Big Fat Manifesto by Susan Vaught Read Free Book Online

to the walls are peeling off or sagging.
    When I glance at Heath, his blue eyes seem sharp, awake, and focused as he edges in sports headlines and a breaking piece
     about a health department investigation of an E. coli outbreak traced back to spinach our cafeteria actually served. I squint to see if the spinach was cooked or raw, not that
     it really matters, but my brain's been sticking on stupid things since I found out about Burke's surgery.
    I feel weird.
    I don't feel like me.
    I don't feel like Fat Girl, either.
    I'm not sure what—or who—I feel like, and I don't want to figure it out. It just makes me mad. Everything's making me mad.
     Even the music Heath's playing makes me want to scream. Retro rock. Usually my favorite. Tonight it sounds like clatter and bang and makes my hurting head hurt worse. I'd turn it off, but I'd screw up Heath's rhythm and mind-set, and we're too close to
     deadline for that. If we don't get the rag finished and driven down to the printers by tomorrow morning, it won't come out
     on Friday.
    Ms. Dax would just love that. About one less letter grade's worth, I'd bet.
    "Screw her," I mutter.
    Heath doesn't so much as twitch when I talk to myself. His blond hair hangs forward over his forehead, and his tan seems smooth
     in the harsh desk lights. He's not on a Garwood team like Burke, but he looks like he's into sports. Maybe he plays something
     outside of school.
    I've never asked.
    God, I'm such a bitch.
    When Heath and I talk, it's always newspaper, newspaper, newspaper. But damn it, he seems so... so... calm. Even when we're
     down to deadline. I hate him for being calm. I hate him for being tan. I hate everything. Except maybe Burke and NoNo and
     Freddie. And sometimes my family.
    "We should get a grant like drama did for the cable station," Heath says as he moves and measures another headline, then makes
     a note about something that needs to be reset in a different type size. "Quark and some iMacs—join the modern age like the
     rest of the world, so Principal Edmonds quits asking if this should be the paper's last year."
    I mumble in response. It's what he expects. We've talked about this a dozen times and always blow it off, because we're both
     retro with music and the newspaper. We like handling the layout. We like using the old-fashioned typesetter, seeing the layout in real size, and
     moving the news around like puzzle pieces.
    When we do it with our hands, it feels more like ours. Heath and I aren't technoheads. We usually do our story drafts in pen
     or pencil, then type them up. I don't even own a laptop. Neither does he.
    Okay, so we're freaks in that respect.
    The rest of the newspaper staff thinks so, but they hardly ever bother coming in here.
    "Screw them, too," I mumble, finally fitting "Fat Girl Answering, Part I" around the ad for the local florist. "Underclass
     fools, totally not dedicated to the process. And Edmonds—he could give us more funding, but sports stuff's all he cares about."
    Now Heath grunts.
    It's what I expect.
    We're in sync.
    We're under deadline.
    But Heath is way weirder than me, because he starts singing some freak-ass nursery rhyme to himself over the retro radio.
     The radio with the busted antenna. It's probably forty years old, that radio. Heath won't replace it, either.
    Why? It works.
    Idiot.
    At least I have a cell phone, when I'm not grounded from it. Heath doesn't even have that. He says it's because he doesn't
     want to be that connected. Maybe it's a money thing, even though his family is supposed to be rich. That I could really understand,
     given the way my family struggles with the budget. My mom calls it being "overextended." I've heard people say that about
     the Montels, too. That they're overextended.
    I guess being rich—or looking rich—isn't so easy.
    I wipe my forehead. It's hot, and I'm still tired from play practice.
    Do I stink?
    God, don't go there.
    I've been thinking about stinking lots more since the whole