Read Online Out of Order by A. M. Jenkins - Free Book Online

understanding poetry, it’s got to do with where you belong in everybody else’s eyes.
    I belong at the top, and everybody knows it. Every day I walk to our spot in the front foyer like I always do, passing all the regular people and the hangers-on. There’s a bunch of us who’ve been in the same crowd since middle school, except for temporary additions like Whorey Dori and a couple of permanent additions who came over from St. Andrew’s in the ninth grade already knowing the right people.
    The circle’s already gathering. Me, and of course Ericand Patrick, and Preston McGowan’s there, and Cara Weston. Morgan, who if you ask me is in PMS mode about ninety-nine percent of the time. Stephanie, who would probably be better for me than Grace, because she’s more into partying. I just can’t see any point in being attached to Stephanie, though. This summer she dated some kid a year behind us, for cripe’s sake.
    Looking around, I see that Grace and I are pretty much the top of the top, the cream.
    Grace. I step into the circle beside her. She doesn’t see me; she’s got this look on her face, like she smells something bad.
    Right away I know why. It’s because McGowan is speaking. Grace, the animal lover, can’t stand McGowan ever since one time he told everybody how his kid brother took their hamster for a swim in the toilet, and then accidentally flushed it. That got him on Grace’s bad side, and then what really cooked her was that he laughed about it. I almost laughed, but just in the nick of time I saw how Grace’s eyes were starting to tear up in hamster sympathy. So I wiped that smile off damn quick.
    McGowan stops talking, and Grace’s face smooths out. She’s got her hair hanging down loose today, all straight and shining—no clips, just one side tucked behind her ear, and she’s got on some tiny little earring thatsparkles, and she’s wearing that pale-green blouse that matches her eyes exactly. But she still doesn’t see me, because she’s waving to someone walking past.
    I check to see who it is, because it’d better not be a guy.
    It’s not. It’s a girl. Alicia Doggett, the chihuahua-headed loser.
    Grace is a terrific person, but she works a little too hard at being nice, if you ask me. Like waving hello to someone like Alicia Doghead.
    Grace has always been that way, never any common sense. It’s another of the things we’d always be fighting about, if I didn’t keep my mouth shut—the way she has this idea that everybody in the world should be treated equal. Grace has never seen that other people have to be and dress and act a certain way, or else…well, they just do .
    But I don’t want to fight. We’re back together, so I’m not going to make a deal over it. And it’s worth it; when she notices I’m there in the circle, a smile breaks out on her face.
    I know that smile. It’s the kind you have when you’re just so glad to see someone, the happiness has to bust out all over the place.
    Â 
    When I get to biology I have to go by Alicia Doggett on the way to my seat, so I make a little “arf” noise as Iwalk by. I’m feeling pretty good. I don’t bother to see if she cringes or not.
    In my seat I look up to the front of the room to see that we’ve got a substitute—the Fossil.
    He’s one of the regulars, one of the subs you see in the halls every day of the week. Normally I doze through anything he teaches. The man’s about a thousand years old and all his sentences are about a thousand words long. He always comes with a briefcase full of Xeroxed sheets in case the teacher didn’t leave a lesson plan. Which Ms. Keller didn’t.
    I’m having a good morning, and I can’t stand ruining it by being bored to death. I’m not tired, I couldn’t sleep if the Fossil handed out sleeping pills instead of those goddamn