The Detention Club Read Online Free PDF

out the windows and wondered, what’s different outside that they don’t have at Fenwick Elementary? But the grass and trees all looked the same. Where the heck was the playground, for that matter?
    Drew was already waiting for me at an empty table when I got to the caf for lunch. He waved at me, and I nodded over at the lunch lines. I did a double take. There were two lines for lunch? Back in elementary school there was only one line, and we all got served the same thing. In middle school I discovered that there was now a line for “hot lunch” and another for “à la carte.” I had no clue what “à la carte” meant, but I saw that they were serving plastic lasagna for hot lunch, so I got in line behind Carson and tapped him on the shoulder.
    â€œYou speak Spanish. What does ‘à la carte’ mean?” I asked him.
    He grimaced at me.
    â€œIt’s French, for one thing,” he snapped. “And it just means you pick and choose what you want to eat. But you won’t be able to buy anything—they only accept cash, not mica.”
    Why was Carson talking so tough with me? Just a few months earlier, in fifth grade, he’d almost been too shy to even approach me, and sometimes I’d catch him just staring at me fondly from a distance after I’d done something really impressive, like juggle the blackboard erasers for ten seconds or catch an out in kickball during recess.
    He turned away from me. I figured he was just still feeling nervous about being in this new place. I bought a lukewarm cheeseburger (apparently, a red lightbulb isn’t a reliable heat source) and an apple juice and brought my tray back to Drew’s table. “Why are you sitting alone?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” he said, as if he was noticing this for the first time. “Maybe everyone’s talking about their classes or something.”
    â€œDid you know there was going to be an à la carte line?”
    He shook his head.
    â€œI don’t like Spanish food anyway,” he said.
    â€œIt’s French,” I corrected him.
    â€œYou’re so wise,” Drew said, and I didn’t bother admitting that I’d just learned this little factoid myself, because the guy considered me a genius and I didn’t want to let him down.
    â€œSo what are we going to do about the mica situation?” Drew asked. “We collected so much of it for nothing.”
    â€œThe way I see it, okay, so mica may have gone out of style, but we just have to get everyone collecting stuff during recess and they’ll remember how cool we were.”
    â€œThank God you’re good at thinking on your toes,” Drew said.
    I blushed.
    â€œI’m no different from any other great inventor,” I said humbly.
    We sat there eating our lunches, watching everyone laugh and talk with kids from Hemenway as if they’d been best friends since birth. Lunch was divided by grade, and this was our first time seeing the entire sixth grade together at once. Sally and her horse-riding friends were sitting with a group of girls from Hemenway who probably rode horses, too. Carson and his brainiac pals were sitting with some new kids who looked really smart—one of them had easily the biggest head I’ve ever seen in my life. Trent and his basketball buddies were sitting with Kyle and Mark, the two kids we’d met before homeroom. The band kids were with Hemenway band kids, I could tell because they had their instrument cases on the ground next to them. Even the quietest people from our grade were sitting with new kids. It didn’t look like they were talking much—they were probably the quietest kids from Hemenway, too. But the fact is they were sitting together, and looked like they’d been sitting together for years even though this was only the first day of school. The part that bugged me the most was that Drew and I were definitely the only