Read Online Into White by Randi Pink - Free Book Online

flung her passenger-side door open, and yelled for us to get in. She blasted Christmas tunes the majority of the ride home. I appreciated that she didn’t show outward pity for the poor Williams siblings nearly sucked up by a tornado.
    â€œWhy are you listening to Christmas music?” Alex asked before I poked him in his side. “Ow! I’m just saying. Aren’t you Jewish? Ow!”
    â€œSorry, Mrs. Roseland,” I said, eyeballing him. “Sometimes his curiosity gets the better of him.”
    â€œNo, no, no need to apologize,” she’d replied, yelling over the squeaking windshield wipers. She flipped her Coexist key chain and went into full history-teacher mode, explaining that most wars were initiated by minor religious differences. Then she transitioned with, “But to tell you the truth, I just love Christmas—the music, the ticker tapes, The Santa Clause , and back-to-back Will Ferrell dressed as an elf. It’s just plain fun.”
    She chattered until we pulled into the empty castle’s driveway. She’d simply given us the ride, bid us farewell, and never brought it up again. Mrs. Roseland was one of only a few teachers at Edgewood High that I genuinely liked.
    The classroom door creaked open. “What can I do for you this morning, young lady?” she asked. She wore a frilly, knee-length red skirt paired with a crisp pink collared shirt and kitten heels. I’d never seen her wear the same outfit twice, but her look never veered too far from home base—splashy, vibrant color, and heels so low they may as well have been flats.
    â€œI am an exchange student, Katarina from Kansas City.” I used my own voice with an extra dash of exuberance.
    â€œKansas City, Missouri, or Kansas City, Kansas?” she asked, laughing at herself.
    â€œUhhh…”
    â€œOh. Oh. Oh. Class. Class. Class.” Mrs. Roseland had a habit of saying certain words in threes. “Do we know where Kansas City is on the map?” She unrolled the giant map hanging from the ceiling.
    Uh-oh.
    â€œKatarina. Katarina. Katarina. Would you point out your lovely city for the class?”
    Why the freaking hell did I choose Kansas? There were at least twenty-five middle states that I knew absolutely nothing about, and Kansas was one of them. Dwarfed by the map, those states were jumbled up in the Midwest or Mideast, above California, near Seattle, and the Grand Canyon, and/or Arizona, by the desert plains of Middle-earth. I focused until I finally saw rectangular Kansas located in the literal middle of the country. But no cities were labeled. I had no clue where to point.
    My eyes closed automatically. “Jesus.” I’d said it before I’d realized.
    â€œExcuse me?” Mrs. Roseland replied. My eyes opened to Jesus standing behind Mrs. Roseland, pointing at tiny Kansas City on the giant wall-sized map. Everyone gawked at me, and no one paid any attention to the magical man standing at the head of the class. Clearly, no one else saw him. I went with it.
    â€œOh, no worries, I would be happy to.” I curtsied. It just seemed appropriate to curtsy. Jesus’s finger vanished milliseconds before my finger touched the map. “Oh, I see! Missouri and Kansas share Kansas City.”
    â€œYes, yes, yes!” Mrs. Roseland gave me a round of applause like I had invented the Pythagorean theorem or something. “Most people don’t realize this fact. They automatically think Kansas City must be in Kansas. People are so ill informed about the middle states.”
    â€œAh, yes,” I chuckled with her. “Oh, so very ill informed.”
    A handful of boys joined in her ovation. Their eyes stripped every inch of clothing right off my body. I’d waited for this moment since I was a little girl, to be desired, to be wanted, to be the center of attention for being anything other than a stumblebum.
    Instead of enjoying it, I hurried to the first