The Last Chance Texaco Read Online Free PDF Page B

other houses were giving it the cold shoulder.
     
    "It sucks starting at a new school," Leon said at last. "Especially in the middle of the year."
     
    I just shrugged and kept staring out the window. I'd been right about Leon wanting to make some land of connection with me, but it was way too early in the morning for me to start baring my soul. Still, he was right about how lousy it was to start school in the middle of the year. By early November, people would already have made their friends for the year, and no one would be in a very let's-give-the-new- kid-a-break kind of mood.
     
    "And it's gotta be tough coming from a group home," Leon said. "I mean, word gets out pretty quick, huh?"
     
    I glared at Leon over in the driver's seat. "You know, you're not exactly cheering me up."
     
    He laughed. "Oh. Sorry." But the fact was, he was right about this too. At first, students and teachers treated you mostly normal. But by the end of the second day, the whole school knew that you were one of "them"--one of the kids from the local group home. They didn't know your name, but they knew you were trouble, and not just in a spit-wads and late-for-class land of way.
     
    A few minutes later, we pulled into the high school parking lot, and Leon turned off the engine. "High school is bullshit," he said to me.
     
    "What?" I said. I was surprised. I'd expected him to say something like just be myself and eventually people would see me for who I really was, and everything would be all hunky-dory. That's what group home counselors always said to you on your first day at a new school. But if I'd learned anything so far, it's that Kindle Home counselors weren't like the ones at other group homes.
     
    "It's important," Leon went on, "because if you don't graduate from high school, you're really screwed. It's a hoop you gotta jump through, and it's a really important one. But it's still bullshit. High school is about hair gel and sideburns and blue jeans and pom-poms. Most of the time, it's not about anything real. And it's not about who you really are." He looked over at me with an intensity that scared me a little. "You understand?"
     
    "Yeah," I said. I did understand, even though it was the exact opposite of everything I'd been told all my life. It was funny how you needed to hear the truth only one single time to know that it was the truth.
     
    I hesitated before getting out of the car. "Thanks," I said at last, and part of me actually meant it.
     
    • • •
     
    The minute I saw the inside of the school, I knew that I had bigger problems than just starting school in the middle of the year. Almost everyone was white.
     
    It's not like I'm racist or anything. It's just that the only time kids in a public school are almost all white is when they're mostly rich. And believe me when I say that it's rich kids, and the parents of rich kids, who have the biggest problem with a kid from a group home going to the same school they do. I'd known Kindle Home was in a rich part of town from the look of the other houses. But I hadn't expected the neighborhood to be so rich that the parents didn't even have to bother sending their kids to private schools to keep them away from the black, brown, and red kids.
     
    Leon and I met with the fat, bald principal, who shook Leon's hand, but not mine.
     
    "Welcome to Woodrow Wilson High School, Lisa," the principal said to me.
     
    "Lucy," Leon said.
     
    "What?" the principal said.
     
    "Her name is Lucy," Leon said.
     
    "Oh," said the principal. Then he went on to tell me he had very high expectations for every single one of his students. After that, he spent ten minutes eyeing me and telling me how seriously the school took discipline, especially when it came to drugs and fights. So much for high expectations for every single student, I thought to myself.
     
    "So," the principal said, finishing up, "do you have any questions, Lisa?"
     
    I didn't have any questions.
     
    Out in the hallway,