The Suburban Strange Read Online Free PDF

strangers around her. Then they were launched out into the morning, scrambling to navigate a rushing current of teachers and books and first assignments. She hunted her way through Suburban's tributaries to find each new destination. By lunchtime the top shelf in the locker that had been assigned to her was full of books.
    Celia barely had spoken all morning. It still came naturally to her to be silent and unimposing—one of the things Regine hadn’t asked her to change. It was easy to keep to herself when everyone else already knew each other, and her classmates seemed to expect it of her based on her somber outfit. Celia found herself on the receiving end of a few raised eyebrows, but that was all. She knew she could live with that. In fact, she had to admit it was kind of gratifying.
    When it was time for lunch she was swept off to the cafeteria in a river of chattering students, but she stopped short at the sight of a sea of crowded tables. She faltered while students brushed by her, wondering where she could find a place to be invisible and eat, but then she saw Marco standing and waving at her from a table in the middle of the room. Brenden sat by his side. Marco no longer wore the suit jacket she had seen him in before school, and on the front of his T-shirt large embroidered letters spelled DRINK ME in elaborate type.
    “Hi,” he said when she made it to them. “You looked like a deer in headlights over there.”
    “I felt like one,” Celia said. “How did you guys get a table to yourselves?”
    Marco’s expression suggested he hadn’t ever considered the question. “Leave your stuff and go get lunch. We’ll be here. I don’t know if you like soup, but they make really good soup.” He sat down and Celia gratefully went to get food.
    “So, Regine told us you’re a talented artist,” Brenden said when she returned.
    “I don’t know . . . I like to draw.” Celia wondered why she was being modest. Out of the corners of her eyes she felt nearby students looking at the three of them curiously, but Brenden and Marco were oblivious. There at the table with them she felt insulated from the rest of the students in their athletic clothes and cargo pants, and she enjoyed the feeling of being separate from those others. “What does your T-shirt mean?” she asked Marco.
    “Well, Eat me would be vulgar,” Marco said, laughing. “This is more mysterious.”
    “I’d love to see your drawings,” Brenden said to Celia. “What style do you work in?”
    “Realism, I guess? As realistic as I can get.” Celia turned over her sketchbook and watched the two of them handle it delicately, just as Regine had.
    “What artists do you like?”
    “I—I don’t really know that many,” Celia said.
    “It’s good to have heroes,” Brenden said. “Admiring someone makes you want to be better in your own way. You should check out da Vinci’s drawings, or maybe Albrecht Dürer’s engravings.” Celia wished she had thought to say da Vinci. She took out her notebook and scribbled down the second name; she wasn’t sure she was spelling it correctly, but she didn’t want to ask.
    “Regine’s really happy she found you,” Marco said.
    “She is?”
    “Sure—now she has someone to ride with her. And I know she wanted another girl in the group. She and Liz aren’t all that close.”
    “That’s not true,” Brenden said to him. They exchanged a loaded glance and Marco kept silent. Celia wondered if she would come to understand the things they weren’t saying out loud.
    “Thank you again for the mix,” Celia said.
    “You’re welcome! I hope you like it—did you know any of the songs?”
    “No,” Celia admitted. “Regine’s given me a lot of music, but I really don’t know very much. She says you write a blog.”
    “I do. You should check it out.” Brenden scribbled a website address on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “Actually, before you got here Marco and I were having one of our ongoing