Pick-me-up Read Online Free PDF Page A

friend’s house, a sleep-in at the
Recreation Center, and, most recently, her professed innocence at
the missing $20 bill out of her mom’s wallet Saturday before she
left for Jenny’s.
    “Where did you meet him?” Her mom
persisted.
    Katelyn walked around the table and grabbed
the phone out of her mother’s hand. Her mother didn’t resist.
    “Geez, mom. Not everything is your business.
Can’t I live my own life?” She knew she was being dramatic as she
tossed her blonde hair and turned down the hall, but she was
uncomfortable about the lie. She turned back as another concern
took precedence. “Oh, you’ll have to call school. Gorman said I’ll
get in-school suspension if I’m late again.”
    Her mom threw her voice after her, “Maybe
that’d be a good thing.”
     

Chapter 5: Act
II
    In
English class, Katelyn slouched low in her desk chair with her feet
propped up on the back of the seat in front of her. She was having
a hard time keeping her eyes open, let alone trying to focus on the
script of Romeo & Juliet open on the desk next to hers. She’d
lost her textbook months ago. She thought it might be in the back
of Jodi’s car. Jodi was Katelyn’s oldest sister. Great, Katelyn
thought, I’ll never see that again. Jodi was banned from the house
since her boyfriend, Brandon, stole her mom’s ATM card and withdrew
over $600 before her mom caught on. Jodi was the one who had given
him the pin number.
    Katelyn stifled a yawn. She had stayed up
late sending messages back and forth with Tim. After meeting him
Friday at Jenny’s apartment, Katelyn hadn’t gone more than a few
hours without contact from him. Today was quiet, though. Tim went
to the alternative school in Ames nine miles down the highway.
Katelyn wondered why she hadn’t heard from him. She heard the
alternative school had a freer schedule and let kids use phones and
email during classes.
    “How many of you believe in love at first
sight?” Katelyn wasn’t the only student stirring from a near
drooling state at the change in voice. The teacher stood at the
front of the room, a short, dark-haired, overweight woman who
failed to energize the classroom full of students. Her hand was
still poised over the pause button on the CD player. The previous
day she had made the students fill character roles and read the
lines, but most of the words came out butchered. The teacher had
corrected so many lines, so she might as well have read them all
herself. Instead she impatiently kept looking at the clock. There
were less than three weeks until school was out for the summer.
What a shame if we don’t finish this retarded play, Katelyn
thought. What is the point in reading it. Everyone knows how it
ends. They die. Who cares? Now, the class was supposed to follow
along in the book while a cast of British actors blasted from the
CD player’s crappy speakers.
    “Okay, get out a piece of paper,” Teacher
Woman announced as a punishment. In response, several students
groaned. “If you don’t want to talk about it, we can journal about
it,” she said, but a couple of students came to the rescue and
raised their hand.
    “What are we supposed to write about? Love?”
said Tommy Turner, a state wrestling champ, who probably couldn’t
write his own name let alone a journal entry. Somehow, he was
passing this class, whereas this made the third class of the
semester that Katelyn was failing.
    “Romeo and Juliet just met. He was in love
with another girl just hours before, and now, all of a sudden, he’s
in love with Juliet?” Teacher Woman stared out at the students with
disbelief. “He just saw her and fell in love?” she added with a
touch of condemnation.
    Gee, thought Katelyn sarcastically, I wonder
what she wants us to say. Why did she bother asking?
    Quickly, the brainiacs of the class came to
the rescue.
    “Romeo just likes her for her beauty. He said
he’s never seen true beauty until now,” chirped one valedictorian
candidate.
    “Yeah, but