Another Pan Read Online Free PDF Page B

hottest students will beg to join my starship, but I will, of course, have to tell them that my adventures are just too dangerous for such fair maids. My weakling second-in-command, Officer Darling, will appeal as well, but my resolve will be unshaken. I’m a captain, and with that great mantle of power comes a great amount of attractiveness
.

New York (first day of school)
    Thirteen is a bad year for hair. Shiny blond curls disappear, making way for darker, coarser bundles of frizz. Cowlicks grow less and less manageable. And a whole slew of new hair-taming possibilities — not just gel and mousse, but also styling sand, highlighting pomade, and Bed Head polish — complicate a once-simple life of rinse-lather-repeat. John stood in front of his bedroom mirror in an oversize bath towel and rubbed a buttery substance with a sugary scent into his palm.
    “If it’s supposed to make me look dirty, then why shower, huh? Where’s the logic?” he asked his reflection, wiping his greasy hands into his hair. Three chunks of it stood on end, making a crown on his head. “Yeah, oh
yeeeeeah
.” John nodded, pursing his lips the way he had seen Connor Wirth do it in his coolest moments, which were many. Connor not only had the best hair ever, but he also had enough money to cover his entire body with Bed Head twice a day. So unfair. John separated the giant crownlike middle chunk into two parts. The crown now looked like a serving fork made of hair.
    John took another look at his overgreased hair and raised an eyebrow. Then he flexed his left arm. Then both arms. Nope, no change. He was still scrawny, still skin and bone. He sucked in his barely-there preteen paunch and picked at a hair on his chest. Was that there yesterday? Yep . . . still as bald as a well-oiled salamander. No problem. What he was lacking in physique he would make up for with a good dose of dirt and grime in his hair — a little more of the underground speed-metal look, and a little less of the preppy jock (which was too much work and lacking originality anyway).

    Wendy walked past her younger brother’s bedroom just as he was flattening a tsunami wave of hair into his signature look — slicked back and parted on the side, then tousled until it looked exactly like it had when he came out of the shower forty minutes ago, minus the hope of ever drying. She peeked in from behind the half-closed door and said, “
The Banker
again? Hurry up, kiddo. It’s time for school.”
    “Can’t rush first impressions, Sis,” said John, who was still not dressed. “Especially not when it’s the first day of the best year ever.”
    “Oh, geez,” Wendy mumbled to herself as she pulled out her cell phone to text Connor. She’d need a lot of help if she was going to save John from himself. But as she was typing out her first words, Wendy stopped and clicked the phone shut. She shouldn’t call or text Connor first. After all, he hadn’t contacted her in two days. Maybe things would be different now that school was starting and he had all his old friends (and girlfriends?) back. Maybe their romance was just a summer thing and it would all blow over now. Would Connor want to date a teacher’s daughter at school? Would he want to date just one girl?
    It felt strange thinking about the possibility, because even though Wendy hated the idea of losing Connor, she wondered if she shouldn’t feel more panicked at the possibility. How would other girls handle the situation? Wendy had no idea because she had no mother to ask.
    Wendy and John’s mother hadn’t been all that great an adviser. She was too young to be a mother, too pretty, too impulsive. According to Wendy’s father, she had married him when he was in the prime of his career, a dashing Egyptologist, already successful, full of adventures and stories. The perfect mix of young and old. He knew that as far as his wife was concerned, he would
never
grow old.
Never
lose his hair.
Never
grow soft in the belly and