The Talents Read Online Free PDF

again.
    â€œWhat did you and Cameron talk about?”
    â€œNothing. School. Delcroix.”
    Everything. We talked about soccer and how the girls’ team needed a new forward. We talked about the cool electives Delcroix offered, like popular music, poetry, and independent study, where you could make up your own class. He told me about his dad, how he missed him during the school year but how fun it was to live on campus. I played it cool, pretended like I had lots of friends I’d be leaving behind, but I had the feeling he knew the truth. He wasn’t mean about it. He was…sweet. Caring. Understanding. He told me about amazing things they did, like getting to visit Cape Canaveral. One of the space shuttle pilots had gone to Delcroix, and does a tour for the advanced astronomy classes. Not to mention all the musicians who do guest lectures there. Not just classical musicians, either. Cool people. People I’d heard of.
    â€œAnd did you make a decision?”
    I set my jaw. “I’ll go to Delcroix, but if I don’t like it by Christmas break, I’m transferring back to Danville High.”
    She flipped through a few more pages. “That sounds lovely, dear. An excellent plan.”
    â€œAren’t you going to say anything else?” I snapped. “Like, I told you so?”
    â€œWhy would I do something like that?” Grandma said, closing the magazine. “Now, what should we have for dinner?”
    I stomped off to my room, thoroughly annoyed by the knowledge that, as usual, Grandma had gotten exactly what she wanted.

I WOKE early the next morning after a night of very little sleep, and stumbled into the bathroom. Through puffy eyes I took in my usual attractive early-morning hairdo—half frizz, half ringlets—and a crease across my cheek from my lumpy pillow.
    I picked halfheartedly at a few blackheads. My whole body felt out of sorts. I’d spent the night fantasizing about Cam, imagining us as boyfriend and girlfriend, walking down the hall arm in arm. It was painfully delicious, even in my mind, and definitely not conducive to a good night’s sleep.
    But he was just being nice, I kept reminding myself; just doing his job.
    As if that could keep me from developing the crush of the century.
    I decided to go for a jog. Running usually helped clear my head. And now that I knew Cam, I had a figure to maintain.
    I dug through my hamper and found an old pair of running shorts and a relatively clean T-shirt with a picture of Danville Central Hospital on it.
    Grandma’s not much for doing laundry, and unfortunately, neither am I.
    Grandma’s door was closed, which was a relief because I had a suspicion she would want to talk about Delcroix as soon as she woke up. I tiptoed past her bedroom and through the living room, locked the door behind me, and started off at a decent pace down the street.
    According to Grandma, people in Danville used to make good money working at the mill or logging in the forests. But they stopped logging before I was born, and closed the mill, so now there’s just a lot of rundown houses and people without work. People like Grandma and me, who are just getting by.
    The bright side is that the forests nearby are young and thick, and there are trails within a few miles of my house. When I was a kid, Grandma would take me on picnics and nature walks, and I always loved it, even when I pretended not to. I feel better in the woods, like my problems aren’t so overwhelming.
    We’re close to Mount Rainier, which has always worried me a little because they say it’s only a matter of time before it erupts again, and it would be just my luck to get caught in a freak lava flow. But this morning all I could see was the peak off in the distance, covered with snow. It looked peaceful, and the air was damp and still. The slap of my sneakers against the road was the only sound I could hear, and I calmed down a little as I