Read Online Justin Kramon by Finny (v5) - Free Book Online

seemed a little disappointed. “But there’s one thing.”
    “What is it?”
    “I hate to do this on your first night. I’m very sorry, but I’ve had orders, and one must obey one’s superiors.” She looked down solemnly, but with obvious determination to complete the task she’d been given.
    “What are you talking about?” Finny asked.
    “Oh, my life, my life,” Poplan said, shaking her head, and then got up and went to her closet. She opened the door and, after digging around a moment, brought out a purple T-shirt with green lettering on it that Finny thought was the gaudiest thing she’d ever seen.
    “Like I said,” Poplan continued, “I’m very sorry. But they said you have a tendency to sneak around.” She handed Finny the shirt.
    “After talking to your father last week, Mrs. Barksdale—the principal—she thought it might be a good idea to give you something bright to wear.” And then Poplan added, in a softer voice that seemed to betray the first hint of reluctance in her, “Every night after eight.”
    Finny looked down at the shirt. On the front, in letters the color of pea soup, it said: Thorndon School. And on the back, in a message that must have been botched by the printer, it read: Shorty Finn.

    Chapter 6
Finny’s Incredible New Roommate
    The girls began arriving the next afternoon. Finny was in her room with the door closed, and she heard them in the halls, banging doors and suitcases, chatting, making familiar comments to each other: “Oh, it was fine, but Brian turned out to be a jerk anyway.” “Do you have any more, because I’m all out?” “Kelly says she’s got big boobs but her ass is fat.” Finny listened to all of it, feeling tired at the prospect of making her appearance, all the smiles and handshakes. She hated the idea of drawing all those hungry eyes to her, the scrutiny she was sure to receive. And then later, when she had to wear that stupid shirt: it would be humiliating.
    But just as she thought of getting off the bed and going out into the hallway, the door of her room swung open.
    A girl with a big black duffel came in and threw the bag down on the floor. “Oh, hey,” the girl said, shutting the door behind her. “You must be my roommate.”
    “Finny,” Finny said.
    “That’s an interesting name,” the girl said. “Is it Irish?”
    “No,” Finny said, and couldn’t gather her thoughts to say anything more. The reason she was so scattered was that the girl who stood before her was beautiful. She wasn’t just cute or pretty, the way some of Finny’s classmates at home were. She had long blond hair that she kept back in a ponytail, tied up with a simple black band rather than the colorful, poofy ornaments other girls wore. She was tall, maybe four or five inches taller than Finny, and she had a bright, open expression, large eyes, a slightly wide jaw that somehow complimented her delicate nose and defined cheekbones, her plucky little chin. And she had breasts, full ones. She was actually more like a grown woman than a girl, and Finny could easily have imagined her on the arm of some handsome man in a suit.
    “Oh,” the girl said now about Finny’s name. “Well, I like it anyway. I’m Judith.”
    The instant Judith said her name, Finny remembered the lipstick she’d stashed in her pants pocket the day before. She felt a hot gulp of fear slide down her throat.
    “It’s nice to meet you,” Finny said. And then: “I took your lipstick.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say, and she figured it would be better to get it out of the way early that she was a thief.
    But Judith just laughed and flopped down on her bed across from Finny. “You mean the black one? Actually, I’m glad you took it. I meant to put it in my dresser before I left, but I forgot. They would have seen it.”
    “Who?”
    “Old Yeller. That’s what we call the principal, Mrs. Barksdale.”
    “Why?”
    “Take a guess,” Judith said.
    Finny didn’t have a