Naomi Grim Read Online Free PDF Page A

have to tell
Doyle," I replied.
    Bram pulled out his phone as the bell
rang. "You guys get to class. I'll take care of it."
    * * *
    "We need to talk before
lunch," Roxy whispered in my ear as I changed for PE.
    "Okay, about what?" I asked,
but Paige and Ashley entered the locker room, and Roxy shook her head.
    I'd decided to change in front of the
other girls. I took my clothes off and put my PE uniform on quickly. No one
even paid me any attention, so I relaxed.
    "Naomi and I are going to the
bathroom. We'll meet you at the table," Roxy told the girls after PE. But
we didn't go to the bathroom, instead she pushed me into the corner of a
deserted hallway.
    I got a weird feeling in my stomach.
"What's wrong?"
    "I have to warn you about
Hunter."
    "What about him?" I asked.
    "I think he likes you, but he's
Ashley's ex, so he's off limits."
     Why was she telling me this?
    "Naomi, Ashley's a little—how can I
say it, crazy. She's mad possessive. If you're going to hang with us, you
cannot hook up with Hunter."
    I shrugged. "That's fine. I don't
like Hunter anyway," I lied.
    Roxy smiled. "Good." She
looped her arm in mine. "Let's go eat lunch."
    I'd eaten Doritos, a brownie, and drank
a Coke two days in a row, so I thought I'd switch it up. Fritos, a chocolate
chip cookie, and a Sprite. Mother would flip if she could see the way I'd been
eating.
    Roxy and I joined Paige and Ashley at
the table. They were engrossed in conversation about a girl named Kelsie who
was supposedly pregnant. I looked around the cafeteria for Hunter, but he was
nowhere in sight. I guessed that was a good thing.
    Ashley nudged Paige with her elbow.
"Look."
    I rolled my eyes, hoping they weren't
talking about Bram again. I turned around to see Keira enter the cafeteria with
a half-dozen other kids all dressed in black.
    "Isn’t that your friend?"
Paige asked. "Why is she hanging out with the Goth freaks?"
    I clenched my teeth. I kind of hated
when humans tried to imitate our lifestyle. To many of them, it was simply a
style of dress, a fashion statement; to us, it was a way of life, not to be
taken lightly.
    I shrugged. "She can hang out with
who she wants."
    "Why was she being so bossy
yesterday?" Ashley asked. "She was acting like she owned you. It was
a little weird."
    "She was just having a bad day;
we're good now," I answered.
    Hunter plopped down at the table with a
handful of junk food. "Did you enjoy the bagel?"
    "What bagel?" Ashley asked.
    "I gave her a bagel this
morning," Hunter said.
    Ashley made a face at me like I was
rotten meat. "Why?"
    "Why not?" Hunter said,
opening his bag of onion rings.
    "Look," Roxy said, nudging
Paige, "There's that new girl in our math class." The conversation
shifted to Amanda and her awful attire.
    Amanda took a seat at the table across
from us. She wasn't eating. She pulled a tattered paperback from her backpack
and began to read. I couldn't help but stare. Amanda looked up from her book
and made eye contact with me. I looked away.
    The bell rang, telling us lunch period
was over. We began to gather our trash, except for Ashley, who sat resting her
chin on the palm of her hand. "Why do you think so many new kids are
showing up all of a sudden? There was a new kid in my French class and one in
Language Arts. That's kind of off, especially so late in the year." Her
eyes, looking like pools of water, bored into mine as if waiting for an answer.
           A nervous feeling filled my
stomach. "Who knows?" I asked. "I guess it's just one of those
things."

Chapter 16
     
     
    The Friday of our first week had
arrived. We would have two days off from school before returning to school on
Monday. Weekends. I liked that. In Nowhere, there were no days off. We studied
every single day.
    "What are you doing this
weekend?" Paige asked me as we changed after PE
    "I'll probably just hang out and
read or something."
    "Boooooring," Roxy said.
"You are definitely not doing that. You're going to hang with us. Tomorrow
afternoon