Read Online The Voice on the Radio by Caroline B. Cooney - Free Book Online Page A

ripped open his door.
    When they finished hugging, he looked her up and down. “You going fishing maybe? Hiking the Appalachian Trail?”
    “At least I look interesting. You look exactly the same as you did last year. Rugby shirt, khakis, loafers, no socks.”
    “It’s the boy-next-door look.”
    “I thought once you went to college you’d act out. Wear gang clothes, or get tattoos.”
    Reeve gave her a look. “You want tattoos? I’ll get tattoos. Where do you want your initials?”
    “Ugh! No! Don’t even think about it. I hate tattoos. I just thought that eighteen-year-old boys at college went wild.”
    Reeve shook his head. “No, that’s girls.”
    “Oh. Do you think I’ll go wild when I get out of town?”
    Reeve laughed. He had been asking her to go wild for two years. “There’s always hope.”
    She wanted to sit in his lap for the drive to school. That long, thin face with that big, wide grin, so that when he laughed, there was nothing on his face but laugh. He’d gotten a buzz last year, but never trimmed it, so now the hair was in desperate need of cutting, but at the same time perfect, as if he were a windblown model. Reeve drove with his left hand and slipped his right hand under her hair, at the back of her neck, and his big made-for-footballs hand lay warm and wonderful against her pulse.
    Reeve discovered the earrings. He grinned, tucked her hair back and untangled the crescent moons from her curls.
    “Oh, Reeve, forget school, let’s skip,” she said. “The way we did that New Jersey day.”
    “No, I’m coming in with you. I’m going to attend classes with you.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “I think they’ll let me. But actually, I’m not going to ask. I’ve learned one entire thing at college. Don’t ask. Just do it.” He grinned again. Janie would take bets. No teacher at her high school was going to turn down a guy with that grin.
    Reeve proceeded to disrupt Janie’s English class by gluing his eyes on her and never moving, never blinking. She felt his eyes right through her hair. She twitched and shifted, wrapped her hair in a ponytail and let it go, rested her chin in her hands, and then tilted sideways to see if he was still staring.
    He was.
    Every girl was envious, and every boy wondered how Reeve had acquired the composure to demonstrate so vividly how he felt about a girl.
    In the halls Reeve wound his fingers through her hair, and they walked in step, half leaning on each other.
    Tyler, camera bouncing on his chest, saw them coming. He pantomimed a photograph, but Reeve shook his head.
    I was going to say yes! thought Janie. When people stare at me because I’m a milk carton freak, I could kill them. But stares because we make a cute couple—I love it. “I have gym now, Reeve,” she said regretfully. “It’s really unlikely that they’re going to let you in the girls’ locker room.”
    “It’s okay. I have stuff to do,” he said breezily. “People to blackmail, places to rob.”
    She didn’t see him again till lunch, when he scooped her up and said they were going to Mickey D’s. The school had just started letting kids go off campus for lunch. You had to have parental permission, and Janie, of course, had no such thing.
    She and Reeve sauntered out of the building, following his rule of Don’t ask, just do it, and nobody in authority noticed, and everybody in the student body did.
    She’d be delighted to have a yearbook page for the romance of Reeve Shields and Janie Johnson.
    He opened the Jeep door for her. They loved doing things for each other. When she was seated, he tucked her skirt in so that it wouldn’t get caught in the door, and it felt like being tucked in at night. He started the engine and revved it a few times. “That’s my heart,” he told her, and they laughed.
    “What did you do during my last two classes, Reeve?”
    “Found the yearbook adviser. Told her she can’t allow a milk carton page. She promised. It’s not gonna