Dread Locks Read Online Free PDF Page B

through my backpack for a packet of mini-doughnuts, when I felt someone sit down next to me. I figured it was one of my buddies, maybe Freddie or Dante, but it wasn’t. It was Tara.
    “You haven’t spoken to me for days,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
    “It seemed like you’ve been pretty busy getting your social life in order,” I said. “I didn’t want to get in your way.”
    She laughed lightly. “You’re never in my way, Baby Baer,” she said. With hardly any effort at all, she was making me feel like I was special.
    Just like all the other people she toyed with.
    I pulled away, not willing—not wanting —to be one among the others. “You can play that game with Nils and Celeste,” I told her, “but it won’t work on me.”
    That only made her smile even broader. “I know,” she said, “and I’m glad. No games between you and me. Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    I was trying to think of something else to say, something intelligent, but I didn’t get the chance, because right then Melanie stormed up to Tara. She was in tears.
    “I hope you’re proud of yourself,” Melanie said. “Ernest is breaking up with me, thanks to you!”
    Tara looked up at her with a half smile on her face. It was an expression that some might have called triumphant. “Ernest?” she said. “I’ve barely even spoken to Ernest.”
    I didn’t want to be in the middle of this uncomfortable scene, so I stood up and brushed the grass off my pants. “I better get going.” I walked about halfway across the quad, then turned around to watch the fireworks from a safe distance.
    “You can’t fool me,” said Melanie. “I’ve been watching you. I see what you do.”
    “What do I do?” asked Tara, with only the slightest mocking tone.
    “You—you—” Melanie searched for the words. “You look at people,” said Melanie, only realizing as she said it how stupid it sounded. “You look at people and they... change....”
    “Oh please,” Tara scoffed.
    “It’s the way you look at them,” said Melanie, “from behind those stupid shades.”
    She reached to rip them off Tara’s face, but Tara’s hand snapped up so fast, you never even saw it move. She smacked away Melanie’s hand before it touched her glasses.
    “You don’t want to take these off,” Tara said in a very threatening tone. “Trust me. You don’t.”
    “You’re a monster,” Melanie shouted, still holding her ground. “A monster!”
    “Hey!” someone else said. I looked over. It was Nils, followed by the entire Geek Brigade. “Leave her alone.”
    At the same time, from the other side, Celeste and the Banshees were also closing in.
    “Melanie,” Celeste said sharply, “this is so uncool. We have to talk.” Celeste used a different tone with Melanie than usual. I could tell she was no longer taking orders from Melanie.
    Across the quad, Ernest stood with some of his buddies from the football team. They strolled over to see what was happening. I noticed that all of his teammates were scowling or snickering at Melanie.
    Melanie turned and looked around. The entire school had rallied. The Banshees, the jocks—even the nerds—whole groups that normally weren’t even on the same plane of existence had taken sides against her.
    Melanie crumbled. She tried to escape the quad, an expression of utter defeat on her face.
    Suddenly, Tara’s accomplishment was clear. She had lined up allies among the school’s various groups and got them all to work together for probably the first time in the school’s history. She was like a master builder who could bend materials like stone and steel and clay to her will ... except her materials were flesh and spirit.
    Before Melanie passed me, she stopped and looked at me, her eyes red and puffy. “Watch yourself, Parker,” she told me. “You’re in way over your head.”
    Then she turned away and kept going.
    I looked over at Tara, surrounded by her new allies from all the different camps, and she threw me a