Super Nobody (Alphas and Omegas Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

she wore outfits like this all
the time, she was in for a world of trouble. He figured she might
as well get an e-reader and kiss the idea of having friends
goodbye.
    And there wasn't anything about her he
disliked, per se. She was...pretty, he guessed, and vibrant, like
there were more colors around her than other people. And she was
not interested at all in what other people thought of her. That was
pretty awesome.
    The teachers and adults were always telling
you that. Peer pressure sucks. Don't fall for it. You don't have to
be like everybody else. Let your inner beauty shine through. You
can't judge a book by its cover.
    Yeah, well none of them knew what style was.
Teachers didn't flinch and sulk when you told them their shoes
probably cost a buck fifty or were traded off a bum for a
hamburger. Teachers did not understand that more than half of
school was projecting the right you, the you everybody else wanted
and expected to see.
    The rest of them, like Cara MacCullin and
Tenley Davis and their little clique, could disassemble people
without even stopping as they walked through the halls. Back in
September, Tenley had said something horrible about a kid named
Jeremy, and he still hadn't recovered from it. Now he was like a
cockroach, scurrying around. There were still half hearted snickers
at Jeremy, and his nickname was 'Family Jewels' for some reason.
Michael didn't know and didn't care. He had a social force
field.
    Charlotte wouldn't last long. Girls needed
friends. Michael didn't know many, but he knew that girls didn't go
it alone in the world of elementary/middle school at LADCEMS. Maybe
the cliques ate the loners, like schools of piranhas swarming an
injured cow.
    “Hey Michael,” Charlotte said, as he met her
again. “You don't have to meet me here, you know. It's time to go
home. I know where my locker is.”
    “Yeah,” he said. Why was he here? “Listen,
where do you live?”
    “Over on Bellemont,” she told him.
    “That's just two blocks from my house,” he
said. “Do you want to walk with me?”
    “Why don't you...your friends...” she
stopped, appeared to think, and brightened up with a dazzling
smile. “I'd love to walk home with you.”
    “Cool,” he said. Their lockers weren't far
away from each other. He finished slopping his books and papers
inside ages before she even had her backpack open. He fought
through the press of middle schoolers and shorter fourth and fifth
graders who had art or band as their last class.
    By the time she was finished, the halls were
mostly empty. The few suck ups and teachers' fans were stuck like
leeches to their favorites, and the hardcore band nerds were just
starting up their practice for the day.
    “Usually I just take my bike,” he said when
she was finished packing the books she needed. He saw the confusion
on her face and went on. “But, yeah, I'll...you know, walk it.”
    “Alright.”
    She started to explain about the zoot suits
again, and about the big band music that came in the fifties.
Michael was confused for a second, because he'd been born in the
fifties, until he realized she was talking about a hundred years
ago . Yikes, who was this girl?
    “They'd usually have like ten or twenty
people on stage, and people were dancing on TV all the time. They
had swing shows, and sock hops. Dizzy Gillespie, it was like...wow.
I'll play you some sometime if you want. I've got some of the later
stuff, when it started to be influenced by South America, like
Brazilian music. There's this one by Gil Evans, it's like...you've
never heard anything like it. Smooth and fun, it really bubbles.
It's like your own private waterfall. I tell you what, Michael, it
was a pretty kickin' time.”
    Kickin. Right.
    “So then in the nineties there was a mini Big
Band revival. Squirrel Nut Zippers. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Mighty
Might Bosstones.”
    He nodded and made a sound to show her he was
still there. Just where did this girl come from, with her music
from the