Infinite (Strange and Beautiful, Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

which sounded a million times
better than what usually came on a tray. I wouldn’t consider myself a picky
eater, but Government food freaked me out. Well, except for the pizza. It was
the one thing I could actually get excited about eating at school. Aside from
pizza days, I used to always take my lunch to school, but I thought I’d give
high school food a try. Or at least the a la carte line, anyway.
    After we got our food (pizza for Tegan and a pretzel with cheese
for me and juice for both of us from the vending machine), we went to sit with
some of Tegan’s friends. To tell the truth, I really didn’t have very many
friends. There were people I’d talk to in my classes, but I didn’t really hang
out with any of them outside of school. Sometimes I’d tag along with Tegan when
she’d go out with her other friends, and while they were nice and would talk to
me, I knew they thought I was weird. It was as if I’d been deemed a freak in
kindergarten and had been unable to shake the label ever since.
    Sometimes Mom would tell me she thought I needed to make more
friends to spend my time with. I knew she thought that Tegan was the only
person I ever talked to, which wasn’t the case at all. I talked to people at
school. I knew most of my classmate’s names, but I wasn’t sure if all of them
knew mine. Still, it wasn’t like I was completely anti-social or made the
decision alone to have so few friends. I just didn’t see those other people I
talked to outside of a school setting most of the time, but I was mostly okay
with that. Besides, I’d rather have one really great friend like Tegan than
have ten that weren’t so great.
    Lunch ended way too soon, but then it was time to go to my elective
class: Journalism. I had to coax Tegan into taking it with me, but it was
Journalism or Sociology, and Tegan had no interest in Sociology. I thought it
sounded like it could have been cool because it’s the study of human social
behavior, which I found thoroughly fascinating, but Tierney told us that the
teacher, Mrs. Fortright, was a complete bitch. Since Tierney hardly ever cursed
or thought badly of people, we knew it had to be true. So Journalism it was.
    Our class was in the computer lab, and our teacher was Mr.
Hensley. He was tall and thin with thinning reddish brown hair and big glasses.
He was really nice and told us all about what we’d be doing in class, which
was, essentially, making a newspaper for the school.
    Tegan groaned, and I grinned as I wondered what I could possibly
write about, but instead of picking topics right away, he taught us about
different laws and rules of good journalism. Then we had to pick a name for our
newspaper. He made us all write down a suggestion, and he wrote the names on
the board. Then we voted and narrowed it down to three before we voted again
and picked the official name, which turned out to be the oh-so-exciting title
of The Scoop . I didn’t like the name. I liked my suggestion— The
Juggernaut— better, but not many people knew what it meant, so I guess they
didn’t vote for it. Or at least that was the story I told myself.
    I really liked Journalism, and Tegan seemed to like it too
despite her groans and initial misgivings. That class went by way too fast, and
before long it was time to go to our last class of the day: English
Composition.
    Our teacher’s name was Miss Barkley. I had heard many stories
about her from my siblings. Luke was convinced that she was a lesbian, and I
had to admit that she was rather butch, which lent itself to Luke’s theory. She
had super short hair and had almost a rugged look to her face. She wore wire
rim glasses, and the way she stood reminded me of a drill sergeant. Skylar
never really mentioned her thoughts on Miss Barkley’s sexual orientation—not
that it mattered anyway; Skylar usually just complained about how hard her
class was. The one thing Luke and Skylar really agreed on was that Miss Barkley
was really strict.
    To tell