The Friendship Song Read Online Free PDF Page B

you have anything on your mind, you say it to my face right now.”
    Just then there was a tap on the door, and it opened, and Rawnie came in. I could tell right away from looking at her that she didn’t like being in Mr. Kuchwald’s office any better than I did.
    â€œGo out and wait your turn!” he snapped at her.
    She stepped forward instead and said in a shaky voice, “I’m here about Harper. I saw what happened, and it wasn’t her fault. He started it.”
    I think it took Mr. Kuchwald a minute to remember that I was Harper and to figure out that Rawnie had actually come in on her own to try to help me out, and I can’t blame him, because I couldn’t believe it myself. But while he was trying to figure it out he glared at her, and she looked about as sick as I felt. Finally he yelled at her, “You know the rules! I don’t care who started it, nobody hits anybody!”
    Rawnie said, “Mr. Kuchwald, he did something to her.” Her voice was real soft.
    â€œHe did something? What?” But the look I was shooting her told her, Don’t say it, and I think she was kind of choking on the words anyway. She stood there, and Mr. Kuchwald leaned toward her and barked, “You can’t just come in here and make vague accusations!”
    I had to get us out of there, so I said, “I don’t want to get in fights. I won’t hit anybody again, Mr. Kuchwald.”
    â€œNow, that’s what I like to hear.” He mellowed right away. “Tell you what. I don’t like to give anybody detention on their very first day. You stay out of trouble from here on”—he had to look again at the paper where he had written my name—“Harper, and we’ll both pretend this never happened.”
    Once we were both out in the hall again I stopped Rawnie with my hand and said, “Thanks.”
    â€œSure.” She sounded bitter.
    â€œNo, I mean it. Thanks for trying to help.” I couldn’t understand why she did it. Nobody had ever done anything like that for me before.
    She looked me straight in the eye and said, “You don’t have to thank me for anything. Ever.”
    I just looked back at her, trying to figure her out. But at least I didn’t feel like crying anymore.
    She said, “M, S, J,” which means Majorly Stupid Jerks, and the way she rolled her eyes made me grin. And then I remembered I still didn’t have a homeroom. So I had to go back into the office, and Rawnie waited for me, and then the bell rang, so we were both late. But we were smiling.
    We had the same homeroom, so Rawnie could help me with my lock and locker a little bit before first period. But we didn’t have the same schedule after that, so I was on my own. I was late to just about every class. Once I asked a big kid where I was supposed to be and got sent clear to the wrong end of the school. After that I just asked teachers.
    I saw Rawnie at lunch, and she saved me a seat the way she’d promised, and her friends who sat with us were nice. The food was like barf, though. How could anybody, even a school cafeteria, make hamburgers into barfburgers? Maybe I was just so stressed out that nothing would have tasted good to me.
    Maybe not. “Wait’ll you get to eat the green hot dogs,” one of Rawnie’s friends told me.
    â€œThey’re more gray than green,” Rawnie said.
    â€œSo they’re gray-green. You know what they’re made out of? Processed worm guts.”
    Gee, thanks. Now I had that to look forward to.
    I saw Pimples, whose name turned out to be Brent, in some of my classes. Brent looked like a head. I found out he was a bikehead, just roared around on his dirt bike all day every day he wasn’t in school. And I found out bikeheads were supposed to be even more obnoxious than skateheads. Brent kept smirking at me, and if I had to look at him, I glared at him. When the final bell rang you better