Running Scared Read Online Free PDF

school?” This was a first. And not good. Not good at all. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was hoping that school had let out early and she’d forgotten, but of course, Cornelia wouldn’t have made it a point to call if that had been the case.
    “I’m suspended anyway.”
    Brushing off a size ten basketball shoe, she sat on the chair next to his desk. She was beginning to sweat, but worked hard to remain outwardly calm. “Suspended? This sounds serious, Jon.”
    “Yeah, suspended,” he snarled, mocking her. “And no, it’s not a big deal.”
    “Not a big deal?” Anger surged through her, but she held on to her temper. For now. It was best to get to the bottom of the problem before exploding. “Why?”
    “’Cause that jerk Todd Neider tried to beat me up again. Called me a fag and a weirdo and a freak.” Jon swallowed hard and blinked rapidly. “Said…said I should be in a mental hospital with the other freaks.” Rather than break down and cry, his jaw hardened and she was amazed at the change in him. Until this year he’d never been suspended, never gotten into any serious trouble, even when the kids teased and bullied him, as they always had. He’d cried a lot and been called a sissy and a mama’s boy along with the other assortment of cruel names while he was enrolled in elementary school. Whenever there had been trouble, Jon had always run to her, anxious for her protection and love.
    Lately, though, since becoming a freshman in high school this fall, he’d begun pulling away, trying to defend himself and distance himself from a mother who didn’t understand him. Along with the six inches he’d grown this past year, he’d acquired some pride and a thicker skin.
    “Why did Todd try to beat you up?”
    “Dunno.”
    “Jon—?”
    “I said, ‘I don’t know.’” Defiance crept into his voice, and his jaw, just beginning to show signs of whiskers, jutted forward mutinously. She waited and he caught the ball one last time before letting it roll to the floor. “Well, maybe it’s because I said he was a stupid dumb-ass jerk, that he’d end up like his old man—a drunken mill worker who would never get out of this pissant town.”
    “That might do it,” she said, wishing she knew how to handle this situation. When he’d been younger, everything had been easy. Black or white. Good or bad. Wrong or right. Now, the problems blended together and there were no easy answers.
    Jon didn’t crack a smile. “It’s true. Todd Neider’s not going to amount to a hill of beans.”
    “Oh, good,” she said, unable to hide her sarcasm. “You told him that? No wonder he was offended.”
    “He was giving me shiii —a bad time about fixing one of the computers for Miss Knowlton. He called me a nerdy-brained freak or something. Anyway, I’d had it, told him off, and he caught me in the hall after class and tried to beat the crap out of me.”
    “Tried?” Kate asked, wary of the satisfaction that stole into Jon’s voice.
    “I decked him. Nailed him hard with my fist. In the nose.” Jon smiled grimly at the thought of it. Pleasure gleamed in his hazel eyes. “There was blood everywhere, even splattered on Ellie Cartwright’s cheerleading uniform and…and then he jumped me. Lots of kids had gathered around by that time and then…” His voice dropped a little. “Then Mrs. Billings caught us.”
    “I thought the school called when there was trouble.”
    “There was some kind of a screw-up, I think. The vice principal was in a meeting so Neider and I were stuck in this room by the office—like a holding tank, I guess—until McPherson got back. Anyway, I got tired of listening to Todd.” Jon’s expression grew dark again. “He was calling me all sorts of gross names like dickhead and shit-face and—”
    “I get the picture.”
    “Anyway, he said he was going to kill me the next time he got the chance. So I climbed out the window and ditched.”
    “He has no right to threaten you in