Read Online Please, Please, Please by Rachel Vail - Free Book Online

could barely hold my pen. None of the vocab words sounded the slightest bit familiar. How do you say, “My boyfriend”?
    He waited for me in the doorway after Spanish. We started walking together toward Ms. Cress’s room. My arm brushed against his, which felt very warm. “Sorry,” I said. I was shaking.
    “That’s OK,” he answered. We kept walking, looking straight ahead. I could feel other kids looking at us. “Hot today, huh?” he asked.
    “Yeah,” I agreed, and we kept walking. I checked my bun. It was holding fine. I watched our feet moving together in unison, though his were clomping in his untied high-tops. I tried to think of anything in the world to say to him.
    We passed a poster in the hall announcing the Seventh-Grade Unity Trip, and he rolled his eyes. “They think a couple of slogans will make us act nice to one another.”
    “Yeah,” I agreed. I didn’t know what else to say. He and Zoe always tease each other, banter back and forth. I kept nodding, trying to think of something witty, something Zoe might say. Which reminded me. I asked, “You know Lou?”
    He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. “Uh, yeah,” he said. Of course he knows Lou.
    “Does he like Zoe?” I asked.
    Tommy squinted his eyes at me like he was trying to understand. “Like her, like her?”
    “Yeah.” I checked my bun again. Still holding.
    “Why? Does she like Lou?”
    “Just find out,” I whispered. “OK?”
    He shrugged and sped up. I felt somebody staring at me so I turned around. Morgan was right behind me, shaking her head.
    I walked faster. When I got to math, Zoe was already there. She smiled at me, and even though she was wearing a soccer jersey like everybody else, at least she looked happy to see me. I went right over to her. “I asked Tommy for you,” I whispered.
    “What?”
    I felt my insides all clench. I blinked a few times. “You don’t have to, I just, to find out, I didn’t say you liked him or anything . . . .”
    Zoe looked all pale. She slumped down into her seat.
    “What happened?” Olivia asked.
    “Nothing,” I insisted. I looked up at the front of the classroom where Tommy and Lou were talking. I guess Zoe looked up at the same time, because she clonked her head down onto her desk.
    Morgan came over and leaned on my desk. “You think you’re so special, don’t you?” she whispered.
    I shook my head. “What?”
    “What happened?” Olivia asked again.
    “Nothing!” I sank into my seat.
    “She’s fixing up Zoe with Lou,” Morgan said. “Do you even like Lou?” she asked Zoe.
    Without raising her face off the desk, Zoe shook her head.
    The bell rang, and Ms. Cress asked everybody to take their seats.
    Morgan leaned close to me but didn’t smile. “Not everybody needs a boyfriend,” she whispered.
    “I didn’t say . . .”
    “You just think you’re so great to have a boyfriend and be a little ballerina, in your ballerina dress, so much better than the rest of us.”
    “I do-do-do-do not.” I could feel myself starting to cry. Zoe wouldn’t pick her head up. Olivia, when I looked at her, bowed her head. I guess she agreed, too. Morgan was whispering, but it felt like the whole room was listening to her and agreeing.
    “You go ahead,” Morgan whispered. “Do everything you can to set yourself apart. I hope you’re impressed with yourself, superstar. The rest of us will be perfectly happy to stick together in the shadows.”

ten
    N obody talked much to me the rest of the day. I told Zoe I had to go to the library during lunch because I’d been too tired to do my social studies homework after ballet. She said OK. Maybe she was relieved. In English/social studies, I passed a note to Tommy saying, Never mind about Lou. He shrugged. I told everybody at our lockers, between seventh and eighth, that I’d told Tommy to forget it about Lou and Zoe. They all said things like, “Whatever.”
    I walked all the way to band alone and sat there behind my