Read Online Fresh Off the Boat by Melissa de La Cruz - Free Book Online
Authors: Melissa de La Cruz
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final bell rang, Miss Tresoro handed out the results of Monday’s exam.
I frowned when I saw I had gotten 72 out of 100. I couldn’t afford a C minus in geometry if I wanted to keep my scholarship.
“Damn,” Claude said when he saw his test result. “Do you know this stuff?”
“Me?” I squeaked.
He had never paid any attention to me before. He had saidexactly two words to me since our classes had been merged: “Move over.” It seemed I was taking too much room on our shared study table.
“Um, not really,” I said, showing him my paper.
“That’s a lot better than what I got,” he said, crunching his test into a ball and morosely chucking it into the trash. “If I don’t pass geometry this semester, I’ll get kicked off the lacrosse team. I’m already on academic probation.”
I nodded in sympathy. But I didn’t really know what to do, since I was barely passing the subject myself. But I wanted to help—he looked so glum.
“That’s too bad,” I ventured.
“You said it,” he said. “I’m screwed.”
He picked up his backpack and we started walking out of class together—TOGETHER—as if we do this all the time. As if this is a normal occurrence in my life, that boys, like, talk to me. As if we were, like, friends or something.
Geometry is my last class of the day on Wednesdays, and suddenly I had an irresistible, irrational impulse to ask him out or something— want to go get a smoothie on Union Street? I could just imagine it, the two of us, sipping from the same biggie cup. He was still chatting about his geometry problems, when I opened my mouth. “Claude?”
But I realized he had already gone. He was running up theblock to walk with Rebecca and Stacey.
“Hey, Becks, wait up,” I heard him call to them. “We bowling tonight? Wanna come out with Tuna and the guys?” He made plans to meet them at Rock and Bowl, the bowling alley in the Haight.
I blushed a lot, and hoped to God he hadn’t heard me call his name. And I felt a little depressed about being left behind, and it was then I understood that it wasn’t ever going to happen with me and Claude. I was just living in my head, like I always do. Claude would never in a million years ever think of inviting me to go anywhere. He’s a popular boy; I’m nobody. He has an online fan club. (With five-dollar membership dues—I had to use my mom’s Visa and tell her it was for a school project. True enough!) People barely remember who I am.
I followed them out of the main doors, feeling completely alone, when I noticed Isobel waiting for me outside.
So she’s not the cutest guy at Montclair Academy, but at least she’s someone who knows I’m alive.
Isobel wanted to know everything about taking a class over at the boys’ school. There really wasn’t a lot to tell. I explained that I never saw anyone other than the guys who were in our class, and with the exception of Claude they were all unexceptional (read: not cute), to her great disappointment.
“How’s that boy?” Isobel asked. She called Claude “that boywho broke my mirror” but had recently shortened it to simply “that boy.”
“Flunking.”
“Is an idiot?”
“Isobel, just because he isn’t good in math doesn’t mean he’s stupid,” I protested, feeling a little insulted. Isobel was in advanced trigonometry. She was in the accelerated honors math/science program. Her father was a member of the Engineering Department at Stanford.
“Geometry is trop facile . It’s just logic and theorem.”
She handed me a DVD she’d burned on her iMac of an underground cult alternate ending of the first Spider-Man movie some Internet freak spliced together that was only available online. “This one is buggin’. Tobey’s got his shirt off in all the added scenes!”
“Awesome!” I said, grateful for the present.
“Come shopping on Polk Street?” she asked, hopping on her Vespa. “There’s new stuff at Trash and Vaudeville.”
“Can’t,” I said.
I frowned when I saw I had gotten 72 out of 100. I couldn’t afford a C minus in geometry if I wanted to keep my scholarship.
“Damn,” Claude said when he saw his test result. “Do you know this stuff?”
“Me?” I squeaked.
He had never paid any attention to me before. He had saidexactly two words to me since our classes had been merged: “Move over.” It seemed I was taking too much room on our shared study table.
“Um, not really,” I said, showing him my paper.
“That’s a lot better than what I got,” he said, crunching his test into a ball and morosely chucking it into the trash. “If I don’t pass geometry this semester, I’ll get kicked off the lacrosse team. I’m already on academic probation.”
I nodded in sympathy. But I didn’t really know what to do, since I was barely passing the subject myself. But I wanted to help—he looked so glum.
“That’s too bad,” I ventured.
“You said it,” he said. “I’m screwed.”
He picked up his backpack and we started walking out of class together—TOGETHER—as if we do this all the time. As if this is a normal occurrence in my life, that boys, like, talk to me. As if we were, like, friends or something.
Geometry is my last class of the day on Wednesdays, and suddenly I had an irresistible, irrational impulse to ask him out or something— want to go get a smoothie on Union Street? I could just imagine it, the two of us, sipping from the same biggie cup. He was still chatting about his geometry problems, when I opened my mouth. “Claude?”
But I realized he had already gone. He was running up theblock to walk with Rebecca and Stacey.
“Hey, Becks, wait up,” I heard him call to them. “We bowling tonight? Wanna come out with Tuna and the guys?” He made plans to meet them at Rock and Bowl, the bowling alley in the Haight.
I blushed a lot, and hoped to God he hadn’t heard me call his name. And I felt a little depressed about being left behind, and it was then I understood that it wasn’t ever going to happen with me and Claude. I was just living in my head, like I always do. Claude would never in a million years ever think of inviting me to go anywhere. He’s a popular boy; I’m nobody. He has an online fan club. (With five-dollar membership dues—I had to use my mom’s Visa and tell her it was for a school project. True enough!) People barely remember who I am.
I followed them out of the main doors, feeling completely alone, when I noticed Isobel waiting for me outside.
So she’s not the cutest guy at Montclair Academy, but at least she’s someone who knows I’m alive.
Isobel wanted to know everything about taking a class over at the boys’ school. There really wasn’t a lot to tell. I explained that I never saw anyone other than the guys who were in our class, and with the exception of Claude they were all unexceptional (read: not cute), to her great disappointment.
“How’s that boy?” Isobel asked. She called Claude “that boywho broke my mirror” but had recently shortened it to simply “that boy.”
“Flunking.”
“Is an idiot?”
“Isobel, just because he isn’t good in math doesn’t mean he’s stupid,” I protested, feeling a little insulted. Isobel was in advanced trigonometry. She was in the accelerated honors math/science program. Her father was a member of the Engineering Department at Stanford.
“Geometry is trop facile . It’s just logic and theorem.”
She handed me a DVD she’d burned on her iMac of an underground cult alternate ending of the first Spider-Man movie some Internet freak spliced together that was only available online. “This one is buggin’. Tobey’s got his shirt off in all the added scenes!”
“Awesome!” I said, grateful for the present.
“Come shopping on Polk Street?” she asked, hopping on her Vespa. “There’s new stuff at Trash and Vaudeville.”
“Can’t,” I said.
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