Empress of the World Read Online Free PDF Page B

complicated things to do with my arms, and I completely lost track of where my feet were. Everyone laughed.”
    “Really?” I ask. I can’t imagine Battle ever doing anything ungraceful.
    “Of course, I was five at the time,” she adds with a little smile.
    Before I can start to feel embarrassed again, Katrina starts talking. “You know . . . I bet, Nic, because of what happened to you, they won’t make next year’s group go on a Hike. What a noble sacrifice you made! You should be very proud.”

    After they leave, I write in my notebook.
    isaac = smart, sweet, funny, cute but not too cute, super nice to me. all logic demands that i should have a crush on him.??? . . . i wish i knew the name of that flower.

June 22, 8:27 p.m., My Room
    It seems like the point of this article on typology is that when archaeologists find pottery shards or whatever, they organize them somehow into different categories.
    What I don’t get is how they know where each one belongs. I mean, say you find this shard that has a pattern of wavy red and white lines. Why would you necessarily say that it has anything to do with a shard that has wavy green and white lines? Maybe the green meant something totally different. Maybe the red ones were only used on special occasions. Or maybe women used the red ones and men used the green ones. I just don’t understand how you decide where something fits.
    I stare at the words on the page until they turn into gibberish.
    Battle had Archaeology last year. She must have learned about typology. Or should I ask Anne? No, she probably won’t have understood it either. Besides, I don’t know where her room is, and if I tried to walk there my ankle would start hurting before I found it. And I bet she’s on the phone with her lifeguard boy anyway.
    Battle’s room is just down the hall. It has a sign on the door which says, “All hope abandon, ye who enter here,” with a picture of a three-headed dog. Battle made the three-headed dog picture on her computer, which of course Katrina was delighted to hear. Two of the heads are the actual heads of her dogs. The third head is the two of them morphed together in some complex electronic way.
    It’s kind of odd that I haven’t seen Battle’s room yet. But she’s only been to mine when she and Katrina came to see me after I hurt my ankle. Mostly the three of us gather in Katrina’s because she always wants to smoke, and Battle and I refuse to have her do it in our rooms.
    I knock on the door. After a moment, Battle opens it. She smiles, and her eyes look even greener than usual. She’s twisted her hair into a bun, which is secured with two pencils.
    “Hi, are you busy?” I ask.
    She shakes her head. “Come on in,” she says. “Look at my shrine to Dante and Beatrice!”
    Almost the whole wall behind her desk is covered with pictures of her dogs. The dogs running around in a big manicured yard, the dogs asleep on what must be Battle’s bed back home, the dogs just standing around randomly looking adorable. “I miss my doggies,” she says.
    “I would never have guessed,” I say.
    She smiles. “Do you have a dog?” she asks.
    I shake my head. “I had a goldfish once, but it died. And I guess you could say I have partial custody of my friends’ cat, Frank.”
    Battle’s room is terrifyingly clean. There are no clothes on the floor, the bed is made, there are no empty pop cans or candy bar wrappers. Even her books are in a neat pile on her desk, not scattered throughout the room on every available surface in Katrina’s and my preferred method of organization. Her parents must love her.
    “Which is which?” I ask, looking at the dog pictures.
    “Dante is the sweet one. Beatrice is more troubled, she’s a little worrier.” Apparently Dante is just slightly taller, and has darker markings around his face. I still can’t tell them apart when she’s done explaining.
    “Sit down,” she says, gesturing at the bed.
    “I like the floor,” I