Be More Chill Read Online Free PDF Page A

your job to find peers who will give you rides when you hit sophomore status. If you’re poor, you ride the bus.
    I walk, though, this morning like every morning, and once I get inside, Christine is at her usual spot at the front of math. I give her a look as I pass by; in fact I stare openly at her,
apologetic, terrified, but she doesn’t notice. I move to my seat.
    Guess who Jenna is talking about today: “Then Elizabeth was like, ‘But I don’t know how to do it!’ And the guy was like, ‘All you do is take this resin and this
chopstick—’”
    “Be quiet,” I say. “Everybody is sick of hearing about ‘Elizabeth.’” Only I don’t say that. Instead, I sit and look at Christine.
    “There he goes again,” Jenna says halfway through; I try not to notice.
    “What?” Anne asks.
    “The stalker, look at him.” She nods her head at me the smallest bit.
    “Oh, yeah.” Anne turns around as if she’s trying to pop the joints in her back. She looks at Jenna; Jenna gives a smiling look back; Anne looks slightly sad and pleading for
me; Jenna responds with a withering look. I didn’t realize girls could communicate like this, with their eyes, like evil monkeys.
    “Don’t say anything, he’ll put it on one of his sheets,” Jenna says.
    Jenna knows about the Humiliation Sheets?
    Fuck. The pit that forms in my stomach stretches down quickly to suck/tear at my bladder. If Jenna knows about the Humiliation Sheets, thirty other people do too. Cool People are like termites;
for every one you see, there are thousands back at the hive with the same basic nervous system and worldview. I stare forward, as I usually do in times of crisis, not daring to note this particular
offense on my sheet. Not yet.

“What’s the deal?” Michael asks as I leave math. “You okay?” Michael’s sitting cross-legged in the hall; I’m looking for a place to
update my sheet.
    “Yeah.” I stoop down. I try to slap his hand, but miss.
    “Redo,” he smiles. We connect.
    “All right. Take a seat.”
    “Why? I hate sitting on the floor.”
    “You should.”
    “Why?”
    “Trust me.”
    I do.
    “Anything new happen with Christine?” Michael prods.
    “Nope. Today’s been really crappy.”
    “Well it’s about to get good.” Michael absently picks at his headphone cord. “Take a look.”
    We are in the absolutely choicest position for spying girls’ knees and calves in the hall. I figure that’s what Michael plans to do, and then, across the way, a par
ti
cularly
fine parade of knees and calves emerges. They belong to Katrina, Stephanie, and Chloe—the Hottest Girls in School.
    Michael is admirably calm as the three of them slink out of whatever class they were in (Human Sexuality, I think—seriously) in triangle formation with Katrina at the lead. I’m the
one with the motor control problem, sitting like a tormented puppet, my wrist twitching and my neck grinding against itself as the legs pass by. My heart tightens and the whole lower half of my
body aches in a sudden, silly way that reminds me of last night on the Internet.
    “Guh…”
    It’s
unfair
that I should have to go to school with Katrina, Stephanie, and Chloe. They cover all the bases of things that you might possibly be attracted to if you think girls are
attractive in the slightest bit. Katrina is blond, Stephanie is brunette, and Chloe is a redhead (dyed). Katrina wears bright, preppy stuff; Stephanie wears Goth things with collars; Chloe does
raver clothes. All their outfits are tight and imaginative, as in: it’s easy to imagine them not being there. The Hottest Girls in School came to Middle Borough together in my grade and have
been inseparable since, a force to be reckoned with, discussed, analyzed, and penetrated by the upper echelon of Middle Borough men.
    They do not react to Michael or myself in any way as they pass.
    Then again, we are on the floor.
    “You should go for one of them, man,” Michael suggests.
    “Shut up.”