Hit and Run Read Online Free PDF

and I’d still have enough money left over to take Jen out.

    I grabbed the cordless phone and carried it back to the living room, dialing on the way. It was stupid. It was like stepping up to the self-serve counter and asking for an order of trouble—supersized, of course—but I wanted to tell someone my good news. I flopped onto the couch and listened to the ringing on the other end of the line. Then:
    â€œHello?” It was a woman’s voice. I recognized her right away—Jen’s mom. Her voice sounded cold and suspicious.
    â€œCan I speak to Jen, please?”
    â€œWho is this?” she demanded. I never called Jen’s house, and I was beginning to wish I hadn’t picked up the phone now. Then I thought,
Where did she learn herphone manners, anyway?
I’d been nice, said please. She was snarling at me without having any idea who I was. One more thing that money didn’t buy, I guess.
    â€œI’m a friend of Jen’s. From school.”
    â€œShe’s never mentioned anyone named Wyatt,” she said, even though I hadn’t said my name—which isn’t Wyatt. That was Billy’s name.
    Then I realized that she had call display. Still, she had no right to quiz me. Jen wasn’t a baby. She could decide for herself whether she wanted to talk to me.
    â€œLook, is she home or what?” I said.
    In the background I heard a man’s voice. Jen’s dad. A big-deal Bay Street lawyer. “Who is it, Margaret?”
    â€œShe’s not available,” Jen’s mother told me. I imagined her smiling as she said it, looking like Cruella de Vil or Snow White’s nasty, nasty stepmother.
    Then I heard another voice, a female voice, say, “Who’s not available?”
    I wished I could shout over Jen’s mother to get Jen’s attention, but I couldn’t. So I hung up. A few seconds later the phone rang. Jen, maybe? I pressed the on button.
    â€œWho is this?” a voice demanded. Jen’s mother again. “Who is this? Why are you calling my daughter?”
    I hit off and didn’t answer when the phone rang a third time. Jeez, how could Jen stand living with parents like those?

CHAPTER THREE
    Mr. Morrison, my homeroom teacher, wagged a finger at me as I came through the door on Monday morning.
    â€œMr. Gianneris wants to see you in his office,” he said. “Right now.”
    Mr. Gianneris was the vice principal. He motioned me into a chair as soon as I stepped into his office. I glanced at the picture of his wife and kids that he kept on his desk for everyone to see. I wondered what vice principals were like when they weren’t at school, chewing out kids. Did they do a quick brain transfer at the end of the day? Or did they go home and chew out their kids the way they did everyone else? My personal opinion: Mr. Gianneris was like the dad in one of my mom’s favorite movies,
The Sound of Music
. Line them up and march them to breakfast, Maria. After inspection, of course, and only if they pass.
    He peered solemnly at me across his desk. It wasone of those moves that was supposed to make me sweat or confess or something. Then he opened a file folder, glanced at the contents, and asked me if I knew why he had called me down. When I said I didn’t, he gave me his best vice-principal glower and said, “Really?”
    I thought about giving him some wiseass answer, but what was the point? I was already in trouble. Jazzing Gianneris was only going to make him double whatever punishment he had already decided to dish out.
    â€œThis is about history class, right?” I said.
    â€œSpecifically, it’s about ditching history class,” Mr. Gianneris said. He glanced at the file folder again. “In fact, it’s about ditching the whole day on Friday.”
    Blah, blah, blah. End of story: a week of detentions.
    â€œThree-thirty to four-thirty, every day this week, Mike,” Mr. Gianneris said,