Mr. Fahrenheit Read Online Free PDF Page A

unspeakably sad look on her face and said, “Santa isn’t real.” When Benji tried to insist otherwise, the girl interrupted with solemn finality: “I googled it.”
    Magicians are in the business of wonder, but the truth is,most illusions depend on unextraordinary items. Thread. A rubber band. Smoke and mirrors. People always talk about “misdirection,” but in Benji’s opinion, a more accurate way of describing what a magician does was just “direction.” He directs your gaze toward the apparently impossible so he can steal your heart, and give it back to you, enlarged. And by doing that for you, he can do it to himself, too.
    But only if you let him.
    â€œWhat happened to him?” Benji asked as he and Ellie stopped in their chairs but Zeeko continued to sled.
    â€œWho?” she replied.
    â€œSpinney.”
    â€œI would say he just ran the hell out of maybes ,” Ellie said. “Like, when you’re a kid, you’re just this adorable mass of—”
    â€œI’m still adorable,” Zeeko called, chair-zooming by.
    â€œDon’t I know it. Date me, stud.”
    â€œSorry, dahling, my parents are strict: They don’t want me to date until I’m married,” Zeeko said as he glided away.
    â€œAnyway,” she said, “kids are adorable little maybes : Maybe they’ll be president, or walk on Mars, or maybe they’ll cure cancer or write the great American novel or run a three-minute mile. But the older you get, honey, the fewer maybes you got. So you wake up one day, and hot damn, you’ve used all yours up, and you’re not ‘a potential.’ You’re not what you might be. You’re just what you are.” She shrugged. She might have been explaining gravity.
    â€œWhat I like about you is, you’re always so positive,” Benji said.
    Ellie smiled, playfully punching his shoulder, which didn’t hurt at all. “Just a realist, my friend.” After a moment, the smile faded, replaced with an un-Ellie-like fear. “I shouldn’t be so bitchy about him. I’m probably worried I’ll end up like him,honestly. I’m still working on that short film for my application to the film program at Northwestern. I’ve got some okay footage around town, but I can’t get the narration written. The movie’s message leaves something to be desired. Specifically, a message, ha-ha.”
    â€œI’m sure it’s awesome.”
    â€œThat’s sweet. That’s very sweet. But no, it’s emphatically unawesome. I just have this feeling, like this emotion crushing my windpipe sometimes, that the things I want to do with my life are not going to happen for me, that I’m going to be a cautionary tale instead of a success story. What if the people at Northwestern hate my stuff, you know? People say you should make what you love, but when you do and people reject it, they’re saying that what you love is stupid, that your love itself is stupid. Just, ugh. Life is not supposed to be this complicated, Benji Lightman!”
    Benji laughed. “I don’t think it is that complicated, though,” he said. “I don’t accept that Spinney did anything except give up. At some point, there had to be a moment when things could have gone either way for him, when he could have made whatever life he wanted. Like, your life might look like this huge, roving landscape, but only a handful of pinpoints actually matter . I’ve believed that since I was a kid. Spinney had to become the kind of person who deserved that life, though. Maybe the moment was that he could have chosen to work harder or just drop out. I don’t know. It sucks for him that he didn’t live up to that moment, but that’s his own fault.”
    Ellie thought about it a little. “Do you think everyone has one? A moment that changes everything?” she said.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œEven you,