Read Online Out of the Ashes by Valerie Sherrard - Free Book Online

Betts was getting pretty upset. She left almost immediately, saying she’d call me the next day.
    I was furious with Greg and hardly spoke to him again before he and his dad left. The nerve of him, coming to my house and starting a fight with my best friend!
    On the other hand, I figured it was just the excuse I needed to avoid any more contact with him.

CHAPTER TEN
    By the time school went back in, Betts seemed to have forgotten all about the argument she’d had with Greg. Well, maybe argument isn’t exactly the right word. It’s not as if she was holding up her side of it, and I think that’s what bothered me the most. He knew perfectly well that she couldn’t defend herself, especially since she didn’t even know the meaning of some of the words he used. It was an unfair attack.
    But Betts never holds a grudge for long, which is something I usually admire in her a lot. I can be way more stubborn and vindictive than she can, and her good nature has saved us from serious quarrels more than once.
    Greg hadn’t called me after Christmas, and I knew he was well aware that I wasn’t too happy with him. I naturally assumed that was going to be the end of the whole matter with him.
    So when Betts kept talking to me about him, how much he liked me and all that stuff, it was really exasperating. I did my best to point out how rude he’d been to her, but she laughed it off as if it wasn’t worth remembering.
    I guess that’s where we first came in. Betts and her campaign to help me see that Greg was the Man of My Dreams. I think it was probably because she was still seeing Graham and wanted us both to have steady boyfriends so we could do things together as couples. Whatever her reason, it was wearing pretty thin, and I was just barely managing to stay patient about the whole thing.
    Another big reason I needed to stay as far away from Greg as possible was that Nick had broken up with Jane. I saw her in the hallway the first day of school after the Christmas break and I almost felt sorry for her. She seemed really sad, walking with her eyes cast down and her face set hard and tight, as though she had something clenched between her teeth. It made me feel guilty when I thought of how happy I’d been to hear the news about their breakup.
    â€œNick got fed up having a girlfriend who never wants to go anywhere or do anything,” Betts gave me the low-down. “I heard that every time he called her to make plans she had some excuse that she couldn’t go out.”
    That seemed strange all right, but then Jane has been kind of odd ever since I’ve known her. Her momand dad divorced when she was little, and her mom remarried not too long afterward. I always figured that she never got over her folks splitting up like that. Still, I think her stepdad is okay. I remember seeing him walking with her when she was small, holding her hand and talking to her. Lots of dads don’t spend as much time with their daughters as Jane’s stepfather does with her.
    Even these days it’s common to see them driving along together. She’s always leaning away from him, staring hard out the passenger window with a look of resentment on her face. And her attitude hasn’t escaped people’s notice either. I’ve heard more than one person talking about how spoiled and mean she acts, and what a nice man he is to keep making an effort to be a good father to her in spite of it.
    Maybe it’s natural for her to dislike him, since her own father isn’t around anymore. Some kids never get over their folks splitting up and keep hoping that someday they’ll get back together. I guess it’s like that for Jane.
    Well, I wasn’t about to spend my time feeling sorry for Jane Goodfellow. She had her chance with Nick and she blew it. Now it would be someone else’s turn, and I was determined that it was going to be me. Only I would be an ideal girlfriend, and