A Tale of Two Proms (Bard Academy) Read Online Free PDF

Coach H asked me. He knew I would be thinking about what graduation would mean for me and Heathcliff. Both Heathcliff’s time here and mine was coming to an end. Coach H knew it and so did I.
    But that didn’t stop me from hoping I could find another way, a different way. I thought about the cabin Heathcliff had shown me. I thought about him asking me to marry him. I thought about spending the rest of my life with him.
    Or, I could leave him and go to college.
    What on earth was I going to do? For the first time in my life, I really had no idea.
    “Graduation, hooray,” I told Coach H, but my voice sounded weak. I felt a pitying look from Hana.
    “Coach—you think Miranda and Heathcliff could go to prom?” Blade asked. Blade has never been shy about getting to the point.
    “Blade!” I kicked her shin under the table.
    “What? Everybody is dancing around it, but come on. You all were thinking it.”
    Coach H considered this. “You know a relationship is forbidden,” he told me. He glanced at Heathcliff as he said this. I felt the need to busy my hands, so I grabbed my glass and took another drink.
    “It’s not a relationship it’s a prom date,” Blade said. “They’re going to dance a little. Not get married.”
    For the second time, I choked on the water and starting coughing uncontrollably. I felt my face turn beet red. Why did Blade have to say that ?
    Heathcliff and Coach H, along with everyone else at the table, were staring at me. Hana, next to me, gave me a pat on the back. Eventually, I stopped coughing and I could breathe again. My face felt hot and flushed. Geez, why didn’t I just blurt out to everyone that Heathcliff had asked me to marry him? It was no doubt written all over my face.
    “I’ll talk to Headmaster B,” Coach H said, after a while. But he didn’t say if he’d recommend it or not.
    “Is that a yes?” Blade asked him. “Can they go together?”
    “It’s a maybe,” Coach H said. “Finish up, kids. I know some of you have midterms this afternoon.”
    Samir groaned. “Don’t remind me. Physics!” He put his hand on his face as if the thought of the exam made his head hurt. That’s because it probably did.
    When Coach H left the table, Hana nudged me with her elbow. “You and Heathcliff might get to go to Prom! Aren’t you excited about it now?”
    “Uh… yeah,” I said, nodding, even though the dread in the pit of my stomach hadn’t left. I didn’t know why, yet, but I knew something was going to go wrong. Heathcliff was staring at me, too. Trying—and probably succeeding—in reading my thoughts. He usually did. He knew me better than I knew myself sometimes.
     “I still think Prom is lame.” Blade wasn’t going to be changing her mind anytime soon.
    Outside, we heard the squeal of brakes as a bus driven by Mr. H.S. Thompson skidded into the lawn on the commons, narrowly missing the statue of William Shakespeare holding a scroll.
    “New recruits!” called Samir, standing up so he could get a better look out the window. I stood to see, watching as puzzled and dazed kids not yet decked out in the Bard uniform filed out of the bus. Every month, new students would find themselves at Bard. It seemed like only yesterday that I was one of them. I’d met Heathcliff on that fateful bus ride nearly three years ago. He’d been his dark and brooding self, sitting in the back of the bus, eyeing me. He’d had on those strange old clothes from his time then, before he found a Bard uniform to help him blend in. Of course, with Heathcliff, there really was no blending in no matter how he was dressed.
    I felt his eyes lingering on me, and I looked up and met them. The day I first saw him seemed like a lifetime ago. He’d called me Cathy because I looked a little like Catherine Earnshaw. 
    We watched as the students filed out of the bus. Some of them fit the stereotype of the usual delinquents—the tattooed and pierced, the potheads, and the dropouts. But I was surprised