Casey Barnes Eponymous Read Online Free PDF Page A

Everyone, except Aisling
Cheng, said Maryland.   However
Aisling Cheng moved to Bethesda in junior high.   It was old news that she was from China
and her Dad worked at the World Bank.   But then Señor Griffin got to the gawky new kid whose hair stuck up at
the scalp line.  
    Casey also noticed that sometimes Ben put his hand under his
glasses, rubbed his eyes, and then left his glasses crooked.   Once, during the first week of school, she
was watching him eat lunch alone on the far side of the cafeteria and Leigh saw.  
    “Who’s that?” she asked.  
    “Just this new guy in my Spanish class.   Do you think he’s cute?”
    “Not yet.”  
    Anyway on the first day of school Señor Griffin, in his
patriot’s accent, thick as gravy and wielding its roots like a two by four, did
the customary ¿De dónde eres? aka Where are you from?, andBen
said he was from California.   Heads
turned.   Señor Griffin sensed the
interest and made a big thing out of it.   He began asking more specific questions.
    Ben answered abruptly.   “Northern.”   “San Jose.”   When Señor Griffin asked about Ben’s
parents Ben did not say anything.   A
moment passed.   The entire class was
looking at him.   Señor Griffin repeated
the question more loudly.
    “Yo vivo con mi madre.   Mi padre vive en Paris.”   I
live with my mother.   My father
lives in Paris.   Ben’s Spanish
accent was miles better than Señor Griffin’s.
    “Paris!” Señor Griffin boomed, “¿Por qué Paris?”   Then Ben did something that under any
other circumstance Casey would have found admirable but that under this one was
weird.   He pointed to his throat and
pretended he could not speak anymore.  
    Señor Griffin was not happy.   Teachers did not like kids who gave
attitude on the first day.   But
Señor Griffin had also been teaching long enough to know that getting into a
power struggle with a fifteen year old on day one was the equivalent of being
felled by a sucker punch ten seconds into a boxing match.   He moved on to Aisling Cheng.  
    After that day Ben proved himself to be a consistent source of
antagonism en la clase de español.   But he was also an ace.   His
accent sounded way more like the Spanish kids who smoked around the back of the
school than Mr. Griffin’s did, and he could regurgitate conjugations with the
facility of Charo.   Sitting behind
Ben in Spanish, something Casey did on the first day of school without even
thinking about it, was turning out to be one of the few blessings of the school
year thus far.   She got perfect
scores on the two quizzes Señor Griffin gave them, courtesy of the gap Ben left
between his elbow and the desk.   Even
her homework score was flawless.  
    Until that week, that is, when Ben’s elbow made a precipitous
and suspicious shift in positioning.   That week she found herself daydreaming about a hallway accident that
would leave his elbow significantly smaller but at the same time not hinder his
ability to do homework.
    Señor Griffin was getting closer.   She did not want to lose another homework
point.   She scooted to the edge of
her chair, pretended to stretch, and leaned out as far as she could.   This was, of course, in order to see
Ben’s homework.   Instead, the following
results were achieved:
    1. She slipped out of her chair and fell on the floor.  
    2. Everyone turned to look.
    3. While on the ground she glanced in the direction of Ben’s
bag and saw a pair of drumsticks peaking out.  
    4. As Señor Griffin asked her, en español, if everything was
okay, Ben looked at her and said, “It would take half the effort to do the work
yourself.   Also, the Cat Power song
was a nice touch.”
    For a moment Casey remained frozen on the floor, struck by the
double whammy of having the whole class see her fall and hearing Ben comment on
the playlist she slipped to the skinny blonde in the library the day
before.  
    “Excusem-moi,” she announced to the