Read Online Some Kind of Wonderful by J. Minter - Free Book Online

actually be able to talk to him for a change if it were just a few of us hanging out."
    "Yeah right, Flan," Camille giggled, turning beet-red. "That'd be like asking him out on a date. I could never. Let's just stay here and play."
    When she saw the negative look on my face, she pulled out the heavy artillery.
    "Come on," she said. "Xander's friend . . . that tall guy . . . Alex Altfest will be there. Admit you think he's so cute—you
     guys would have the best-looking babies. What if you got to kiss him?"
    I didn't realize Camille was dragging me by the hand into the living room where the game was about to begin, but as we came
     through the sliding door, I found myself saying, too loudly, "But I don't want to kiss anyone today. Not like this."
    Just then, I noticed that Kennedy was standing two feet in front of us. She had one arm around Alex Altfest and moved to put
     the other one around Camille. As soon as she did that, I felt a draft of cold air wash between Camille and me. In that moment,
     I knew I really had lost her forever. She'd been sucked in like a magnet to Team Kennedy.
    And then came Kennedy's nasally whispered words, which have been burned in my memory ever since:
    "Too bad Flan can't ever just mellow out and be chill like Patch and Feb."
    A rush of comebacks ran through my head: You don't know anything about my brother and sister, who are a million times cooler than you!
    Is being a total backstabbing liar considered chill in L.A.?
    Even, Hey everybody, is Kennedy so laid back that she doesn't even realize she needs the next size up in those Citizens jeans?
    Any of those would have been perfectly acceptable . . . if not a little bit out of character and borderline bitchy. But what
     came out of my mouth was the lamest, most embarrassing line of all.
    In a choked, hoarse shout that made me sound like a boy going through puberty, I shouted, "I can, too!"
    With those three stupid words ringing in my ears, I fled the party in tears. I could hear the room erupt into laugher behind
     me, and I was sure I was the laughingstock of the entire evening. I spent the worst summer ever in hiding. Camille left a
     few messages on my phone, but I was too embarrassed to return her calls. Over the course of that summer, I started to worry
     that Kennedy had been right about me. Maybe I couldn't hang. Maybe I wasn't chill.
    Eighth grade was no picnic. Hardly any of my old friends called me anymore. Even the girls who hadn't been invited to Anjelica's
     party seemed to have heard about my meltdown. Some steered clear of me as if I had a contagious disease. At first, Camille
     would wave at me tentatively from the table by the window where we always used to sit, but eventually, she stopped making
     the effort.
    Finally, Patch and Feb came to my rescue, because they couldn't stand to see me commit social suicide weekend after weekend.
     I started hanging out with them more and more, and soon enough, I'd virtually disappeared from the scene at school. I started
     dating Jonathan, which was a blast on nights and weekends, but I still had to try to hold my head high at school. The truth
     was, a lot of the time, I was feeling pretty pathetic.
    That spring, I realized I had spent almost a year being mostly miserable. I knew I needed to look for a way to snap myself
     out of this funk. I needed a fresh start, a clean slate, and some new friends. I needed a new school.
    So while my old friends were island-hopping together during Spring Break, I went textbook hopping solo. And it paid off. By
     May, I got my test scores back from the public high school entrance exam, along with a letter congratulating me on my acceptance
     to Stuy, hands down the best public high school in Manhattan.
    The hardest part about it was selling public school to my parents, who were all about private school. My dad insisted that
     it was the only place where I could get a real education, and my mom thought it was very important that I keep up with all
     the