The Boy Recession Read Online Free PDF Page A

glancing over behind the bandstand, and then crawl under the piano. Hunter follows me.
    Turning my head back toward him, I half mouth, half whisper, “How did you think of this?”
    “I get in trouble a lot,” Hunter whispers.
    I start to laugh but bring my hand to my mouth to keep quiet. Hunter reaches around me and carefully lifts the front of the piano cover so we can see who just walked in. It turns out we’re squeezed under this piano for no reason; it’s not a teacher. It’s a boy who looks really young—I guess he’s a freshman, because I’ve never seen him before. He’s kind of cute, actually, in this interesting way. He has dark curly hair, and he’s wearing khakis, a sweater—and clogs. Are guys supposed to wear clogs? Is anyone who’s not a dancer in the Appalachian Mountains supposed to wear clogs? He’s nice-looking, though, even with the clogs, and… is that a man purse? Or a pencil case? Or…
    “The piccolo!”
    I say it out loud without meaning to, and Hunter, with his shoulders shaking, puts his finger to his mouth. There’s no teacher in here, and we don’t have to worry about getting caught, so we shouldn’t be under the piano, but now we have to worry about getting caught under the piano.
    As we watch, the boy comes up close to the piano, looksup at “Rhapsody in Blue” for a minute, sighs, and walks away, the little piccolo case swinging from his hand.
    “Poor bastard,” Hunter says, shaking his head, which makes his hair brush against my ear. “He’s gotta be taking this hard.”

CHAPTER 4: HUNTER
    “Skankology: How Female Desperation Has Altered the Julius Hook-Up Scene”
    Aviva Roth for
The Julius Journal
, September
    L et me tell you about Julius P. Heil High School. This place is pretty much a joke. Even the guy it’s named after was a joke. Julius P. Heil was the governor of Wisconsin back in the day. I did a report on him freshman year, and according to my report, which I mostly got from Wikipedia, Julius was “known for clowning and silly antics.” The guy our school is named after was known for being a clown. He did do some good stuff, though. Apparently, he really liked dairy products and promoted Wisconsin’s cheese, which is really good cheese. Our school cheese is pretty awesome, too. Our cafeteria makes these amazing bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches that I eat almost every morning.
    Other than our bacon-egg-and-cheeses, though, this place is a joke. There are about two hundred fifty kidstotal, so our principal likes to go around bragging about how much “individual attention” we all get, like it’s a good thing. Individual attention is a
terrible
thing. If you skip one class, everyone knows about it. The teacher will track you down, or one of the guidance counselors will track you down and ask if you’re smoking pot. According to the geniuses running this place, the only reason you would skip class is if you’re smoking pot, though I actually find my classes more enjoyable when I’m high.
    At Julius, it’s easy to track down someone who’s skipping class, because the building is a square made up of four hallways. You get trapped in it like a lab rat in a maze. So instead of skipping classes, I try to sleep through them instead. People think it’s risky to sleep in class, but to be honest with ya, I manage to do it a lot.
    Of course, the best you can hope for in class is a few five-to seven-minute catnaps. If you want some hardcore REM-cycle sleep, you gotta find some place out of the way. I used to sleep in the library, but then they installed cameras in the back of the library after an “incident.” Apparently, someone got jerked off on the F volume of the
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Which is the most appropriate letter, I guess.
    I tried out a bunch of different napping spots—cafeteria, gym locker room—but this year, I found the nirvana of the in-school napper: the band practice rooms. The rooms are pretty small, but they’re good for