The Encyclopedia of Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

olive green helmet on my head. I took it off. “Pretend you were wearing it, OK? It might be illegal not to! You’ll go to jail!”
    â€œHoly cow, are you OK? Did you, like, steal my boards and stuff?” said a boy. I was dizzy. I couldn’t really see his face, but his hair was blue. “Like, you’ve got brutal road rash on your arms.” I hate people who start their sentences with the word “like.”
    I said, “I’m perfectly fine, thank you. Those happen to be the scratches of a hairless cat.” I added, “And we just borrowed them.”
    Then I stood up and immediately fainted dead away. Fainting is kind of my thing, so I’m pretty good at it. 30 But this was a real, big, and different sort of faint: a grayed out, nauseating one. It was the mother of all faints! The Big Kahuna!
    It was an embarrassingly awful wet-your-pants one.
    It was a seriously catastrophic may-the-world-open-up-right-now-and-swallow-me-whole one.
    When I came to, I immediately wished I hadn’t. I felt like one of those vacuum-sealed bags that had just had all the air sucked out of it in a violent rush. I closed my eyes and prayed for instant death, in the form of a sewer alligator suddenly appearing and dragging me under the road for lunch.
    â€œYou swooned!” cried Freddie Blue, quickly shielding my wet parts with the helmet that I was still holding. At least it was good for something.
    â€œI fainted,” I said. “It’s different.” My head felt funny and my heart felt like it was tripping on stairs. I tried to breathe slowly.
    â€œIs not,” said FB, hauling me to my feet. She began steering me up the hill, which was whooshing around and bucking under my feet. It was like trying to ride a pony 31 by standing on the saddle.
    I stumbled. The blue-haired boy grabbed my arm. His hand felt cold and strange, like a dead fish landing on my skin.
    â€œHey,” I said. “Don’t touch me.” I wasn’t very friendly, I’ll admit, but I wasn’t feeling friendly. I was feeling angry. With him. With FB. With everyone. Especially with the alligator, for not showing up on cue.
    The walk home took about seven hours or twenty minutes, I have no idea. FB half dragged, half carried me all the way up the gravelly driveway to my house, still holding on to the helmet over my crotch.
    In that moment, I truly loved her.
    I did not invite the blue-haired boy to come inside. He must have waited outside on the porch, because when FB left, I could hear them talking. At first I thought,
Oh, that was sort of sweet of that boy to make sure I was OK.
But then I heard FB doing that fake laugh again and then the lower, more rumbly sound of his voice. He had a very low voice. And then enough fake laughing to make me feel like crawling out of my own skin and into the nearest swamp.
    Giggle rumble giggle rumble.
    Was FB getting a boyfriend? Without telling me? What was she doing?
    Now I probably had a brain injury AND she was going to beat me in the Boyfriend Race she didn’t even know she was running.
    â€œUnfair,” I moaned.
    â€œIt isn’t unfair,” said Mom. She was still in her hospital scrubs, having rushed home to be with me. I was confused about how that went down, really. Did FB call her? I wish she hadn’t. It would be more peaceful to be alone. “It was a silly thing to do and now you’re injured because you made a dumb mistake. ‘Fair’ has nothing to do with it.”
    â€œThat’s not what I was talking about,” I mumbled.
    â€œYou could have been seriously hurt!” she said. “I’m so . . .”She stopped. “Disappointed.”
    â€œFine,” I said. “I know. OK?”
    She frowned.
    â€œMaybe you could yell at me some more when my head stops hurting,” I said helpfully.
    â€œTink,” she said. “Don’t be rude.” But she went out of the room and closed the door