Scaredy Kat Read Online Free PDF Page B

noticed that the man with the shaggy black and gray
     hair was back. He was standing in the same place I’d seen him the day before. A bike was leaning against the fence behind
     him.
    I felt self-conscious, though he couldn’t possibly know I’d spied on him through my camera’s zoom lens. I walked down the
     sidewalk, trying to appear extremely interested in my muffin. But I sensed that the man was watching me from across the street.
     My curiosity got the better of me and I glanced over in his direction. He was looking at me. He raised his hand and waved,
     and I gave a little wave in response, but I quickened my pace. In a minute or so I’d reached the end of the block, and I turned
     right, the bus stop now in sight.
    The bus was just pulling in. I sent silent thanks to the Universe for the convenience, as my mother had always taught me to
     do, and grabbed a seat near the back by a window. As the bus pulled out, I felt another wave of relief. For now, at least,
     I was leaving all my troubles behind.
    When I got off the bus a block from the Bean Factory, I could see that Jac had already snagged a prime table outside. A hefty
     brownie, a chocolate milk, and a selection of little cookies were arranged on a plate in front of her. She was deeply engrossed
     in a magazine when I walked up to her.
    “Maestra!” I called.
    Jac looked up and squealed.
    “Guess who’s going to
jail
?”
    My mouth dropped open. Things were apparently worse than I’d realized.
    “Not . . . Jac . . . you don’t mean . . . you?”
    Jac looked momentarily enraged, then cracked up and swatted me with her
Star
magazine.
    “Kat, please. Even my utterly disastrous life does not involve incarceration. No, it’s Houston! Houston Ramada?”
    Though I don’t watch
Entertainment Tonight
or E! Television like Jac does, for once I actually knew who she was talking about. Houston Ramada was the poster child for
     celebrities famous for doing nothing but existing, serving no purpose but to annoy the rest of us. She was the main attraction
     in most of the glossy gossip mags, and Jac was addicted to celebrity gossip. It was an aspect of her personality that fit
     neither her position as a cello genius nor her preppy, conservative appearance. Hence, I loved it about her.
    “I got you a frozen Mocha-Cho and a brownie. Sit down and listen to what this moron DID!”
    Ah, yes. We had agreed to pretend that nothing was going on with Jac, and I had decided to pretend that nothing was going
     on with me, for the next hour. I was more than happy to oblige.
    “So she got her driver’s license suspended, right? Remember, back in De-cember?”
    Jac was staring at me with the wide-eyed expression she reserved for the recounting of celebrity mishaps. Her red hair had
     been recently cut, exposing her tiny ears, and making her look even more pixielike than she usually did.
    “And she got pulled over for speeding in January, and she claimed that she didn’t realize that having your license suspended
     meant you couldn’t drive!”
    Jac paused to take a bite of a gigantic brownie, and I took a long, brain-freezing sip of my frozen Mocha-Cho.
    “So then she gets pulled over again—
again
—in February, and this time she says her publicist told her that she
was
allowed to drive again. So they make her sign this paper, right? This paper that says that she understands and accepts that
     she is
not
allowed to drive until her license is reinstated. Right?”
    I nodded emphatically, enjoying Jac’s increasingly frenzied delivery of the story.
    “So last week, Houston goes to this Celebrity Car Wash event
driving
her Hum-mer! And is totally surprised when she gets busted!”
    Jac paused here, waiting for me to say something.
    “Un-be-flipping-
lievable
!” I exclaimed. This seemed to satisfy Jac, because she immediately continued.
    “So now she’s having this petition circulated, addressed to—and I’m not making this up—the Governor of California,