Geography Club Read Online Free PDF Page A

good,” or “Can I get a napkin?” It was strange. Now that the pizzas had arrived, it was like we couldn’t talk in groups of two or three anymore. For some reason, now we all had to talk together as a group.
    Things stayed quiet. Ike scratched a tattoo. Finally I said, “So. Here we are.” I sounded like an idiot, I know, but it just seemed like I had to say something. After all, this little get-together had been my idea.
    “Yeah,” Min said. “Here we are.” She obviously felt some responsibility too, maybe because she’d suggested this gathering to Terese, who’d even brought Ike.
    No one said anything, and I was particularly annoyed with Kevin, just sitting there gulping down pizza like a homeless man at a soup kitchen. He was supposed to be my friend. Couldn’t he at least try to help keep this meal from dying an agonizing death?
    He kicked back in his seat and looked over at Terese. “You guys got a good team this year?”
    Okay, I thought, maybe he isn’t so thick after all.
    “Sokay,” Terese said. “We lost a couple of seniors last year, but most of our talent is sophomores anyway. Our goalie’s a freshman.”
    “Wish we could say that,” Kevin said. “We lost our pitcher and most of our hitters. We’re goin’ begging.”
    Terese looked like she was going to say something else, but then she seemed to realize that no one else was talking. And like I said before, suddenly it seemed like whatever was said was being said to the whole group. So she fell silent.
    I thought, So much for sports as a topic of conversation.
    Ike stared down at the pizza. “You know they genetically modify tomatoes?” he said. “They tried to make them redder, and it worked, but they ended up really small. And now they’ve made tomatoes that can grow in salt water.”
    “Oh!” Min said, perking up. “Is that like when they took genes from a flounder and inserted them into strawberry plants, so the berries wouldn’t be killed by frost?”
    Ike nodded excitedly. “I heard they somehow crossed a goat with a spider.”
    “There’s a joke in there somewhere,” I quipped. “Something about Little Miss Muffet eating the spider’s curds and whey.” I was trying to be funny, but no one laughed except Min, who only chuckled. Ike didn’t even smile, and I decided I didn’t like him very much. Then I saw him glance over at Kevin, and his gaze seemed to linger. I thought, Why is he looking at Kevin? Min and I were the ones who’d been talking. That’s when I knew the real reason I didn’t like Ike: he wanted to move in on Kevin.
    “Know what else they do?” Ike was saying. “Seed companies change plants’ genes so they can’t make any new seeds. Then they sell the seeds really cheap, like in third world countries. That way, farmers have to keep buying new seeds again year after year. And once the farmers are hooked, the companies slowly raise the prices.”
    This time, it was Min who looked like she was going to say something. But like Terese a few minutes earlier, she seemed to sense that most of us weren’t interested in this topic either, so she didn’t speak up.
    So much for politics.
    Here we were, halfway through our pizzas, and it was suddenly clear that, as a group, we had nothing in common whatsoever. We were just five random people. Why should we hit it off just because we all happened to be gay? It was stupid. Ridiculous.
    “We’re all alone,” I said.
    It was quiet for a second. Then Terese said, “Man, is that true.”
    “Sure can’t tell your family,” Kevin said. “My dad would go feral.”
    “Mine too,” Min said. “I’m not even sure my mom knows what ‘gay’ is. And even if I could get her to understand that, how do I ever get her to understand ‘bisexual’?”
    “Can’t tell your friends either,” Ike said, staring down at the pizza again, but not at the tomatoes this time. “Even if they say they’re radical. They’re not radical about this. Not when they’re still