Read Online Full Ride by Margaret Peterson Haddix - Free Book Online Page B

college. He’s discovered something, all right: insta-depression. He could market it to people with bipolar disorder, bring them down from their moments of euphoric mania just by talking.
    â€œOr, I know,” I say. “You could take your gloom-and-doom act on the road. Go around telling high school seniors everywhere just how screwed they are. You’ll be famous, and that’s what will get you into Harvard. Then ten thousand senior class presidents will murder you because they don’t appreciate the irony.”
    â€œVery funny,” Stuart says.
    Then, to my horror, he picks up a stack of papers from beside his tray—the packet Ms. Stela passed out in the assembly. Stuart flips it over to the last page, to the picture of Daddy.
    â€œThis guy,” he says, and he puts his finger right on Daddy’s face. “He stole millions of dollars, right? You don’t actually need that much to pay tuition. I bet he was going to buy his kid’s way into Harvard. That’s what I would do, if I had that kind of money. That’s what lots of people do. It’s like, nowadays, you have to cheat to come out on top.”
    I’m standing before I even realize I’ve moved. Now everyone is staring at me again. Kids at neighboring tables are staring at me too.
    I’ve made a huge mistake. I need to turn this into a joke, make it seem like I planned it and I’m just setting up another punch line. But there’s not a single funny thought in my mind right now. Every cell in my body has switched over to “dead serious” mode.
    The setting right before “And now we cry.”
    I have to say something before that happens.
    â€œI’m not going to let you ruin my senior year,” I fling at Stuart. Not bad, I congratulate myself. Except my voice sounds like somebody else’s, like it belongs to some robot I may or may not be able to control. And I’m still talking. “You want to know what happens to cheaters? Cheaters get caught. They go to prison. They lose in the end.”
    I barely stop myself from saying, “Like that guy did. Like Daddy.”
    Bring it back to Stuart, I tell myself frantically. Stop talking about Daddy.
    â€œSo . . . if you’re going to be a cheater . . .” My voice wobbles, but I have to go on. “Or if you’re just going to be all negative and nasty all the time . . . then . . . then . . . I’ll eat somewhere else.”
    Okay, that was acceptable, I tell myself. Nothing that Oscar and Rosa and Clarice wouldn’t have wanted to say too.
    I turn around and walk away, feeling oddly triumphant. I’ve abandoned my unopened lunch sack and I left my gov book behind, but someone else will get them for me. I just need to make it to the girls’ bathroom and calm down.
    I’m halfway there when I hear Stuart calling after me.
    â€œI’m only telling the truth, Becca,” he says. “You can’t run away from the truth.”
    I just finished a summer reading list of the classics. I bet I’m the only person in AP lit who actually read the whole of Moby Dick , instead of just skimming the SparkNotes online. But even with all that supposedly great literature sloshing around in my brain, somehow the only words I can think of are from a children’s story:
    Run, run, as fast as you can
    You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.
    The words in my head are in Daddy’s voice. The way he always told that story, nobody ever caught the Gingerbread Man. He didn’t fall for anyone’s tricks; the fox didn’t gobble him down. He never met his deserved end. He just kept running and running and running, the happiest Gingerbread Man around. He could run away from anything.
    How am I supposed to handle any truth? My head was filled with lies from the very start.

Now
(Still not “then.” But maybe some “if . . .