The Bad Decisions Playlist Read Online Free PDF Page A

important.”
    â€œMale guidance,” she said.
    â€œRight.”
    This was just after my mom broke up with Loser Tom, who followed Total Loser Phil (preceded by Absolute Disaster Chris), and right before she started dating Lawyer Rick. She signed me up for a Big Brothers thing where a guy came by once a week, a guy who decided that the ideal shared activity would be basketball. Which I think is called misreading your audience.
    â€œMale guidance,” repeated Mrs. Jensen.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œMaybe you just need to pull your head out of your ass.”
    Tough but fair, that Mrs. Jensen.
    She ended our conversation by saying, “Someday, you’ll figure out what your problem is, and
maaaaybe
you’ll achieve something. For now, do yourself a favor and try to focus more on the smart part, and less on the ’tard, okay?”
    Less on the ’tard. Copy that.
    Today, and going forward, is all about smart, and not about ’tard.
Smart not ’tard. Physically and fiscally. Smart not ’tard.
    I get to the classroom. I pause outside the open doorway, making sure I’m clear of the sightlines of anyone in the room, reshoulder my backpack, rehearse my excuse/apology for missing the Monday session of summer school, and go in.
    And stop.
    There’s a girl in the room. A girl my age, blondish hair. She’s standing on the other side of the conference table that dominates the space, focused on putting books into her own backpack.
    There’s a shallow part of my brain​—​okay, it’s mostly shallow parts​—​but a specific part whose job it is to alert me to the presence of attractive girls. And that part says,
Oh, hey.
    And then another part immediately says,
Really?
Because she’s not at all the type of girl I’d usually notice. Not that she’s
bad
-looking or anything, and from what I can tell she does have a pretty good body, particularly her​—​
    Which is precisely when she chooses to sense my presence and look up.
Erp.
    Our eyes lock. We’re both motionless. She has the book halfway into the backpack. There’s something about her gaze​—​I feel pinned by it, a thief in the spotlight, guilty​—​and I’m waylaid by a sudden and nearly overpowering urge to start babbling an apology.
    Then she returns her focus to her book, shoving it the rest of the way into the bag, and the moment is over. “I was just leaving,” she mutters. She zips the zipper.
    â€œOh,” I say. I recognize her now: She’s in my grade, one of the Smart Kids, student government and debate team and math club and all that. I feel like I’ve seen her somewhere else, too. Jessica? Geraldine?
    She fixes me with that X-ray gaze again. “That’s it?” she says. “‘Oh’?”
    â€œUm . . .” I say.
Oh, you’re really weird?
“You don’t have to leave . . . ?” I venture.
    â€œYou’re over thirty minutes late.”
    Now I’m
really
confused.
    â€œI’m here for a tutoring session at nine thirty,” I say.
    â€œNo, it was scheduled for nine.”
    â€œHow do you know? Are you here for a tutoring session also?”
    â€œUh, yeah, I suppose you could say that.”
    The force of sarcasm is strong with this one.
    â€œOkay, well, even if it was supposed to be nine o’clock, the tutor’s not even here.”
    â€œ
I’m
your tutor!” she practically shouts.
    I probably should have read the email more carefully. It probably specified the correct time, and also that my tutor is a
peer
tutor. Then I remember that Devon had made some joke about it, because he did the same program last summer. It’s called Peers Helping Peers, which Devon shortened to “PHaP,” as in, I gotta go do some phapping.
    So here I am, late for my first phapping session, and my peer doesn’t look at all eager to help out