Rules to Rock By Read Online Free PDF Page B

slip of paper, opened my eyes, and saw this:
    “Write about a time when you were very homesick.”
    I looked up at Mr. V, who was raising his eyebrows, eyes doing that gleaming thing. Was this a trick? Could he have planted this on me? No way. There were still dozens of slips of paper in there.
    How was I going to get a song out of this assignment? Missing Brooklyn, missing Egg Mountain, missing my abuela —that was pretty much all I thought about at this point. I would need a book the size of David Copperfield to get it all down.

    In the hall, Curly Burly passed by me so closely that we almost touched. He had switched his Mastodon T-shirt for one that said “If You Don’t Fear God …” on the front. I made sure not to make eye contact , but I looked back when I felt it was safe and saw that the shirt read “Then Fear the METAL” on the back. Why are so many metal fans religious? I looked up at the ceiling and thanked my own higher power that Curly Burly hadn’t noticed me. A few feet farther I noticed that same small blond kid sitting in front of his locker. He wasn’t crying or anything, but his hair was all mussed and he wore a totally blank expression. He had obviously just given up his money again.
    “Hey,” I said.
    “Hey,” he said back.
    “You all right?”
    He just shrugged, looking down. I guess he didn’t make eye contact with anybody anymore.
    “Does that guy take your money every day?” I asked. I noticed he had a hilarious pair of sneakers on, with bright yellow and black stripes on them. It looked like he had two fat bumblebees for shoes. They didn’t exactly match his mood.
    “Yeah. It’s not always him, though,” he said. “There’s three or four of them.”
    “Why don’t you tell somebody? Like a teacher.”
    He sighed. “I know you’re trying to be nice. But you’re not helping. If I tell anyone, then they’ll really get me. Just leave me alone, okay?”
    “Okay, okay.” So I moved on.
    I know I claimed not to care about making friends, but I was doing a more spectacular job of it than I’d ever imagined possible. Even the lowest kids on the totem pole wanted nothing to do with me. They’d have to make a new table at the caff, one even more loserish than Loner Land. I’d be the only one sitting there, and during lunch all the other kids could throw pies at me or something.
    I’m not sure if the same higher power that let me pass by Curly Burly without being seen could hear the self-pity session I was conducting in my head, but my luck was about to change. My life was about to change. I was about to meet Jonny.
    I heard music—actual, nonrecorded, live-in-the-flesh music coming out of an empty classroom. The door was closed but not locked. I turned the knob to the right as slowly and carefully as I could so that I didn’t just barge in on whoever was in there. As I pushed the door open about two inches, I saw a boy sitting on a desk playing an acoustic guitar. At first, I couldn’t hear him above the hallway noise, but his lips were moving, so he had to be singing. Luckily, the boy had his back turned to me, so I was able to stick my whole head inside the room. Now I could hear him.
    I totally knew the melody, but I couldn’t figure out what the song was at first. My brain was in that frustrating place between knowing the tune and being able to actually name it. I scrunched my face in concentration, trying to figure it out.
    Of course. It was “Crimson and Clover,” one of my favorite songs ever! Tommy James and The Shondells sang it in the sixties, but my favorite version was by Joan Jett, my number two rock ’n’ roll idol of all time ( just behind Satomi). Joan sang it so softly and sweetly, but with the craziest metal-sounding guitars booming like thunder underneath. I remembered my dad once singing “Crimson and Clover” at an all-ages show in a Williamsburg record store. My mom had joined in on the words “what a beautiful feeling,” and I could remember