Read Online Hold On Tight by J. Minter - Free Book Online

ball player?” Anson DeLine asked, clasping his hands and leaning his elbows on his desk so that his face came toward David with a wide, if slightly disingenuous, smile.
    â€œYeah,” David said, “I’ve played varsity since sophomore year, and I plan to play next year.” Anson nodded at him leadingly, so David went on, “And I’d like to playin college, too.” He cleared his throat. He had rehearsed this line in his head during the car ride, and now he actually felt bold enough to use it. “But what’s really great about basketball is how it’s informed the rest of my life, especially my academic life. It’s taught me to jump high and hustle, and that’s one of the reasons I think I would be the kind of well-rounded person Vassar looks for in prospective students.”
    Nice
, David thought to himself. The interviewer seemed to think so, too. He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head like he and David were old buddies just hanging out at the Eating Club.
    â€œTell me what you’ve been reading lately,” Anson said.
    David’s stomach clenched up suddenly. How could he have been so
stupid
as to not have anticipated this question? He opened his mouth to mumble something about
Madam Bovary
, which he was reading for his English class, when there was a loud noise from the hall. It sounded like a door being slammed, and then slammed again several more times. David’s interviewer look alarmed, and when he jumped up and headed toward the hall to see what was happening, David followed behind him.
    The door to the office next to the one they had been sitting in was indeed being slammed, repeatedly. Theperson doing the slamming was a miniature blonde in a tiny miniskirt and oversized sweater, and David knew immediately that it was Sara-Beth Benny, the child star whom his friends had hung out with on the educational cruise they’d taken last winter. He knew (because Jonathan had told him) that she partied a lot in New York, and also that she was always on the verge of breaking down.
    â€œSusan, are you okay?” Anson called over Sara-Beth’s shoulder to the person yelling from behind the door. David was suddenly reminded of his interview and decided that diffusing this situation might be a good recovery from the fumbled book question.
    â€œHey, Sara-Beth,” he said gently. She ignored him and continued slamming the door. Then he stepped closer, slipped his arms around her waist, and gently pulled her back. To his surprise, she didn’t fight him. Instead, she collapsed against his chest and began to sob. “Hey,” he whispered, looking apprehensively at his interviewer and the woman who had come out from behind the door.
    â€œI’m so glad you’re here,” Sara-Beth said between teary gasps. David paused and tried to think how to take this. He had just been hoping she would remember him at all, but the touchy friendliness they were engaging in now was definitely without precedent.
    â€œUm, you too,” he said, trying not to sound surprised. “Are you okay?”
    â€œNo!” she shrieked.
    The two interviewers looked at David expectantly. “What happened?” asked Sara-Beth.
    â€œThis moo-cow, she … she …” Sara-Beth started sobbing again, and for a moment it seemed like she wasn’t going to be able to finish her sentence. David took the opportunity to inhale the vanilla smell wafting up from her heaps of multihued blond hair. “They asked me to do the routine.”
    â€œWhat routine?” David said. He realized immediately that this was probably the wrong thing to say, but he was just glad that his mouth was still able to form words.
    â€œYou know, the opening dance routine from
Mike’s Princesses.”
    â€œOh.”
    Mike’s Princesses
, the show Sara-Beth started acting in when she was six years old, began with a song and dance routine in