Dead Ringer Read Online Free PDF Page A

she totally adored him. By the end of English class
on Friday morning, she had to stop herself from visibly swooning.
    “Okay, I’ve struck out five out of five times on
understanding a word O’Malley is saying today,” Charlie complained. “She is
speaking English, correct?” Laura knew that he was trying to focus on anything
other than the fact that they’d just been awkwardly paired to dissect love
letters exchanged between poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett before
their marriage. It was like the cosmos knew how Laura felt about him and wanted
to have a little fun. Laura wondered whether the cosmos was, in fact, an
incredibly observant English teacher.
    “Once you’ve finished interpreting the words, I want you to
rewrite them in modern English and present them before the class,” Ms. O’Malley
said. Laura wondered if the entire class could hear her heart start beating out
of her chest at that addition to the assignment. The last thing she needed was
more eyes on her, though the chance to work with Charlie turned some of those anxious
nerves into excited ones.
     “Just to warn you, the only acting I’ve done was a
play infifth grade,” he said, “and I don’t think there’s much in
common between Cowboy Number Two and this Robert Browning dude.”
    “It’s okay. Everyone will just be staring at my face
anyway,” Laura said.
    Charlie looked back at her as if he was trying to decide
whether he could pretend he hadn’t heard what she just said.
    “Curse of the new girl?” he said.
    “No,” she said. “Haven’t you heard?” She lowered her voice.
“I guess I look like that girl who died. Sarah Castro-Tanner.”
    Charlie’s face froze, like he was shocked to hear someone
say that name out loud.
    “Yeah. I heard some people talking about that,” he said
eventually, “but I think they’re exaggerating.” His tone was kind, and Laura
loved the fact that the comment implied he’d been looking at her pretty closely
over the past few days.
     “Did you know Sarah?” Laura asked. She couldn’t resist
the chance to hear someone talk more about this mysterious doppelgänger, and why
Amanda wanted Charlie to avoid her because of the connection.
    “Nah,” he said. “She kept to herself.”
    “Suicide is so terrible,” Laura said. “I can imagine how
hard it was for everyone in school that year.”
    “It was,” Charlie said, “but it’s not fair that you have to
deal with it now.”
    The sweet look on Charlie’s face made it clear that he felt
genuinely sorry for her; that maybe if it were up to him, he wouldn’t be
staying so far away. Laura was wildly curious about what else Charlie had to
say, but she didn’t want to push him too far on the issue—not while he
was finally warming up again.
    “Let’s get into this project,” she said instead. “We can’t
embarrass ourselves up there when we present.”
    Thirty minutes later, Laura found herself standing in the
front of the room reading an insanely romantic love letter to Charlie Sanders—the
single most gorgeous boy in the senior class, if not the entire town. In that
moment, none of the rest of the weirdness between them mattered to Laura, and
from the completely captivated look on Charlie’s face as he read his lines to
her, she thought there was a chance he might agree.
    Laura spent the rest of that afternoon in the newspaper
office trying to concentrate on the story she was researching.
    “Some kids are pushing for a crew team. Principal Hayden
claims none of the rivers in town are safe to row on. Look into it,” Becca said
through a mouth full of crumb cake at the beginning of their meeting.
     Laura tried to focus on the assignment, but she
couldn’t stop thinking about Charlie—the way his lips parted and came
together when he was reading the love letters earlier in class, how tight his
shoulder muscles were against the long-sleeved T-shirt he was wearing, and that
one curl of hair on the crown of his head