Read Online Jack Adrift by Jack Gantos - Free Book Online Page B

defined me.
    The next day we turned in our book choices. Miss Noelle stacked them on her desk and began to sort through the titles while we did some math problems. Every other moment I glanced up at her desk, because I had also turned in my journal and I wanted to catch
her eye the moment she read the passage I had copied, which was the moment the great beauty met her great soul mate.
    Finally she did look up at me. Her brow was furrowed. “Jack,” she said, and I could tell by the way she paused she was carefully choosing her words,”may I speak with you?”
    My heart beat wildly. I stood and walked to her desk with stiff dignity as if I were being called to receive the Pulitzer prize for my work on the subject of hope .
    â€œDo you realize,” she asked, “that you have to dress up as the main character in your book for the Reading Roundup?”
    â€œYes,” I said, imagining myself more or less as a dashing prince.
    â€œThen you must understand that the main character in the book is a woman and you would have to wear an eighteenth-century ball gown with beeswax makeup and jewelry.”
    I snapped out of it. “Oh no,” I said, and suddenly had a vision of myself dressed up like Cinderella at the ball. The vision was all wrong.
    â€œYou might rethink this book choice,” she said gently. “In fact, you might think about choosing a more traditional children’s book. Something like My Name Is Aram , or johnny Tremain . You know,” she said, “a young man’s book, like Onion John .”

    â€œI-I didn’t think I’d have to dress like a girl,” I stammered, blushing wildly. My face felt like a sputtering neon sign. “I was confused over the assignment,” I said, trying to recover. “I’ll get another book. A better book.”
    She smiled up at me. “That’s a good idea,” she agreed.
    At the end of the day I strolled down to the school library to beg for permission to check out a book. But the librarian was unmoved. “No check in,” she said, while pointing to the sign on her desk, “no check out!” It was her motto. “Now, if you pay for the book you lost, then you can choose any book you wish—except for the lost copy of Charlotte’s Web .”
    â€œCan I trade you this book for another?” I asked, holding out the romance novel. She looked down at it as if it were a putrid thing I found crawling under a rock.
    â€œNo,” she said, and curled up her lip.
    â€œCould you make an exception?” I pleaded. “I’m a good kid. I—”
    She cut me off. “Rules are rules,” she recited. “Without them you have chaos, and I hate chaos .”
    â€œSo do I,” I said. “I love order.”
    â€œThen you better line up six hundred and ninety-five pennies in a row,” she said.
    She was right. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do what I can.”
    When I returned home I picked up the newspaper.
There was a section under the heading UNCLAIMED MONEY. Below it, in very small print, were listed the names of people who were owed money by the state but, for some reason I couldn’t figure, had mysteriously fallen out of touch with what was rightfully theirs. I began to search for my name. Maybe they owed me cash I didn’t know about.
    â€œWhat are you doing reading the unclaimed money section?” Betsy asked, looking over my shoulder.
    â€œDigging for gold,” I said. “I lost Charlotte’s Web and now I need to pay for it.”
    â€œThat’s what you get for reading that baby book. It’s turned your brain to mush.”
    â€œNot so,” I said.
    â€œYou’d be better off looking for your name in the Unclaimed Brains section,” she said. “There is only one way to make money— work for it.”
    â€œCan kids apply for welfare?” I asked her.
    â€œOf course not,” she snapped at