The Kissing Diary Read Online Free PDF Page B

said, “Hey, Mom, so what put you in a better mood anyway?”
    Mrs. Goldglitt walked faster to the tune of the commercial. “He called,” she said simply.
    Right before bed, Rosie wrote in her diary:
    Monday night
    Dear Diary,
    My mother was a basket case all weekend because her boyfriend didn’t call. I guess I take after her, because I was a wreck all week, wondering how to get Robbie to talk to me. I can’t believe she had this fight with Robbie Romano’s father. That’s just great. We’ll go out, and he’ll realize that he likes me a lot, and I’ll meet his father, and he’ll say, Your mother is nuts, and Robbie will say, Like mother, like daughter, and he’ll never see me again.
    This is all wishful thinking, of course, because as of today, he still hasn’t spoken a word to me. Like Summer says, it’s hard to get back what you never really had in the first place. I definitely want to decrushify. He’s a lost cause.
    I give up, I really do. I’ll try not to mention his name anymore.
    Yours truly,
    Rosie Gold-Quit

5
    It’s All Greek to Rosie, Including Boys
    Mr. Woo made it hard for Rosie to decrushify. English was Rosie’s favorite subject because the teacher, Mr. Woo, managed to keep it interesting, having them act out passages from books they were reading and giving them assignments that didn’t bore them to death. Getting an A in English was easy for Rosie. Getting a B– in math was much harder.
    The halls were crowded on the way to class. Rosie’s jean jacket accidentally brushed against Robbie, who jammed his back so hard against the locker that the imprint of the lock might have embossed his skin. Avoiding Rosie had been taken one step further. Rosie was a germ, and she half expected him to get out a packet of antiseptic wipes to kill any lingering Goldglitt bacteria. Being a germ was totally exhausting, and Rosie came to the conclusion that it sucked.
    Rosie settled in her seat, with Summer behind her, next to Robbie, and Lauren to her right. Although she couldn’t see Robbie, just his presence made her jittery. Was he staring at the back of her head with contempt? She would have to ask Summer. Did he make fun of her when she raised her hand? Ordinarily she would turn and talk to Summer so that she could catch a glimpse of him. Poor Summer would have to be ignored, or lean forward and talk in Rosie’s ear if she had something to say. Rosie would not budge in her seat. She would not turn around.
    Rosie opened up her English notebook. Inside the cover she had drawn a heart with two sets of initials inside: RR and RG. Rosie took her pen and colored in the letters. Then she drew bold lines one way and the other, over and over, until she could barely distinguish the letters beneath. She drew an X across the network of scribbles for good measure. Her mother was wrong and Lauren was right. The negative attention didn’t mean that he liked her. It meant that he didn’t. From this moment forward, Robbie Romano didn’t exist.
    What was it Grandma Rebecca liked to say? Man made plans and God laughed. Except that in this case, Rosie made the plan to decrushify and Mr. Woo laughed by announcing a project on Greek mythology. Each group would be assigned a god or a goddess, and they would present their myth in front of the class. There was a chorus of groans. For a split second, Rosie wished she were next to Robbie, so that she could hear his perfect put-down. Didn’t Mr. Woo ever have lunch with Mrs. Geller? Didn’t he know that they had just recovered from a history project that had ruined their weekend and cost her mother a hundred dollars? And that Rosie’s castle wasn’t half as good as Summer’s, made entirely of sugar cubes? And that Sarah’s castle was the best in the class, with her father, the architect, helping her? Couldn’t Mr. Woo give them all a break?
    â€œBe original!” Mr.