Read Online Under the Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey, Ellen R. Sasahara, Felicity Don - Free Book Online Page A

of the adolescent female.
    â€œYeah, she said her name was Reena, I think. I have no idea who she is or how she got my number.”
    How could this be? How did Reena get the phone numbers of her friends? It occurred to Josephine then that she was victim of a second humiliation, as vile as the phone calls: Reena must have
stolen
her address book. Josephine was the one who stole, who took, who had. She was distraught and could not bear the thought that something had been taken from her.
    And then, as Josephine recalls, “For three days, people kept coming up to me, saying, ‘Did you tell Reena you hated me? Reena said you did. Some girl told me your eyebrows are fake. Reena called me and said if I slept with you I’d get AIDS.’”
    Why would Reena do this to her? It did not occur to her that Reenamay have been trying to show Josephine that she too was tough and badass and hard core, that she too could be a thief and a troublemaker.
    Instead Josephine thought,
She is trying to make me unpopular, trying to make people think I’m not really as pretty as I seem.
    And her anger at Reena’s transgression seemed to Josephine a perfectly normal response, the response John Gotti would make to such disloyalty. “She was trying to ruin my life, so I had a little problem with that. I think anybody would.”
    Josephine turned to her best friend for counsel.
    â€œI can’t believe she’d do that!” Kelly said.
    â€œShe’s jealous,” Josephine mused. “She’s not doing it out of spite. She’s doing it out of jealousy.”
    â€œThat fucking bitch!” Kelly said.
    â€œWell, she’s not too bright. She’s making all these calls and using her first name. She calls them, and says, Oh yeah, this is Reena calling.’”
    â€œI can’t believe she’s talking shit. Who does she think she is?”
    â€œI know. What the fuck does she think she’s doing! Doesn’t she know who I am? I have lots of friends and I know lots of people. I’m Josephine Bell! Nobody can fuck with me. I have more friends than enemies.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    The forests around her at Seven Oaks did not still her rage. Seven Oaks was beginning to get to her. Apparently, they were having trouble finding a foster home for her, but Seven Oaks was only a temporary home, so she’d be out of there pretty soon. She did not think of herself as unwanted, though. She believed she was just not living by the rules and was doing whatever she pleased. At school, the principal brought her into the office, and said, “Josephine. We need to speak about your commitment to learning.” Mrs. Olsen wanted her to try an alternative school if she would not commit to the educational environment at Shoreline Junior Secondary.
    Josephine did not want to ponder the fact that she was soon to be homeless and uneducated, and so instead she turned to her collection of stolen goods. She herself had stolen a tube of Chanel mascara and Calvin Klein jeans. But her “gophers,” as she called them, had brought her a Guess handbag, Christian Dior eyeshadow, and a black lace bra, size 34C. Her gophers were a group of little girls, some as young as twelve.
Go forth, young bitches!
she might as well have declared, for herminions scattered through the malls of View Royal, searching for offerings.
    She spent a few hours before the mirror, enraptured by her reflection. The forests held the Dangers, and sometimes, if she stared at the trees, she could remember the man’s voice and the time he…. She put on her new bra and several layers of eyeshadow. Her arched eyebrows were most definitely not fake, and yet they did appear as inverted smiles, drawn with a black pen. She had this 11:00 curfew, and now the night was getting darker and she no longer had her stolen car and Kelly was probably asleep and safe in View Royal.
    Josephine slept in her bed at Seven