Read Online Drive Me Crazy by Terra Elan McVoy - Free Book Online Page B

so, but it meant we could discuss him without anyone else knowing. She dubbed Cory “Lagoon,” for his blue eyes.
    Pencil was in several of Fiona’s classes, but I hardly sawCory at school. So Fiona and I roamed the halls and courtyards, trying to find out where he hung out, where his locker was, and who his friends were. We were nervous, since Cory was an eighth grader, but pretending we belonged in their hall was fun and helped us imagine ourselves there next year. When we figured out Cory’s schedule, Fiona planned the best shortcuts between my classes so that I could pass him in the hall. She watched Doctor Who and Sherlock episodes with me after we overheard him talking about them, and I listened as she read poems out loud that she thought Pencil might like. We agreed it was a good idea for us to have something to talk about with our crushes.
    Now I know for real how Fiona felt about all that, thanks to the Diary Incident.
    “All right now,” Brick Hasselback says, holding up an ice cream scoop. “This little guy is your best friend when it comes to doling out the batter.”
    Best friend, ha. Best friend who thinks you’re shallow but won’t tell you to your face. Who writes it in her diary for everyone else to find. My cheeks burn, thinking of that day again, even as the four of us take turns spooning cake batter into cupcake tins.
    Fiona and I were on the way to science, talking about something intense, when we realized she’d forgotten her backpack in the cafeteria. I went with her to find it, eventhough it would make me late, too. We didn’t say anything, but I know we were both envisioning her cute red bag covered in chili or worse.
    In the lunchroom, we breathed a sigh of relief. Someone had kicked Fiona’s bag under another chair not far from our table. She was worried something was stolen, but as she dug through the pockets, it seemed her wallet, books, phone, and keys were all intact.
    “My diary,” she said after a minute. “I think it’s gone.”
    My immediate reaction was a confusing burst of irritation. I knew she didn’t want to leave her diary at home where her mom or her sister might get to it, but still. How did she think this wouldn’t happen?
    When she turned to me with that look on her face, though, all I could feel was sad for her, and scared. After we got to science class and explained, Mrs. Tasker let Fiona go back to the cafeteria for a more extensive search, but she wasn’t gone long, and when she came back, I could tell she was trying to look brave. I didn’t think there could be anything more embarrassing than some random person reading through all your private thoughts and dreams, and I felt awful for her.
    Turned out, though, there was something worse—Kendra Mack reading them. Out loud. On the bus.
    “So while those are doing their baking,” our handsomeinstructor says, flashing a TV smile, “it’s time to get on to the best part—the icing.”
    The women at the station beside us screech in a way I didn’t think people their age could. Nono raises her eyebrows to Howie, and Lana reaches for more butter.
    “This is the best part,” she tells me. “Here. You pour in the sugar.”
    She hands me a giant measuring cup filled with confectioner’s sugar. As I pour it in the bowl, too fast, a cloud of it rises up into my face. I blink hard to keep back the tears, just like that day on the bus.
    I’d been riding the same bus as Kendra Mack since sixth grade, when she climbed up the steps with her sleek hair and her super-stylish outfit and strode all the way down the aisle to the backseat, where the eighth graders sat, just like she belonged there. She was so confident, no one questioned it. Not even the eighth graders. Kendra Mack and her sidekick neighbor Gates Morrill have held court back there every day since. Until we became friends, she didn’t pay attention to me and I didn’t pay attention to her, except for checking out her outfit or eavesdropping on a