Avalon High by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online Page B

in the crowd, and I was glad. I probably wouldn’t have known what to say to him if he’d said hi or whatever.The sight of him telling that enormous jock what to do—and the jock actually doing it—had kind of freaked me out.
    If you can call realizing you’re head over heels in love with someone being freaked out.
    This was bad. Really bad. I mean, I did not need to be falling in love with some guy—even a guy who randomly showed up at my house for dinner and was a champion of geeks—who was already taken by one of the prettiest girls in school. This so wasn’t going to end happily for me. Not even Nancy, the romantic optimist, would be able to see any possible upside to me falling in love with A. William Wagner.
    So I spent the rest of the day resolutely trying not to think about him. Will, I mean.
    It wasn’t like I didn’t have other things to worry about. There was the report for Mr. Morton’s class, of course. And I’d found out from Liz during lunch that there were more than a few freshman girls who were running the two hundred meter—my event—at varsity times. Unless I could beat them, there was a chance I might not make the Avalon High track team, should I be considering going out for it.
    I didn’t want to go to the trouble of trying out for the team, only not to make it because some snot-nosed freshman had spent her summer training and not floating in a pool, like me.
    So when I got home from school that day, I changedinto my running clothes. I figured the run would do double duty—it would help get me back into shape for track try-outs, and also keep my mind off a certain quarterback.
    But when I went to look for Mom to give me a ride over to the park, she wasn’t in her office. I banged on my dad’s office door. He grunted, so I went in.
    “Oh, Ellie,” he said. “Hi. I didn’t hear you come home.” Then he noticed what I was wearing, and his face kind of fell.
    “Oh,” he said, in a different voice. “Not today, Ellie. I’m really swamped here. I think I’ve made a breakthrough. See this filigree, here? That’s—”
    “You don’t have to come with me,” I interrupted, not wanting another lecture on my dad’s crazy sword. “I just need a ride to the park. Where’s Mom?”
    “I dropped her off at the train station. She had some research to do in the city today.”
    “Fine,” I said. “Just give me your keys, then, and I’ll drive myself over.”
    He looked appalled.
    “No, Ellie,” he said. “You only have a learner’s permit. You need someone with a valid driver’s license with you.”
    “Dad,” I said. “I’m just going to the park. It’s only two miles away. There’s one four-way stop and a traffic light before I get there. I’ll be okay.”
    My dad didn’t go for it. He let me drive, all right. But with him in the passenger seat.
    When we got there, a T-ball game and a lacrosse game were going on. The parking lot was crowded with minivans and Volvos. My dad said that’s because most of the people in Annapolis are ex-military, and they all want to drive the safest car they can find.
    I wondered if Will’s dad drove a Volvo. You know, since Will had said he was in the navy.
    Oops. I hadn’t meant to think about Will.
    My dad told me to call him from the pay phone over by the restrooms when I got done with my run—God forbid my parents should get me a cell phone—so he could come back and get me. I said I would, then gathered up my iPod and water and climbed out of the car. There were only a few people on the running path, mostly walking their Jack Russell terriers or Border collies (back home, the most popular dog is the black lab. Here, it’s Border collies. My dad says it’s because ex-military types want the smartest pet they can find, and that’s the Border collie).
    Will’s dog, Cavalier, is a Border collie. I’m just saying.
    It was late afternoon, and still plenty hot. As I broke into a jog, I was instantly covered in a thin sheen of