Crazy Dangerous Read Online Free PDF

thing is, when she’s with most people, she’s really funny too. Not funny like a circus clown or anything, but just kind of good-natured and teasing and easygoing and comical. People are always laughing when she’s around. She’s fun to be with, that’s what I’m trying to say.
    So anyway, I’ll be looking at Zoe when she’s talking to—let’s say, for instance—Mark Sales. Mark Sales, the star runner on our track team. Mark Sales, who set a new school record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase of eleven minutes and five seconds. Mark Sales, who’s seventeen and nearly six feet tall and whose teeth practically flash and sparkle when he smiles, so that girls wait until he walks by and then clutch their books and look up to heaven with their mouths open as if some sort of miracle has occurred just because he said hello to them. And don’t get me wrong: Mark is a great guy, a really nice guy—but somehow that only makes the whole situation worse . . .
    So, as I was saying, I’ll be looking at Zoe when she’s talking to Mark Sales. And Zoe will be all relaxed and easygoing and joking around like she usually is. And Mark and his track-star pals, Nathan Deutsch and Justin Philips, will all be laughing around her with their sparkly teeth. It’ll just be cute Zoe and the Big Men on Campus standing around the school hallway having a blast. Right?
    Then I walk by.
    And I say, “Hey, guys.”
    And suddenly everyone stops laughing. Everyone kind of clears his or her throat and they all glance at one another. It’s as if I’d caught them doing something really embarrassing.
    And then Mark says, “Hey, Sam.” In this sort of formal way.
    And Nathan and Justin mutter, “Hey.” Because they’re not as good at pretending to be relaxed as Mark is.
    And then finally Zoe smiles at me, but it’s not her supergreat smile that she gives to everyone else. It’s this ever-so-polite smile. And she says, “Oh, hello, Sam. It’s nice to see you,” in such a polite, formal, inoffensive, and not-joking way that I really would prefer it if she just took out a gun and shot me dead on the spot.
    That’s what I’m talking about. Being a preacher’s kid. It can be a problem.
    So you might be wondering: What has this got to do with Jeff Winger? With me saying I would be friends with Jeff Winger?
    Well, okay, since you ask, here’s the answer: whatever else you could say about him, Jeff Winger was not a preacher’s kid. Jeff Winger didn’t have a father at all as far as anyone could tell, and he only lived with his mother when he could find her. As a result, Jeff didn’t have to worry about being a good guy all the time. Good guy? He was a full-blown juvenile delinquent! He had once been arrested for stealing a car. He had once been arrested for driving under the influence—under the influence of what, I’m not entirely sure, but it must’ve been pretty influential because he piled his cousin’s pickup fender-first into a lamppost. What else? Oh yeah, Jeff had been suspended from school twice or maybe three times for various reasons: fighting, smoking, carrying a weapon—a knife, I think it was. And one time he had shown up for first period with his face a mass of purple bruises—the rumor was he had taken part in a knock-down, drag-out brawl at the Shamrock, a nasty bar over in Ondaga, one town over.
    So that was Jeff Winger. And again, the big question: Why would I have any reason to want to be friends with a thug like that?
    Well, for one thing, I couldn’t help noticing that girls didn’t fall silent around Jeff. They didn’t treat Jeff like their best friend’s little sister. Not at all. Girls loved Jeff. Okay, not all girls. Not—just to be completely accurate—any of the girls I was particularly interested in knowing. But still, they were girls, which is no small thing, and they just loved him. No kidding.
    One day I remember I was sitting in algebra class. And unfortunately, at Sawnee High School, algebra is