100 Days by Nicole McInnes Read Free Book Online

clothes and music, but it’s not always easy.
    For a while, I tried really, really hard to be the kind of acceptable the sixth-grade ruling class insisted upon. I tried to wear the right clothes and watch the right shows (always at Agnes’s house, since my own parents are totally anti-TV. They even have a “Kill Your Television” bumper sticker on their restored Vanagon). It didn’t take me long to figure out how expensive those acceptable clothes could be, though. And Mom refused to buy any item that wasn’t a) practical and b) absolutely necessary.
    Enter Deb. One day toward the start of junior high, she taught me and Agnes how to sew a few different types of stitches on her old Singer sewing machine. At first, we made basic things, like pot holders and Christmas stockings, before moving on to simple A-line skirts. Not too long after that, I started branching out and experimenting with my own patterns.
    Unfortunately, no matter what style possibilities I could envision in my head or bring to life on the sewing machine, it didn’t seem to matter. At school I was still just the big girl who got bigger every day. No matter how many diets I tried, I remained the easy-to-strike target for as many insults as my classmates cared to hurl my way. By the end of grade school, I’d heard it all: Freakshow … Lard Ass … Ten-Ton Tessie … Humpback … Can’t believe nobody’s harpooned you yet.
    â€œYou okay?” Deb asks, squinting at me.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œSo, what’s this I hear about some guy insulting you and Agnes at school over a week ago?”
    One of the things I’ve always loved most about Deb is that she’ll never push you to talk if you just kind of want to hang out and say nothing instead. So it means something that she’s pushing a little for information now. I can’t blame her for wanting to know. Agnes is always trying to protect her mom from stress and worry, and I’m sure it makes Deb nuts that her own daughter thinks she’s such a wimp. Because she isn’t. Not only is she a single parent, but she’s attending college online so she can get her teaching credential. When Deb’s not studying, she works as a substitute teacher to make ends meet and get experience. Still, at the end of the day, she can’t out-stubborn her own four-foot-tall daughter. I know for a fact that when Agnes decides to clam up about a situation, like this new one with Boone Craddock, nothing’s going to convince her to do otherwise.
    â€œTell me what really happened,” Deb says, sneaking another puff of her cigarette. “Tell me all the stuff Agnes won’t.”
    â€œGod, where do I start?” I answer. “I seriously wanted to kill him. Still do.”
    Deb blows smoke out the side of her mouth and smiles. “Well, he’ll be coming here to rake leaves next week, so maybe you’ll get your chance.” She waves the smoke away with one hand.
    â€œHe’s what ?”
    â€œApparently, the school is trying to take a ‘creative approach’ to the bullying problem.” She makes air quotes with her fingers. “That’s what the principal told me, anyway.”
    â€œGod.”
    â€œYeah. I have to say, though, part of me feels bad for the kid. I’m pretty sure he and his mom had a hard go of it after that thing with his father. I mean, don’t get me wrong—the principal told me what he called the two of you, and I think he’s…” Deb glances at the back door again to make sure Agnes isn’t within earshot. Then she lowers her voice to a whisper. “I think he’s a complete shit for that.”
    We sit there for a while in silence while I relive the cafeteria scene in my mind, how I didn’t recognize Boone at first from the back. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so nasty when he started holding up the line. But I had the shakes, like I