Pretty Little Things. Jilliane Hoffman

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      ‘I don’t know if all of you have Halloween on the brain, but these test grades were not what I wanted to see,’ Mrs McKenzie said, her voice withered with both age and perpetual disappointment, as she walked down the aisles of the classroom handing out papers. When she got to Lainey’s desk, she paused. Not a good sign. ‘Ms Emerson, I expected more from you,’ she sniped without even attempting to lower her voice. Then she dropped the paper as if it was covered in dog poop and she couldn’t stand to touch it any more. A big red D+ landed face-up on the desk.

      Another D. Damn … Lainey could feel her cheeks flame up. She couldn’t remember any of the As she used to get ever being so large. Or so red. She quickly shoved the test into her book bag, avoiding eye contact with any of the twenty-three gawking, smirking strangers around her.

      ‘Report cards are going out next week, people,’ Mrs McKenzie warned with a shake of her poofy, margarine-colored head as the bell rang and a mass of bodies rushed past her into the hall. ‘I know there are a couple of you who aren’t going to be happy to see the mailman!’

      It was a safe bet that she was one of those people, Lainey thought, feeling the acid churn like cement in her stomach as she slowly made her way through the noisy crowd to the lunchroom. And her mom was sure to birth a cow when she opened that envelope – Algebra probably wasn’t the only class she was getting a D in. Serves her right, Lainey thought, bitterly; she’d never wanted to switch schools anyway. All her friends were still at Ramblewood Middle, while she was completely lost here at stupid Sawgrass with absolutely no one. No one. Zero. Zilch. No one to study with. No one to walk home with. No one to eat lunch with, she thought miserably as she made her way past the tables of cheerleaders and dorks and jocks to an empty seat in the back of the cafeteria. She still didn’t see why they’d had to move, either. The old house was fine and it was, what? A mile away from the ‘new’ one, which was a lot smaller and didn’t even have a pool. But, as usual, no one bothered to ask for her input on anything before turning her life upside down. The only future she’d heard her mom and Todd worry about was Bradley’s. Her and Liza weren’t even a thought. Not that Liza gave a shit. The girl was never home anyway, and seeing as she didn’t have to change high schools and all her friends drove, not getting to see them was never a worry. Plus Liza was almost seventeen – just a couple of years from getting out on her own. Lainey, though, was just plain stuck.

      ‘Hey,’ a voice said softly behind her as she unpacked a flattened peanut butter and jelly sandwich from her book bag. It was bad enough she had to brown-bag it, but her sandwich was downright embarrassing. It looked like a bled-through Band Aid. A girl she vaguely recognized stood over her, lunch tray in hand. ‘You’re in Algebra with McKenzie, right?’ the girl asked.

      Great. The whole stupid school knew she was flunking Algebra. ‘That’s me. Hope I’m not too famous,’ Lainey replied with a short, nervous laugh that sounded a lot like a whoop.

      ‘I got a shitty grade, too,’ the girl replied casually. She looked around the table. ‘You alone?’

      Lainey shrugged. Was it that obvious? God, she felt like such a loser. ‘Yeah,’ she replied, shifting in her seat. ‘Just me.’

      ‘Can I sit? I just switched to this lunch period and don’t know anyone yet.’

      Lainey moved the stack of books she’d placed in front of her to make it look like she was busy doing work. ‘Sure.’

      ‘I’m Carrie,’ the girl said, popping a straw into her juice box. ‘You new?’

      ‘Yeah. I was at Ramblewood, but we moved and now I’m zoned here, I guess.’

      ‘Your name’s Elaine, right?’

      ‘My friends call me Lainey.’

      ‘I’m new, too. My dad got transferred in August. I moved here from Columbus, Ohio.’

      ‘Wow … Ohio. Do you like Florida?’

      Carrie shrugged. ‘I never had a pool before, so it’s cool. My friends back home are, like, so jealous. They all say they’re gonna come visit when it gets cold up north. They wanna go swimming in January. That’ll be fun.’

      Lainey felt a pang. It’s not as easy as it sounds, she wanted to tell the girl. Her own friends lived less than a mile away and she practically never saw them any more. ‘My best friend still goes to Ramblewood,’ she said softly as she nibbled on her sandwich. ‘Actually, all my friends still go to Ramblewood.’

      ‘Ramblewood, is that a good school?’

      Last year Lainey probably would’ve said, ‘It sucks,’ because all schools do. But she finished a sip of disgusting warm milk before replying, ‘It’s a great school. The best.’

      They chatted about bad teachers and too much homework and riding the bus. She wasn’t Molly, but it was someone to talk to. ‘I like your backpack,’ Carrie said as she packed up her lunch, nodding at Lainey’s book bag. ‘I must’ve seen Twilight, like, fifty times. Taylor Lautner is so hot.’

      Lainey smiled. ‘I like Robert Pattinson. Can you tell?’ On the cover flap of her black-and-white shoulder book bag was a picture of Edward Cullen, the teenage vampire played by Robert Pattinson in Lainey’s all-time favorite movie. ‘What if I’m not the hero?’ was silk-screened across the front. Her mom refused to buy fancy backpacks or lunchboxes, because, she said, ‘those celebrities already have enough damn money,’ so Lainey had saved up all her birthday cash and bought it herself. She’d СКАЧАТЬ