Read Online The Ordinary Life of Emily P. Bates by Anna Cackler - Free Book Online

voice.
    I just looked at her, suddenly confused.
    “Warning,” Finn said.
    “What?”
    He swept me back into his arms and my left wrist was jostled again. I dug my forehead into his shoulder and grunted in pain, clutching at my arm in an attempt to stabilize it. He backed out through the door into the amazing heat that only seemed to make the pain in my arm and head even worse. He sat me carefully down in the front seat of my car. I was instantly coated in sweat and the hot seat burned the back of my legs.
    “Wait here,” he said. “I have to make a quick call.” He slammed my car door shut and dashed back inside the library.
    “Finn! Who-?” He was gone long before I said anything at all. My head fell back against the headrest and I forced myself to swallow. My whole left side was aching now and a fantastic purple bruise was spreading all across my forearm. It didn’t help that I was practically suffocating in the heat inside the car.
    Two minutes later, Finn reappeared. He herded the two very disgruntled old ladies out in front of him and locked the library door behind them. They were shouting something at Finn, but he ignored them. He dashed back to the car. “How ya doin’?” he asked as he started up the engine.
    “Peachy. Who’d you call?”
    “Bill so he could come and open the library back up, and your mom.”
    “Oh hell.” My mom. I had forgotten about her. “She is going to freak out.”
    “She already is.”
     
    It took four hours–four freaking hours. First, they had to examine my head and my reflexes and everything stupid like that. Then I had to wait for an hour with Finn and my mom (who had shown up almost immediately) before they could squeeze me in for an X-Ray. She was going completely berserk for a full fifteen minutes before Finn finally had to yell at her to calm down.
    And by yell, I mean literally yell . He actually took a hold of my mother’s arms and hollered, “Get a hold of yourself, woman! She’s gonna live!”
    “I just fell off of a stool, Mom,” I said as she stared wide eyed at Finn. She had never been yelled at by a teen before. “I’m going to survive. I promise.”
    “You’d better, so help me,” she said, gripping my right hand. “What is your father going to say?”
    “He’ll give me an 8.9 for difficulty and a 9.6 for execution.”
    “That is not funny, Emily Prudence Bates.”
    “She’s right, Em,” Finn said seriously. “There’s no way you’d get more than a 6.”
    I smiled.
     
    Monday at school, I tried my best to avoid eye contact with everyone. They were all staring at the hulking, blindingly white cast on my left arm, and all I wanted to do was rip it off and scratch like crazy. I hurried over to our usual table where Margo and Shannon were already deep in conversation. Finn pushed a paper bowl of French toast sticks at me as I sat down, then he pulled my immobilized left arm across the table without so much as a by-your-leave.
    “Ow!” I complained.
    “Don’t resist and it won’t hurt so bad.”
    Shannon looked up and laughed as I sat down. “Only you, Emily.”
    “What?”
    “Only you could manage to break your arm in three places and give yourself a concussion just by falling down!”
    “Only two places,” I said.
    Margo chuckled a little, too, as she picked at her chocolate doughnut.
    “What did you do ?” We all turned to find Ethan rushing toward the vacant seat next to Finn, who was now scribbling something on my cast with a blue permanent marker.
    “I fell,” I said. “I fell down and broke my arm. Don’t laugh at me.”
    “In three places,” Shannon said.
    “Two!” I corrected again.
    “And gave herself a concussion,” Margo added. I glared at her.
    “Are you all right?” he asked. “Does it hurt?”
    I shrugged. “A little. My head aches some and I have to wear this stupid thing for eight weeks. What are you tattooing on my cast?”
    Finn didn’t look up. “Almost done. Don’t move or it’ll look