Shrimp Read Online Free PDF Page A

little credit. At least I hadn't told my mother I was at the library. Even she's too smart to buy that one.
    I said, "No, I left there a while ago. I'm just wandering down Clement Street. I went into the bookstore for a while, now I'm just getting some school supplies." School supplies! Good one, Cyd Charisse. Even after two pints of Guinness, I could still come up with the parent-friendly lines. I hoped I hadn't slurred my words.
    "It's after dark and I really don't like you wandering around strange neighborhoods on your own. Shall I send Fernando over to pick you up?"
    "No!" I do not need the big broody Nicaraguan pulling up in a bling Mercedes with darkened windows and then
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    sniffing my breath for alcohol. That could set the scene for a whole new round of Alcatraz incarceration.
    "Well, get home soon, please. It's the first night before school and I don't want you out late. And I thought we could go through your new school clothes and see what goes with the new makeup I bought you, and we could try it on together." My mother maxed out the credit card on new clothes and makeup for me, and ya know what I will be wearing to school this year? The same thrift-store ensemble of short black skirts, black tights, ratty old flannel shirts, and combat boots I was wearing last year. I do like the Chanel lipstick, Vamp, dark and Goth against my fog-dweller pale face.
    One superior feature I love about cell phones is when the signal breaks. "Home soonish, Mom," I said into the cell before the call dropped.
    Helen stumbled outside, attached to the hand of Eamon's teammate. She grinned at me as we stood against the wall together. Eamon and his friend huddled at the street corner, smoking and probably discussing the hooking-up details--how do we get the girls to our place or at the very least to our cars, do you like the tall, flat-chested one or the Asian one with the crazy hair?
    I am okay with scamming on hot guys, but tomorrow is the dawn of my senior year of high school, which will indeed be all about Shrimp, whenever I find him. My previous year of school was all about high drama--the trouble my ex Justin got me into, the getting expelled from boarding school, the returning home to San Francisco and fighting all the time with Nancy, the Alcatraz incarceration after the unauthorized Shrimp sleepover. Oh, then throw in the
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    summer in New York meeting my bio-dad and his kids for the first time. So fer gawd's sake, didn't I deserve one wild night since I have been all about reformed-girl Cyd Charisse lately? I haven't touched a drink or even a joint in almost a year, since boarding school.
    But still, no way was I going to hook up with any Irish pub guys, no matter how many pints of Guinness they brought me. An almost-kiss against the wall is one thing, but going past first base with an eye toward home base with a random guy is a whole other ball game. I'm not a skank like that, my prior batting average notwithstanding.
    "So," I said to Helen. "Do you like the red-haired guy or the goalie guy? Because I need to get home."
    "Please!" Helen said. "Neither. I like free beer. But it's a school night, CC, get real."
    She grabbed my hand and dragged me back into the crowded pub before Eamon and his buddy even noticed we'd given them the slip.
    One more beer, right? Damn, I didn't even know I liked beer before tonight, but those Guinnesses were tasty and filling. Who needs dinner? But soon I was sitting on top of a bar table, surrounded by a pack of guys eyeing my long legs dangling over the bar ledge and asking what songs I wanted them to fire up on the jukebox. Do guys really think any young female with any semblance of musical taste would actually want to listen to Jimmy Buffet? Let me just pause a moment to insert a finger down my throat.
    I sent one guy off to cue up the Ramones on the box before the Jimmy Buffet guy could get there--please, S.O.S., go --while I tried to figure out if I could hit up any of these fine male specimens