Read Online Eight Keys by Suzanne LaFleur - Free Book Online

felt funny, because everything seemed all green. The light had been on all night.
    It was morning; my birthday was over.
    I wrapped a sweatshirt blanket around me and stumbled to the kitchen.
    “Morning, cupcake.” Aunt Bessie hugged me hard, pressing my head into her chest. “Your breakfast is ready.” On the table was a plate with an enormous slice of birthday cake and a tall glass of milk.
    “Thanks.” I started to eat. The cake tasted so good for breakfast.
    “Will you be ready to go in twenty minutes?”
    Only then did I realize: “I didn’t do any of my homework.”
    “Why not? You knew you were having a party. You should have done it right after school.”
    “I thought there would be time after everyone left.”
    “You really should have done it before. Do you need some sort of note?”
    I shook my head. “The teachers don’t care if it’s your birthday. That kind of thing is for first graders.”
    Just then, Ava started crying. Aunt Bessie bustled off.
    I pulled the half-flattened ribbons out of my hair and left them on the table.
    Franklin decided to go to an “Interested in Student Government?” meeting during lunch. I was definitely Not Interested, so I headed to the cafeteria on my own for the first time. I wasn’t sure where to sit. The lunchroom is big, crowded with kids from all grades, so it doesn’t seem like the friendliest of places without your trusted buddy.
    One girl was sitting by herself. She looked small enough to be a sixth grader. Maybe she’d be really neat and we could be friends.
    “Hi. Can I sit here?”
    The girl thought for a minute. “Where’s that weird boy you’re always with? Would he have to come, too?”
    “No,” I said, stunned. “And never mind.”
    I continued to wander the tables until I spotted Caroline eating alone. Just knowing her name made her seem comfortingly familiar. I sat diagonal from her, returned her smile, and took out my pulverized PB&J and bruised apple.
    I was just opening my mouth to take a bite when someone announced in my ear, “Move it, Scab-Picker.” Amanda was standing there, surrounded, as usual, by sidekicks.
    I shut my mouth, missing the sandwich. I didn’t want tofind out what she’d say next if I stuck around, but didn’t want to give in entirely. I slid my lunch to the last spot at the table and bumped down the seats. When I picked up my sandwich, Amanda hollered, “I said move it, Scabular. We don’t want you at our table.”
    My throat felt like I was choking. I’m not a crier; I could count on one hand the number of times I remembered crying. But it seemed that if I opened my mouth, I might start to cry right there in the lunchroom. That would be even worse than scabby legs or bandaged hands.
    I put my sandwich in my bag and moved three tables over near some kids I didn’t know.
    Maybe they didn’t know I was a loser.
    They didn’t even look at me.
    “I finished my homework,” Franklin announced when he showed up in my room that afternoon.
    “Good for you, dorkus,” I said. “I didn’t even start.” I had been lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling.
    “Want to play Knights?”
    I looked at the smooth white patches of skin on my healed legs. I thought about lunch, and how those scabs were going to stick with me forever now. About how there’d been another silly-looking injury the very next week. Maybe there was a tiny chance that people would forget if I was more careful.
    “No.”
    “Oh, okay,” Franklin said. “What do you want to do? We could play Robbers, or tag, or—”
    “I don’t want to play,” I said. I added, in a whisper, “I don’t want to play ever again.”
    “Why not?”
    “We’re too old.”
    “Since when? I don’t remember any rules about that.”
    “Well, there are. I just don’t want to anymore.”
    “Want to do something else, then?”
    “Not really.”
    Franklin crouched down and started tracing marks with his fingers along the floorboards.
    About ten minutes later,