasm, ooooooh, so scaaaaary it made Jessie laugh.

The teacher said between clenched teeth, “Report to the office, Miss Ressler.”

What the hell, she thought as she swaggered out.

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