Read Online Extraordinary<li> by Adam Selzer - Free Book Online

the truth is that I didn’t like Fred much at all. I thought he was a real dick, and never really stopped to think about
why
he became a dick, or to consider that anyone who had spent thirty or forty years unable to get his skin to clear up was liable to be pretty bitter. Just try to calculate how many zits you’d have to pop if you had a forty-year case of acne. When you’re done barfing, you’ll have some idea of why most teenage vampires seem so depressed.
    So I had never liked him much, and wasn’t at
all
jealous of Cathy, but I woke up Monday morning feeling like I had a crush on him. You know, like you do whenever you have a dream about someone. Especially one of
those
kinds of dreams.
    And all I could think of was how much it would suck for Cathy if
I
were the one he took to the dance.
    In fact, as I got ready for school, I sort of fell in love with the idea. I imagined a group forming around Fred and me as we spun in the center of the dance floor, while Cathy cried and threw a tantrum in the corner.
    And then the band would start a fast number, everyone would start dancing, and she’d be trampled to a messy death.
    Yeah.
    Man, that sounded good.
    Still want your daughters on my lawn, moms?
    Sure, it’s cute when Junie B. Jones fantasizes about peopleshe doesn’t like getting “stompled” to death by ponies, but I know it wasn’t my most attractive habit.
    Anyway, I nursed the crush on Fred all morning, careful not to let it get so serious that it would hurt to see him with Cathy, but letting it stay strong enough that it would keep me from falling back into a crush on Mutual until something better came along.
    When it came time for the rehearsal in fourth period, I walked in and saw Gregory Grue deep in conversation with Eileen Codlin in the back row of the auditorium.
    “Now, Richard the Third, the real one, was actually my favorite king,” he was saying. “He wasn’t nearly as bad as Shakespeare made him look. Man, I miss the days when kings would lead soldiers into battle!”
    When he saw me standing there, he grinned up at me.
    “Jennifer! I believe you know Miss Codlin,” Gregory said to me. “She’s interviewing me about my experiences as a pre-human for a book.”
    Eileen turned around and beamed at me.
    I rolled my eyes at her. “Do you believe this guy?” I asked.
    “I know!” said Eileen, who sort of misread me (a real habit of hers). “One of the last few People of Peace in the world, and he’s right here in Iowa! He told me all about how he’s helping make your wishes come true, just like a regular fairy godmother.”
    “Fairy
godmofo
,” said Gregory. “Let’s call it that. I’m nobody’s mother.”
    She laughed again.
    “By the way, Jennifer,” he went on, “the school doesn’t want to cover the expense of towing the Wells Fargo Wagon from your house, so you’ll have to find a way to move it.”
    “I’m not paying for it,” I said.
    “Then you’ll have to be creative,” he said.
    Eileen probably thought
that
was him trying to inspire and challenge me, too.
    I rolled my eyes and took a seat behind Cathy, where she wouldn’t see me. I wasn’t up to looking her in the eye, and if I confronted her she’d just say I was planning to attack her again.
    She was holding court among a bunch of freshmen. She was doing her first show—and it had totally gone to her head.
    “I want to do a really serious,
difficult
role next time,” she was saying. “Like, I want to see a parent die. Or have to breast-feed onstage. They can do that at some colleges.”
    I giggled as quietly as I could as she went on about how she was going to stay awake for seventy-two hours to look old and frumpy enough for her role as the mayor’s wife. That was okay for opening night, but I hated to think what she’d look like for the Saturday show.
    Wouldn’t it have been easier just to
act
?
    One time at the Shakespeare Club (which I still attended, since it wasn’t a school club), we had this