Necessary Roughness Read Online Free PDF

Korean-English dictionary and just read it, like he was reading a book.
    A thought suddenly occurred to me. Was this how he taught himself English?
    I would’ve given a lot to know what the writing in the margins said. I guess I would’ve given a lot to know
anything,
only I didn’t want to have to ask him. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?
    Abogee’s snores went up, then down.
SNARK!-wheeze. SNARK!-wheeze.
His forehead was creased, as if he had to concentrate on staying asleep. I put the Bible gently back in its place and left the room.
    When Abogee appeared at dinner, he looked like he’d just come out of a coma. Young and I didn’t say a thing. He and O-Ma went to bed early.

eight
    When I saw the all the kids walking up the lawn, converging at the brick school building, my heart went from its normal
lub-dub, lub-dub
to
lub-dubdubdub, lub-dubdubdub.
    A bunch of girls in T-shirts that said IRON RIVER CHEERLEADERS were practicing jumps and pyramids on the front lawn. They stopped and stared as Young and I went by.
    The kids looked normal enough, like kids, anyway, but I finally figured out what was weird.
    They were all blond.
    Blond beyond California blond. Albino blond. Some had hair so light you practically couldn’t see individual strands, like their hair was molded out of butter. I strained to catch a glimpse of the familiar black hair and black eyes of the Asian or Mexican kids. Or the dark skin of the black kids. Nope. It was a complete whiteout. Young was staring too.
    “Do you think people will know we’re twins?” she asked. Her voice quavered a little.
    “We
do
look alike, don’t we?” I said. My own voice sounded thin, like it was cracking around the edges. Man, I had to do better than this. My own little sister was taking this better than I was.
    My first class was biology. I trudged to the room on the second floor, took a deep breath, and walked in.
    Everyone got really quiet.
    I took a seat in the back and instinctively reached for the bill of my baseball cap—which wasn’t there. At my old school I wore my L.A. Dodgers hat all the time. I could hide under it if I wanted to daydream. I wouldn’t have minded hiding under it now.
    But no more. There’s a
dress code
here. No hats, shorts, open-toe sandals, midriff-baring tops, and other things I can’t remember. Unbelievable. The closest our old school came to that was when they said you couldn’t wear gang-related stuff.
    I snuck a look at the guy next to me and noticed that
he
was wearing a T-shirt with a dazed smiley face that said GET HIGH on it. Then I saw how he was staring at me.
    Everyone was staring. Okay, so I’m a two-headed mutant rhino, so thick-skinned that I won’t notice if you gawk. I tried to act like I didn’t care.
    I’m a lousy actor.
    The door opened and a tall skinny man who looked like Prince Charles charged into the room.
    “Sorry I’m late, class,” he said, glancing at the wall clock. “As you’ve probably figured out, I’m Mr. Minsky, your biology teacher.”
    He looked at a sheet of paper waiting on his desk.
    “Chan Jung Kim. New student. Did I say your name right?”
    I nodded. I guess it didn’t take too much for him to figure I was the new guy. “Please call me Chan.”
    “Okay. Welcome to Iron River High School. Class, give a hand to your new classmate, Chan Kim.” Everyone clapped listlessly.
    I was a little disappointed that Mr. Minsky didn’t mention I was from L.A. He just told us to put covers on our textbooks.
    I had to do this hello-I’m-Chan-I’m-new-thanks-for-the-applause routine for three more classes and then it was lunch. In that time, no one had come up to me offering to be my best buddy, so I was going to have to sit alone. That’s what happens when you’re new.
    It made it a billion times worse, the way everyone was blabbering on excitedly to everyone—How was your summer? Did you see so-and-so?—just the way I’d be if I were back home. Crud. Now I didn’t even know where the