Whiskey & Charlie Read Online Free PDF Page B

to have much to offer in that department, at least not compared to the women in the magazines Charlie had seen. But if he had to touch a girl’s breasts to progress to the next base, he was prepared to do so, even if the girl in question was as flat as a pancake.
    By the end of junior high second base seemed to have been so widely achieved that it wasn’t worth discussing anymore. A lot of boys claimed to have gotten to third base, some even farther, while Charlie was still stuck on first. According to reports, there were plenty of girls who’d let you touch their breasts or even slide your hand up their skirt. But Charlie always seemed to end up with the frigid girls, girls like Alice Brown, who had kept her lips clamped shut when he kissed her, so he couldn’t get his tongue in her mouth, or Susan Wilkes, who had gripped his wrists while they kissed, so he couldn’t touch her body at all.
    Whiskey, of course, had already made it to third base. He had made out with Louise Barker at a party, and then gone out with her for about three weeks, before dropping her because she wouldn’t “go all the way.” What he failed to take into account was that when you dropped a girl because she wouldn’t go far enough, she would want to get back at you. And the best way to do that was to make out with someone you knew and go much farther with that person, maybe even all the way, and then to make sure you found out about it. If she really wanted to get back at you, she’d make out with one of your best friends or, better still, your twin brother. Which is how Charlie, in a surprise twist of fate, managed to cover three bases in one night.
    It happened like this. There was a party at Tom Costello’s house in the first week of the summer holidays. Because Tom’s brother was sixteen, there was beer at the party, which meant that by nine o’clock, everyone was making out with someone. Charlie was in the kitchen, swigging his beer as though he loved the taste of it, when Louise’s friend Claire came over.
    â€œCharlie! Where’ve you been? I’ve been looking for you!” She said this playfully, as if they were good friends having a joke together, which confused Charlie, because although he knew Claire by name, he had never actually spoken to her before.
    â€œLouise wants you,” she said conspiratorially.
    â€œLouise Barker?”
    Claire rolled her eyes. “Of course Louise Barker. Who else would it be? You know she’s mad on you.”
    Charlie couldn’t make sense of this conversation. He thought he must be drunk. “But Louise went out with Whiskey.”
    â€œWhiskey!” Claire scoffed. “Louise hates Whiskey. You’re the one she likes. That’s why she asked me to come and find you. She wants to talk to you.”
    â€œWhere is she?”
    â€œShe’s upstairs,” Claire said, “in the first bedroom on the left. She’s waiting for you.” And then she took the beer can out of Charlie’s hand and gave him a little push toward the stairs.
    Charlie went upstairs slowly, trying to work things out in his head. It couldn’t be true that Louise liked him, when only a week ago she’d been so into Whiskey. Probably she wanted to talk to him about Whiskey, see if there was any chance of them getting back together, ask Charlie to put in a word for her. But if that was all, why did she have to send Claire to find him? Why couldn’t she come and talk to him herself? Perhaps Claire was setting Charlie up; perhaps Louise was upstairs with some other boy, or she wasn’t upstairs at all and the whole thing was a wild-goose chase designed to expose Charlie’s desperation. But what if Claire was telling the truth and this was Charlie’s big chance to make some progress on the bases? Charlie knew it was a long shot, but it was this last thought that propelled him up the stairs and into the first bedroom on