Read Online The Littlest Bigfoot by Jennifer Weiner - Free Book Online

through this process so many times, at so many different kinds of schools, but it never got easy. New kids to meet, new routines to learn, a new campus to get to know, and then holding her breath, waiting for the inevitable moment when the other kids would turn on her.
    Alice pictured her bed, with its soft down pillows, white down comforter, and crisp white sheets. She thought about how at night, instead of smog and city lights, she would be able to see the stars. Maybe she would sleep deeply, with no bad dreams, and wake up to see the sunrise over the lake. Maybe she’d get up early and she’d run in the forest, feeling the dew soak her sneakers and the cool air against her face, her feet skimming the paths,jumping over fallen trees and snarls of branches and brambles, leaping lightly over streams, running and running until her lungs burned in her chest and the world swam in starbursts in front of her eyes and her muscles felt warm and easy against her bones, like she could sit still and listen all day.
    Eventually, she knew, things would go wrong, because things always did, no matter how careful she was, no matter how hard she tried. At some point in October or November, Alice would expose herself as different, abnormal, like at the École, when she’d bent over in gym class and split her pants right down the middle, or at Swifton, where, on parents’ day, one of the mothers, glimpsing Alice from behind with the Mane tucked under her hood, had thought that Alice was a boy and had yelled at her for being in the girls’ room.
    No matter how it happened, she would do something or say something or trip or rip or break something and give herself away. That was the way it always was. But until that day came, she would enjoy this place, with its quiet woods and its oddball “learning guides” and the kids, some of whom seemed to be almost as weird as she was.

CHAPTER 5

    T HE MORNING AFTER THE ELDERS ’ meeting, the other littlies—Jacobus and Tulip, six-year-old Madder, and four-year-old Florrie, who was already bigger than Millie—filed into the underground school-burrow.
    Millie had been excused for the morning. After First Breakfast she had nodded solemnly at her father, given her anxious mother a smile, then clambered up the Lookout Tree. From her perch she would watch the new school across the lake and do her lessons by herself, and at the snackle, which was served between Second Breakfast and lunch, she’d report to Old Aunt Yetta and her father about what she’d seen. She was to count howmany No-Furs there were, how many grown-ups and how many littlies, how many vehicles they had, whether she saw any weapons, and most important, whether the setup on the lakeshore seemed to be permanent or temporary. Old Aunt Yetta had lent her the Tribe’s single pair of antique binoculars, and Maximus had given her a new notebook and a black felt-tipped pen. So far Millie had written her name on the cover with a flourish and made note of the eight cars that had come down the dirt path, as well as the sixteen littlies who’d gotten out. She was looping the binoculars’ leather carrying case around her neck and readjusting her position when a furry head popped out of the school-burrow door and a voice announced, “Teacher Greenleaf says it’s time for you to come down.”
    Millie sighed. There were only three other littlie girls in the Yare Tribe. Florrie was such a baby that she nibbled on her cheek-fur when no one was looking, and Madder was almost an Elder. Tulip was the only girl close to Millie’s age. Tulip was tall and strong and sure-footed. Tulip was always quiet, always good. Last Halloween she’d decided to stay home, virtuously announcing that safety was more important to her than candy.
    Millie and Tulip did not get along.
    â€œI am occupied,” said Millie.
    â€œTeacher says now,” Tulip said.
    â€œNugget,” sighed Millie—a