The Boy Recession Read Online Free PDF

sleeping. I actually am bummed out about the band. I really liked to play the drums.I always got really into it. I mean, how many classes are there when you can sit in the back of the room banging on stuff? For me, just two: band and Mr. Castellano’s computer class.
    But I guess everything has a silver lining. There’s no band, but there is a place for me to sleep.
    “Huntro!”
    Or not. Today I wake up to Eugene banging his hand against the glass door and staring at me. I’ve been sleeping stretched out in a chair with my feet up on the music stand.
    “Let me in!” Eugene says.
    “What time is it?” I ask Eugene as I open the door for him.
    “The last bell just rang,” Eugene tells me.
    As soon as I let him in, I sit down and put my feet back up on the music stand. “Crap,” I say. “I was supposed to go back to study hall.”
    “Here, look at this.”
    Eugene drops an envelope onto my stomach. When I open it, all this sparkly shit falls out of it and gets all over my shirt.
    “What the hell is this?” I ask, standing up and brushing off my shirt.
    “It’s an invitation!” Eugene says, moving a music stand out of his way.
    “No—what is this crap on it?”
    “Glitter,” Eugene says impatiently. “But read it! Read it!”
    While I look at the invitation, Eugene bounces up and down on the balls of his feet.
    “Back-to-school barbecue?” I say.
    “It’s the student senate’s first social event of the year. A back-to-school barbecue for juniors and seniors. And you and I are going,” Eugene tells me.
    “What? We don’t go to shit like this. We don’t go to… glitter… activities.”
    I hand the invitation back to Eugene as he leads the way out of the practice room and into the main band room. I follow him out and sit on the lowest level of the bandstand.
    “We are going,” Eugene lectures me, waving the invitation in my face. Some glitter gets in my eye. Damn.
    “This invitation was hand-delivered to me by
Bobbi Novak
.”
    Ahh, Bobbi Novak.
It’s kind of hard to describe how hot Bobbi Novak is. She’s got these tits they should invent some kind of Nobel Prize for.
    “She told me, ‘I really, really hope you’ll be there,’ ” Eugene says, with this dumb smirk on his face.
    “She’s on student senate. She organizes this kind of stuff,” I tell him. “She wants everyone to show up.”
    Eugene leans against the grand piano and crosses his arms over his chest.
    “I think she kinda likes me.”
    I shake my head. “There’s no way in hell.”
    “
Last year
, there was no way in hell,” Eugene says, pointing his finger at me. When he makes speeches, Eugene gets really expressive, pacing the floor and waving his hands around like a politician.
    “
Last year
,” Eugene repeats. “There was no way in hell. But this year, Bobbi’s single. Justin Messina was her last boyfriend, and he’s away at school. And a bunch of other guys are gone. All the McKennas are gone. All the Devines are gone. Huntro, we are in a boy recession.”
    Because I’m still picking glitter out of my arm hair, I’m only half paying attention.
    “Huh? What?”
    “We are in a boy recession,” Eugene repeats. “There’s been a sudden, drastic decrease in the male population at this school. And I’m gonna take advantage of it.”
    “Does a boy recession make you less ugly?”
    From where I’m sitting, I grin up at Eugene. I call Eugene ugly to his face all the time. It sounds pretty harsh, but whatever, we’re dudes. Plus, he has a crapload of money, so he can deal with me calling him ugly.
    “No,” Eugene says, pretty much ignoring my comment. “But a recession changes people. They don’t have the same options they did before. They have to reexamine their priorities.”
    “You mean lower their standards?”
    Eugene stops pacing to glare at me.
    “No,” he says. “Because of this boy recession, Bobbi has the chance to see me in a different way. Sure, I’m not an athlete. I’m not on the