Mojo Read Online Free PDF Page A

cartoon-character backpacks, and you just—you know—you feel huge. Then comes middle school and there’s like ten times more kids, and you don’t even get to know who they are before they ship you to high school and there’s even more kids. You’re fourteen and there’s guys in the halls with full-grown beards. Girls with giant boobs. And it’s not like I’m a bottom-feeder or anything, but I’m sure not at the top, and the middle is so vast you might as well be nobody. So think about what college will be like. And then you get spewed out of that into this churning ocean of life. What then? Am I going to be like this little speck of plankton for these humongous stupid cop sharks to gobble up and crap out their other end?”
    “Wow, you really let those cops do a number on you.” Audrey’s expression of concern turned into a mischievous smile. “But think of it this way—at least then you could go to prison. That ought to be pretty manageable. Who knows, you might even be prom queen.”
    But I’m like, “That’s not funny. I mean, listen, you have no idea what it was like sitting in that police station having a couple of cops trying to hound you into confessing to something you didn’t do, treating you like everything you ever did doesn’t matter. I guarantee there’s nothing more depressing than knowing morons have complete power over you.”
    “Really, Dylan? What do you think it’s like being gay? I have the whole legal system telling me I’m not good enough to fall in love and get married, but that’s because they’re losers, not me.”
    “Yeah, well, good for you.”
    Brenda, the waitress, walked up to take our order, and when she left, I’m like, “My problem is I don’t have any
mojo
. That’s what I need. I need to get some mojo.”
    “Some what?”
    “Mojo. You know, power.”
    “I don’t think that’s what mojo is.”
    “Of course that’s what it is. Mojo. Juice. Pull. Clout. Respect.”
    “No.” Audrey shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. I don’t think you know what you want.”
    “Why do you always have to disagree with me so much?”
    “Because you’re wrong so much?”
    “Really? Think about this—what if Hector had been some rich dude? Things would be different now. The cops would do a whole lot more investigating into what happened instead of just rubber-stamping it as an accidental overdose. And on top of that, I’d get a lot more respect for finding him that night. That’s mojo.”
    “And you think that’d change everything?”
    “It’d be a start.”
    “Then why don’t you go looking for Ashton Browning?”
    “Ashton who?”
    “Browning. Ashton Browning. The missing girl who’s all over the news.”
    “What missing girl? I haven’t heard anything about it.”
    “Of course you haven’t. And that’s exactly why you’ll never be the editor of the school paper—because you never actually pay attention to the news.”
    Audrey was always trying to goad me into taking the paper more seriously.
    Acting all exasperated, she pulled out her phone—which I’d like to point out was a lot more expensive than mine—and started looking up the news story online. “Here it is. Come here.”
    I moved over to her side of the booth. Sure enough, it was a big story. There was even a video about it from the local news. Apparently, this Ashton Browning girl was the daughter of a banking big shot. I don’t even think he was president of the bank—he was more like the boss of the president. Anyway, Ashton told her friends she was going jogging at the nature park north of town, where you can go hiking or running if that’s what you’re into, among the squirrels and foxes and lizards and whatnot. She never came home. Officials—whoever they were—found her car there but no trace of her.
    I stared at her photo—seventeen, blond, blue-eyed, rich. It’s funny—some people you can tell they’re rich just by looking at them, and she was definitely one