Any Red-Blooded Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

to be taking a nap. It doesn’t work that way.
    I don’t know what time I fell asleep, but I’m
absolutely certain about when I woke up: past sunset, after eight
thirty, when my first date with the man of my dreams was long over.
I’d stood Mick up. I swear, people as dumb as me really should be
shot, or slapped, or, at the very least, screamed at in an angry
tone.
    Through the mesh door of my cubicle, I peered
into the darkness. And I listened. Maybe the sun had just set.
Maybe I could catch Mick before he ended up hating me. Maybe our
date wasn’t really over yet after all.
    I unzipped my pod and stumbled into the
night. But the reality was, nobody in my immediate vicinity was
awake (other than some drunk people down the block who were
throwing an all-nighter). It had to be like three o’clock in the
morning. There was no doubt about it: I really had missed
Mick.
    Life sucks and then you die. There was no
other explanation. I mean, I’d overslept for lots of things, but
this was the worst by far. Honestly, I felt like throwing a hissy
fit right there in the dark at Tupelo-9. But why bother? Nobody was
around to appreciate it but me.
    I plunked my defeated ass down at the picnic
table and began a serious pout session. And before long, I had a
worthy target for my frustrations: mosquitoes. I swear, the damn
things were sucking my blood by the gallon. They’d tapped all of my
obvious veins and most of the not-so-obvious ones too. So I was
busy swatting the life out of every pesky bloodsucker I could, when
I caught a glimpse of two suspicious figures lurking around the
campsite next door.
    Now a normal person probably would have
disappeared back into the tent—for safety’s sake, of course. But
for some kooky reason, I wasn’t in the mood to act normal. Like an
amateur sleuth with half a clue, I crawled on my hands and knees to
the edge of our campsite and hid behind a thicket of brush. And as
I looked on, one of the would-be crooks directed a jittery
flashlight through the side window of our neighbors’ van, while his
accomplice boomeranged his head back and forth in search of any
unwelcome attention.
    Apparently the coast was clear, because
Lookout Guy whispered something inaudible, then Mr. Flashlight
pulled on the door handle. But the van was locked. Shit. I couldn’t
believe it. These guys were trying to break and enter—or at least maybe they were. For all I knew, it was their van.
    So as idiotic as this sounds, I decided to
make some noise. After all, the thieves seemed pretty skittish, so
I figured maybe I could scare them off. Quietly, I crawled back to
the middle of our campsite and crunched some brittle twigs under my
feet, which, in the silent night, echoed like machine gun fire. And
the amazing thing was, my retarded plan actually worked. The second
the mystery men heard me crunching around, they immediately took
off—not running or anything, just sort of nonchalantly moseying,
like they had every right to be lurking around a stranger’s
property in the middle of the night, like if anyone should dare
question them, they’d just flip the script and say, “Well, you’re out here too. What are you up to?” Case
closed.
    I must admit, though, I was sort of sad to
see the would-be thieves go. Because while I’d been focused on
them, I’d completely forgotten about Mick. If only I could fall
into a vat of toxic waste and inherit some superpowers, maybe then
I could reverse the earth’s rotation and turn back time to fix
things between me and the man of my dreams—if that’s how you do it
anyway. I swear, even the superhero-me would probably turn out to
be a wretched loser. So on second thought, I’d better just skip the
toxic waste and pray for a miracle.
     

Five
    DAY two at Wild Acres started with a bang.
Literally. Because one minute I was lost in a psychedelic disco
dream, and the next minute I was rocked awake by an explosion.
    “What was that?!” I demanded at top volume,
struggling to