My Year of Epic Rock Read Online Free PDF Page A

me—it’s not like Brianna ever kept her opinions to herself. Once in fifth grade I told Alexis that Brianna thought Thomas Aronstein was a good athlete—which he is, everyone knows that!—and Brianna was so mad she screamed at me and then didn’t talk to me for, like, almost a week, because she said it made it seem like she had a crush on Thomas. Which she did. In order to get her to talk to me again, I had to apologize about twenty times and buy her a “Forgive Me” card from the drugstore.
    I still don’t think I did anything wrong.
    Would Brianna, Shelley, and I have sleepovers now, all three of us? Maybe Shelley was a lot nicer than I thought. Shelley was probably just cautious with new people because everyone judged her for being so pretty and because everyone made such a big deal out of her when she moved here.
    I wondered what her house was like. Would she want to come over after school with Brianna some time? Would it be weird to have snacks after school? What if snacks were so not seventh grade? All that thinking about food made me wish I had a slice of blueberry buckle cake.
    After math was over, it was time for language arts with the ancient Miss Teitlebaum. She was so old that I know parents of kids in my grade who had her as a teacher. Miss Teitlebaum had what looked like one long strand of hair wrapped around her head in a big circle. Also she smelled like corn on the cob. One time I heard she fell asleep during class and no one woke her so she was still snoring when the bell rang.
    After my morning classes finally wrapped up, I went to my locker to get my lunch bag and headed into the cafeteria as quickly as I could. The sixth graders were only halfway through their allotted eating time, and they were yelling and acting totally immature. I saw one boy sneak up and wipe his hand on the back of a girl’s shirt and then race back to a group of other boys, laughing and pointing.
    The seventh graders were just filing in. I looked around and caught sight of Brianna, who was searching the room for someone. Was it me? We hadn’t staked a claim to our table yet.
    I walked over to her, smiling.
    â€œOh, hi, Nina,” Brianna said, but she didn’t really even look at me.
    No. It wasn’t me she’d been looking for.
    â€œHey, Brianna,” I said hesitantly. “Is everything okay? You know? Like, in general? Are you mad at me?”
    She looked uncomfortable and almost annoyed.
    â€œOf course everything is totally fine. It’s all good. Have you seen Shelley? Oh, wait! There she is! Shelley!” Brianna raced over to Shelley and gave her a huge hug and pointed to the table near where she’d been standing. She pulled Shelley over by the hand.
    â€œI saved us seats,” Brianna said to her. I sat down at the table and put my brown paper bag in front of me too.
    â€œOh, awesome,” I said, even though she hadn’t said a word about saving me a seat. I hoped it was because she just assumed I’d sit with them, but deep down, I realized I was being pathetic. Brianna was crystal clear about telling people what she wanted. It’s not like she’d transformed into a new, less bossy or opinionated person after a month in Italy. If she’d wanted me to sit with her, she would have invited—no, insisted—that I join them. She wasn’t insisting because she didn’t care.
    Great .
    â€œLet’s go buy lunch,” Shelley said, dropping the striped hoodie she’d tied around her waist down on the bench. “Are you coming?” Shelley asked me.
    I pointed to my lunch. “No, I’m all set.”
    The two of them walked off to wait in the cafeteria line together, not even looking back at me once.
    â€œYeah, see you guys,” I mumbled, taking out my pretzels and hummus and crumpling my stupid babyish paper bag into a ball. My lunch looked seriously unappetizing.
    I watched all my classmates inching forward