Pass It On Read Online Free PDF Page B

There was a saleslady called Mary who was hovering around us. She was about my mom’s age.
    â€œDo you think it works?” she asked. Mary took me kind of seriously. I’d been buying clothes from her since I was ten.
    â€œI’m not sure,” I said. What the hell does someone need to wear to hike in the waterfalls in Venezuela, anyway? I pulled out my cell phoneand held down the number 4, which speed-dialed Mickey.
    He picked up on the third ring and said, “One sec.”
    I could hear his teacher yelling at him that no cell phones were allowed in class. After a moment it got quieter and I assumed Mickey was going into the hallway to talk, which is what he always did when I called him during the day at school. Of course talking on cell phones at school wasn’t allowed, but Mickey has this way of repelling rules or something. Like he’s got a magnetic force, and no matter how much someone yells at him or gives him detention, it never really pans out.
    â€œDude, I’m in Ralph Lauren and I need your advice on this windbreaker. I like it, but more importantly, I need to know if this is the kind of thing you wear when you’re hiking or doing something else outside that’s like that.”
    â€œWhere are
you
going hiking?” He said this like it was the craziest idea he’d ever heard.
    â€œWell, there’s some shit happening with me, and I can’t really go into it all, but the most important thing for you to know at this moment is that my dad is getting remarried and he asked me togo on the honeymoon with him and his new wife and her son, who is named Serge and apparently likes to hike and do stuff like that, and no way am I going to be showed up by some foreign kid who likes adventure shit.”
    â€œWhoa, buddy,” Mickey said. “First of all, that’s sort of rough about your dad and I’m sorry. Secondly, where is this hiking happening, and third, can I come? I can help you with the outdoorsy stuff.”
    I knew that if this was anyone but Mickey, I’d think he was being a little forward, but the whole candid thing was part of what made him so awesome. And at that moment, I was totally sure he was the guy that I wanted with me to confront my dad and Serge and PISS and whatever weird bugs or other animals might be out in nature. I looked around for Arno and caught a glimpse of him in front of the antique watch counter, flirting with a blond girl in a black suit. She was rubbing perfume into his pulse points.
    â€œAll through the Caribbean on this huge sailboat, and yeah, I’d really like you to come with me. It’s just—”
    â€œAwesome. Better head back in before I get detention for a week.”
    â€œMickey, there’s one other thing …” But he’d already clicked off. I handed my American Express card to Mary and told her I’d take the jacket with all the pockets. I went over to Arno while she rang it up.
    â€œSmell this,” he said.
    â€œYeah, you smell good, like a girl who just took a bath.”
    â€œThat’s right. Now while I’m at school and bored this afternoon, I’ll be able to smell girls because I smell like one! Smart, huh?”
    â€œYeah, brilliant.” The saleswoman smiled and gave Arno her card. Then Mary came back and handed me my card and a shiny blue RL bag, and we walked back to school. It was incredibly bright out, and not too cold. Normally Arno would have spent a walk like that making fun of me for the girls I’m currently not hanging around with, like Fernanda, who goes to Barnard and said she was too mature for me, and Patch’s little sister, Flan, who is way too young but weirdly cool, and Liza Komansky (but we never talk about her since Arno fooled around with her a month or so ago), but instead he just kept smelling himself and smiling.
    We were near school and we began to say our
what’s ups
to guys as they passed. Among the many things