What Has Become of You Read Online Free PDF

email. I’m sorry I didn’t respond, as I saw it kind of late. It’s fine for you to use that other edition of
Catcher
. Thank you, though, for checking in.”
    “Oh,” Jensen said. “You’re welcome.”
    “Maybe you’ll find it to your advantage that you’ve already read the novel.”
    The girl looked her in the eyes briefly. Her eyes were not a dark brown, as Vera had guessed they would be, but a dark amber color. The amber-colored eyes, along with her dark hair and pale, lightly freckled skin, made a pretty contrast, though Jensen wasn’t what most people would consider pretty. “Maybe,” she said, and she hoisted her knapsack over her shoulder. Then, without looking at Vera: “Do you mind if I ask you a question? It doesn’t have to do with the homework.”
    “Shoot.”
    “You said you’re writing a book. How do you do that—I mean, how do you go about writing a book?”
    With a self-deprecating little laugh, Vera said, “Oh, I’m afraid that would take days to explain, if not weeks or months.”
    “I guess I mean . . . how do you go about writing a
crime
book? What made you decide to do that?”
    Vera twisted her mouth, thinking. Unconsciously, she began rubbing the fat pads of her thumb and forefinger with her other hand. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know if I can speak to writing technique or method here, but I can speak to the
why
. It’s because of my rather idealistic desire to see things end as happily as they can. To see justice done. To see the bad guys caught and the good guys cleared and the victims’ families given the peace of mind that they deserve.”
    “No other reason?” Jensen asked.
    Vera looked at her again. Was there something owlish in the girl’s gaze—some hint that at any moment she might cock her head, spread her impressive wingspan, and swoop?
No,
thought Vera, looking again into her placid, amber-colored eyes.
She’s a sweet girl, that’s all. A sweet, albeit strange girl—not that there’s anything wrong with
strange
.
“There are always other reasons,” she said.
    “I thought so,” Jensen said. “Thank you for answering. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”
    Alone again and feeling nettled for reasons she couldn’t explain, Vera shook her head and sighed. Jensen was a peculiar sort of girl, but she would surely not be the only peculiar girl she’d meet today, Vera thought. There were two more sections to teach before her day was over—essentially a repeat of the morning’s performance. She hadn’t had a spectacular start, but it hadn’t been terrible, either, she thought, trying to view it in a glass-half-full kind of way. She should be thrilled that it had not been worse.
    Nevertheless, she felt a flutter of disappointment she had not expected to feel, and it took her a moment to place where this disappointment came from. She had hoped to get a sense that the girls might like her. She had not really gotten this sense. Surprising, to realize this hurt a little.

Chapter Two
    Having completed her first day of teaching—having reviewed, critiqued, and second-guessed it dozens of times—Vera found the early-morning class was stuck in her mind. She thought of the two willowy girls, Autumn and Cecily-Anne, their swan-like necks bent toward each other; of contentious and political-minded Harmony scowling under her knitted cap; of quiet Sufia Ahmed with her great, dark, liquid eyes; and of Aggie Hamada with her dimpled, radiant face. She thought of Jensen Willard, who was somehow both dignified and vulnerable in her wrinkled dress and mud-caked boots. The whole group together, all twelve of them, had been the wild cards, the girls she couldn’t have prepared for.
    The midmorning and afternoon sections of Autobiographical Writing: Personal Connections had been more along the lines of what she’d expected: girls who seemed friendly with one another, who talked to one another when Vera was talking; girls who tried to slip out their cell phones to