Read Online All-American Girl by Meg Cabot - Free Book Online

went, “Um, excuse me, sir?”
    The Secret Service guy looked up. “Yes, sweetheart?” he asked. He obviously didn’t know that no one calls me sweetheart, not even my mother. Not since Morocco, when she caught me trying to flush my dad’s credit cards down the toilet (as revenge for him making us move to a foreign country where I didn’t speak the language).
    The sweetheart thing threw me. I didn’t want to come out and just ask him how long this was all going to take, since it might seem ungracious. He was only doing his job, after all. So instead, after a few seconds during which I desperately tried to think up something else to ask, I went, “Um, is the president okay?”
    The Secret Service agent smiled at me some more. “The president is just fine, honey,” he said. “Thanks to you.”
    â€œOh,” I said. “Great. So, um, do you think it would be okay for me to go soon?”
    The paramedics exchanged glances. They looked amused.
    â€œNot with that arm,” one of them said. “Your wrist is broken, kiddo. We’ll need an X-ray to see how badly, but ten to one, you’re going to have a nice big cast for all your new fans to sign.”
    Fans? What was he talking about?
    And I couldn’t get a cast! If I got a cast, my parents would wantto know how I’d broken my wrist, and then I’d have to admit that I’d skipped class.
    Unless…unless I lied and told them I tripped. Yeah, I tripped and fell down the stairs to Susan Boone’s studio. Except what if they asked her?
    Oh, God. I was such dead meat.
    â€œCouldn’t I—” I was really grasping at straws, but I was desperate. “Couldn’t I just go to my own doctor tomorrow, or something? I mean, my arm really feels much better.”
    Both the paramedics and the Secret Service agent looked at me like I was insane. Okay, yeah, my arm had swollen up to the size of my thigh and was throbbing the way hearts do during open-heart surgeries on the Learning Channel. But it actually didn’t hurt that much. Except when I moved.
    â€œIt’s just that our housekeeper is coming to pick me up,” I explained lamely. “And if you guys take me to the hospital, and I’m not where I said I’d be, she’ll freak out.”
    The Secret Service guy said, “Why don’t you give me a phone number where I can reach your parents? Because for you to receive the medical attention you need, we’re going to need to contact them.”
    Oh, God! Then they’ll know for sure I skipped class!
    But, really. What choice did I have? That’d be none.
    â€œListen,” I said, low and fast. “You don’t have to tell my parents about this. I mean, of course you have to tell them about this , but not about how I skipped my drawing class and was hanging out in Static. I mean, you don’t have to tell them that part, do you? Because I don’t want to get in any more trouble than I’m already in.”
    The Secret Service dude blinked at me like he didn’t really know what I was talking about. Which of course he didn’t. How could he? Drawing class? Static?
    But he apparently thought he’d better just go along with me—as if maybe I’d hit my head, too, when I’d fallen down—since he went, “Why don’t we wait and see.”
    Well, it was better than nothing, I guess. I gave him my mom’s and dad’s work numbers, then closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the side of the ambulance.
    Oh, well, I thought. Things could have been worse.
    For instance, I could have a chicken bone where my nose should be.
    Top ten pieces of incontrovertible proof that stopping a bullet from entering the skull of the president of the United States of America changes your life:
10. The ambulance you are riding in gets a police escort all the way to the hospital. George Washington University Hospital, to be