Read Online Nothing But the Truth by Justina Chen - Free Book Online Page B

likewe’re going to be here anyway.” Her manicured fingers run through my matted carpet. I know she’s just trying to fluff me up, too. But sumac’s yellow oil seeps into my head, and my brain develops a severe allergic reaction:
Let me stay! A summer of Tonic Soup isn’t so bad!
    “Hawaii and basketball camp aren’t exactly in the same league as SUMaC,” I say. “SUMaC” spews out of my mouth the way Steve Kosanko and Mark Scranton do: worse than disgusting, repulsive, something to be squashed immediately. I flatten the wispy strands of carpet next to my hips.
    Laura and Janie exchange a look.
    “I saw that,” I say, triumphantly, pointing an index finger at each of them, my personal Pep Team. “You know it’s true.”
    A thump, thump, thump pounds down the hall, and Abe pokes his head into my room, spinning a basketball in one hand. Summer show-off, all he’s got on his schedule is
manga
comics, basketball, computer games and packing.
    “Oh, my God!” he squeals dramatically, and I hate to admit it, sounding like a baritone version of Janie. “A whole month without The Three Stooges talking to each other at least five times a day. How are Laura, Curly and Ho going to survive?”
    “Don’t you have some comic book to read?” I ask Abe before I slam the door on his still-smiling face. “Yuck,” I say, shuddering. “Maybe math camp isn’t such a nightmare compared to a summer with
him.
”
    “Well, you can vent all about it.” Janie hands me a pink journal with giant, green polka dots on it. On the first page, she has inscribed: “Patty + (insert hunkalicious math camper’s name) = Summer Fling. Nothing but the Truth by Patty Ho.”
    “No way!” My smile disappears into the null set when the doorbell rings, and Mama yells up the stairs, “Anne here! Time to go!”
    The only things flinging in my summer are bodies, hurtling out of Mama’s way as she barrels through the packed airport terminal like it’s Sunday at a Chinese market, thronging with equally pushy shoppers. Her mission: get to the front of the line first. Who cares if it means taking out a businesswoman, harried dad and a little kid or two?
    “Watch where you’re going!” snarls a lady, baring teeth that have been bleached an hour too long. She rubs the thin arm that Mama nearly dislocates. Naturally, Mama pays her about as much attention as she pays her own clothes. Not a nanosecond.
    “Sorry,” I tell the woman, smiling apologetically at her. But she ignores me, teen Asian flotsam and jetsam in the wake of the Mama tidal wave.
    “Get some manners. We aren’t in China,” the woman mutters before stomping off as far from the rude immigrant as she can get.
    Like me, Abe hunches into himself. Disappearing is easier for him than me; he can basically hide behind my gargantuan suitcase. But you can’t disguise a huge, hulking Asian elephant any more than you can me. Amazingly, Anne doesn’t duck-and-hide like we do. She simply follows in Mama’s footsteps, my mother who has now cut in front of an old man in a wheelchair, narrowly avoiding a collision.
    “God, what did you pack?” huffs Abe.
    “Stuff.” I mentally inventory all the outfits and matchingshoes that Laura and Janie picked out for me to borrow and bring. Anyway, why is Abe complaining? He’s been pumping iron for two years, figuring he might as well grow wider since he wasn’t growing any taller. What, exactly, are those muscles for, if not to carry heavy things?
    “You pack it, you carry it.” Abe drops the ancient suitcase onto the dirty airport carpet. “Anne is.”
    Yeah, well, Anne considers a book a fashion accessory, and her beat-up, ripped backpack the must-have handbag of every season. So obviously all she needs is a tiny duffel bag.
    “Hurry!” Mama yells, motioning to us impatiently. She is the angry general of our regiment gone AWOL. Punishment by embarrassment awaits the poor defectors. People turn to look at her, then us. Mortified, Abe