Take Me There Read Online Free PDF

best public schools around. But you don’t necessarily get in for having good grades in middle school. It’s not that kind of selective. You have to have some special talent. Besides me and James, there are only a few other kids who live close by. Everyone else is from the Bronx or Brooklyn or Queens, or just from other neighborhoods in Manhattan, all spread out.
    So you’d think our school would be all technologically advanced and crammed with supplies. Which I guess it is when you see the computer labs and projectors in the classrooms. But not so much with basic stuff, like restocking soap in the bathrooms or having short paper for the copier (so all of our handouts are on long paper until more short paper comes in) or having enough lab stools to sit on.
    I stand up straight and stretch out my back. Part of it makes a cracking noise.
    Other than lab days, Earth Science is tolerable. Math’s okay (I’m a peer tutor), English Lit rocks (mostly because of free-write time), and Web Design blows (completely). I wish I was as smart as James. Then everything would be so easy. Everyone always says how I’m so smart, but they don’t know what it’s like being me. Always feeling like you could do better. Maybe I’m too hard on myself. But that’s part of being a perfectionist.
    There are only about three people who know what’s going on in this class, because Ms. Parker can’t teach. Plus, she always throws in these impossible questions that like maybe Einstein could figure out on one of his good days. So the last fifteen minutes of lab is the worst kind of stressful. It’s this frenzy of flipping through notes and everyone getting mad at everyone else because no one knows what to put for the conclusions section.
    “What’d you get for three?” Eliezer asks us.
    “We just did three,” Miguel says. “Weren’t you listening?”
    Here’s Miguel: wicked smart, completely destroys the curve.
    “Dude,” Eliezer says. “Just what’d you get?”
    Here’s Eliezer: burnout senior, needs this class to graduate.
    Miguel looks at Eliezer like he’s the biggest reject ever. Then he starts explaining like he’s talking to someone whose last reading accomplishment was Pat the Bunny .
    “You have to explain that the half-life of Carbon-14 is 5,700 years, so that means after that period of time has elapsed, half of the original C-14 sample is still radioactive element, while half of the sample has been converted into its stable decay product, which is Nitrogen-14.”
    Eliezer stares at Miguel. He goes, “Huh?”
    I think Miguel lost him at elapsed .
    “What part don’t you get?” I ask him.
    Eliezer snatches Miguel’s paper and starts copying.
    “Don’t!” Miguel panics. “You know if we copy, we’ll all get zeroes.”
    Eliezer keeps copying. “Like she’s gonna notice one answer.”
    Miguel throws me a desperate look.
    “She reads everything,” I say. I unzip the side pocket of my bag and take out a new pencil. They’re lined up in their holders next to my colored pens and regular pens.
    Eliezer goes, “Yeah, right.”
    “Ever read her comments when you get your labs back?”
    “No.”
    “Well, if you did, you’d see that she reads everything.”
    “She even corrects your spelling,” Miguel adds.
    Eliezer realizes he’s outnumbered. He pushes Miguel’s lab back to him.
    “Whatever,” he groans. “Let’s just get this over with.”

    On my way to math, Steve’s across the hall and I want to go up to him. But the hall is crowded and I can’t get through, and then he’s gone.
    Nicole’s waiting for me around the corner. She’s like, “Did you see Brad?”
    I didn’t.
    “He shaved his head!”
    “ Ew. How does it look?”
    “Disgusting. Everyone’s saying how his head is shaped like an egg.”
    “This just in.”
    “Did you get number thirty-two on the homework?”
    “Um.” I think I might have tried that one between thinking about Steve and thinking about Steve.
    The bell