Read Online All Alone in the Universe by Lynne Rae Perkins - Free Book Online Page A

seem to move. I studied the pictures taped inside. There was a mirror taped inside, too, and I looked into it. I tucked my hair behind my ears and put on some lip gloss. Since I still seemed to have the use of my arms, I crossed them in front of me to hold myself together. It was starting to look as if I might stand there all day when I heard footsteps approaching, footsteps with authority. I thought I should act busy, but my locker was in perfect order now, and I hesitated. The footsteps stopped a few feet away. I grabbed a book and closed the door. I saw that it was the wrong book, and I had to fumble through my combination and open the door again. Whoever it was, was still there. I shifted the rearview mirror and looked right into the green-shadowed, black-rimmed, blue mascaraed brown eyes of Miss Epler, the new English teacher with the crooked nose and the perfect, freshly bleached Sassoon haircut.
    “Are you okay, Debbie?” she asked.
    I nodded. Miss Epler clip-clopped over and stood next to me. Even in platform shoes, she was shorter than I was.
    “Are you sick?” she asked.
    I shook my head, still looking straight ahead at the neat stack of books.
    “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
    The muscles in my face were trying to seize up, a bucketful of tears was pressing against the backs of my eyes, and working their way up through my windpipe were some heaving sobs, which I knew would be loud and embarrassing. I gave a tiny shrug, and one of the sobs escaped, sounding like a heavy piece of furniture being dragged across the floor.
    Miss Epler put her hands on my shoulders. “Come on,” she said. “I have a free period.”
    She gently closed my locker door and led me down the hall. She left me outside the teachers’ lounge and returned in a minute with a bag of corn chips and two bottles of Squirt. “This is probably not very nutritious,” she said, “but there‧s not much choice in there.”
    We sat on the front steps of the school. Miss Epler ripped open the bag of chips and started crunching, but when she noticed I wasn‧t eating any, she tried to muffle her crunching. Then she stopped, licked the salt from her fingers, and took a sip of her Squirt.
    “So, what‧s up?” she said. “Let me guess. Boys. You had a fight with your boyfriend.”
    “No,” I said. “I don‧t have one.”
    “Good for you, you‧re better off,” she said. “I don‧t have one either, but that‧s another story. Let‧s see … not a boyfriend. Hmm … Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”
    I thought for a moment. “Is slime mold an animal or a vegetable?” I asked.

     
    “Slime mold?” she repeated. “Your locker didn‧t look that bad to me. I‧ve seen a lot worse.”
    “Not my locker,” I said. “A person.”
    “Aaahhh,” she said. “A person. Then animal, of course. But I‧m pretty sure that mold is vegetable, so you need to pick a different analogy.”
    “Snake,” I said. “No—worm.”
    “Wow,” said Miss Epler. “Does this person have any good qualities?”
    “No,” I said. It felt very good to say it, but I knew it might not be completely fair. I didn‧t want to be fair, but in case God or anyone was listening, I added, “Some people think she does.”
    “Some people think she does,” said Miss Epler. “That‧s good. Some objectivity.” She took another chip and went on. “Now we can come back in a minute to how crappy this person is, but just for the sake of objectivity: What are the good qualities that some people think she has?”
    This was one of those questions that English teachers like to ask, like: What three things would you take with you into the nuclear holocaust? Or, who should get off the lifeboat, you or Mahatma Gandhi? I wasn‧t in the mood for it right now, but with the promise of trashing Glenna just ahead, I scraped together the few nonnegative qualities of hers that I could think of.
    “She‧s punctual,” I said. “And clean. And neat.”
    “Hmm,” said