Read Online Almost Identical #1 by Lin Oliver - Free Book Online Page B

working on getting our Under-Fourteen ranking, but it’s much harder than . . .”
    I stopped talking midstream because I realized Sean wasn’t listening. In fact, he had turned his back to me and was grabbing a bag of chips from Jared while fake-punching him in the stomach.
    â€œGimme some of those, punk. I love those barbecue ones. Crave ’em, man.”
    I looked down and took a bite of my turkey sandwich like it was the thing I most wanted to do in the world. I was desperate to look like I didn’t care at all that Sean had turned his back on me.
    Between you and me and the turkey sandwich, that couldn’t have been less true.
    Charlie sat down across from me.
    â€œHey, Sammie. Did your morning go okay?”
    â€œFine. I couldn’t understand anything my Spanish teacher said, but we got to pick Spanish names for ourselves, and I chose Guacamole.”
    I thought Charlie would laugh because I myself thought it was hilarious to be called Guacamole. But she didn’t laugh. I could see her eyeing my turkey sandwich and nectarine. She shook her head disapprovingly.
    â€œSammie Diamond, get rid of those,” she whispered, and nodded her head in the direction of the trash can.
    â€œBut I’m hungry.”
    â€œEat later. Nobody else here has a bag lunch. Do it now, Sammie, when no one is looking.”
    She turned to Sean and Jared and distracted them with her A-plus smile as I slid out from the table and shuffled as inconspicuously as I could over to the trash can. I was just about to toss my lunch in when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
    â€œHey, girl, I’ve been looking for you.” It was Alicia. She was standing next to the tall girl with the poofy hair and black boots. “Sammie, meet my friend Sara Berlin. Berlin. Bermudez. Get it? We sat next to each other all through grammar school.”
    â€œBack in the good, old days of alphabetical seating,” Sara said. “We had this teacher named Mr. Oscar—remember him, Allie? We used to call him Oscar the Grouch. He looked like this.”
    Sara crossed her eyes and puffed up her cheeks and pulled some of her poofy hair over her upper lip to look like a mustache.
    â€œChildren, shame on you!” she said in a gravelly, male-type voice. “You are acting like children again!”
    Alicia cracked up, and I did, too. Even though I had never met Mr. Oscar, I knew exactly what he looked and sounded like.
    â€œCharlie and I had this fourth-grade teacher named Mrs. Fish,” I said, when I had recovered from laughing. “And she looked just like one. No kidding.”
    I sucked in my cheeks and made my famous fish face, which I had spent the whole fourth grade perfecting. I can even make a little bubble-blowing sound when I do it. Alicia and Sara burst into laughter.
    Just then, Ryan walked up to us. “Hey, Sammie. I saw you doing your Mrs. Fish imitation. I haven’t seen that in a long time. It’s ace.”
    He turned to Alicia and Sara. “Hello, girls. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but Sammie here can do an amazing imitation of a baby. Show them, Sam-I-Am.”
    â€œIt’s nothing,” I said. “No big deal.”
    â€œNo, we want to see,” Alicia said.
    â€œOkay, but it’s definitely silly.”
    â€œDefinitely silly is how we roll,” Sara said.
    I held my nose and stuck my tongue out and squinched up my eyes so you could hardly see them and made this little baby wail. I don’t know how I learned to do it, but what comes out of my mouth truly sounds like a baby. Once I was practicing it in the stall of a bathroom at school, and somebody called the principal because they thought someone had left a baby there.
    â€œThat’s unbelievable,” Alicia said, holding her sides from laughing. “How’d you learn to do that?”
    â€œI’ll let you in on a little secret,” Ryan said. “She really
is
a baby.