Girl Meets Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

this afternoon.” He laughed as he pushed me through the swinging door, but I wasn’t particularly amused.
    Johnny wouldn’t talk to me on the way home from school that afternoon. He didn’t even want to come in when I told him my foster folks would be gone for at least another hour.
    “You don’t want me,” I said. “I knew it would end. Guys always say they love you, then dump you as soon as you believe it’s true.”
    “We’ve been over this,” he said, his voice laced with frustration. “I want you. But we can’t do it ALL the time. I mean a guy runs out of bodily fluids. And no matter how many times I tell you I love you, you never believe it’s true. So why should I waste my breath?”
    “Because I’m supposed to matter to you,” I said, my temper rising. “I suppose you won’t answer your cell phone again, either,” I continued. “You didn’t answer it Wednesday, as I recall. Too busy screwing around with your new girlfriend? Isn’t that how we got together in the first place? Poor little Johnny didn’t want to blow it with another preppy girl? Except I’m not a preppy, am I, Johnny? I’m just your first stab at dating a whore.”
    “We’re not going to go there today, Wanda,” he said. “I just don’t have time.” He leaned over to kiss me good-bye, but you better believe I turned my face away.
    “I don’t need you,” I said in a panic. “There are plenty of guys who can take care of me if you’re not up for the job.”
    “I’ll call you later tonight,” he said. “And I’ll pick you up tomorrow for school.”
    “Don’t bother,” I said. “I could be dead by morning. So pick up your new preppy girlfriend instead.”
    He wasn’t gone five minutes before I was sorry for losing my temper and I remembered I was late for detention with good old Coach Bob. But just as I predicted, Johnny wasn’t answering his phone—and I dialed every four minutes to be sure.
    “Where are you?” I screamed into the receiver as I put my RAV4 in neutral and walked in fifteen minutes late for a half-hour detention. “You’re never there when I need you,” I hollered. “I’ve friggin’ had it with you, you worthless little boy.”
    “Man trouble?” Coach Butler said as I walked into the media center, his feet on the librarian’s desk.
    “Where are all the other convicts?” I said, throwing my cell phone into my purse.
    “No one else was this late, Miss Wickham,” he said. “So I gave the others a friendly reprieve.”
    “Then I’m free to go,” I said. “I mean, if the other little hellions were pardoned, shouldn’t that apply to me?”
    “All the other hellions showed up for detention,” Butler said. “So for the next two hours, you’re stuck with me.”
    “Two friggin’ hours?” I said. “Jesus, Bobby, won’t your little woman miss you when you don’t come home for chicken casserole and herbal tea?”
    “The little woman is at her five-year college reunion,” he said in a husky, sexual tone. “We’ve got all the time that we need.”
    Yeah, there was something familiar about all this, something I hadn’t noticed since Johnny stepped in to clutter my view. But now that Beaver Cleaver was history, I remembered how broad my options had always been. Coach Bob would do for now, I thought. And at least there was something I could count on. Nothing lasts forever, but when you get right down to it, some things never change.

FALLING DOWN
TO SEE THE MOON
by Joseph Bruchac

    You don’t have to fall down to see the moon.
    That’s what I thought Sensei Dwight told me right after we bowed out on the foul line. I wasn’t happy. It seemed as if our class was over before it began.
    The Green Grass Youth Drum was already taking over the gym floor, and there was a lot of noise. It didn’t matter one bit to the drum group that they were walking out onto what had been our sacred dojo space only seconds before. Where we had entered on reverent bare feet, they were all now