Bitterroot Crossing by Tess Oliver Read Free Book Online Page A

but now, here in the restroom, I was cornered. I’d only come in to wash my hands before heading to the lunchroom. I walked to the sink and placed my lunch bag on the tile. She lunged forward and grabbed it just as she’d grabbed off my hood the day before.
        Tina ripped open the bag. My apple leapt out and rolled across the bathroom floor, stopping to rest against the bottom of the trash can. She rummaged through the rest of it.
        “I’m happy to give you one of my grandmother’s pumpkin muffins. They’re very tasty.” My mom had always told me to meet cruelty head-on with kindness because kindness always won the day, but I’d tried the kindness tact with Tina yesterday, and it didn’t seem to do the trick. Looking at the way the girl pursed her mouth and scrunched up her nose at my muffin offer made me confident that Tina was about to put a final end to my mom’s theory.
        Tina laughed as she pulled out a napkin-wrapped muffin. She took a whiff of the muffin which was rich with cloves and nutmeg. “I think your muffins smell like crap.” Now her friends laughed as well.
        “That’s a shame. Most people enjoy their fragrance.” I glanced around the restroom. “Perhaps it’s because we’re standing in a bathroom.”
        “ Perhaps , or perhaps it’s because they’re crap. And you know where crap belongs.” She kicked open a bathroom stall and sent the entire contents of my lunch bag into the toilet. She wadded up the bag and threw it at me. “And stay away from my boyfriend, freak.”
        I watched them leave, picked up my apple, and threw it away. I shoved my flowered lunch bag into my school bag before continuing with my task of hand washing. Fortunately, Nana had tucked a five dollar bill into my pocket this morning in case I needed it. I was rather hungry, so I decided to try the cafeteria food. After all, how bad could it be?
        The cafeteria made the horrid classrooms look quaint. It smelled oddly of a mixture of cleaning fluid, rancid grease, and ketchup. White metal tables sat in rows on top of an equally white tile floor, the only difference being that the floor had a lot of food crumbs, wrappers, and shoe dirt. The table tops were not much cleaner upon closer inspection. A line seemed to be forming at the right side of the room. Students were swinging grayish-green trays while they chatted and waited to get to the counter with the food selection.
        I picked up a tray and joined the line. Very few people had spoken to me. Most had just stared openly at me like now in the lunch line.
        “I thought I saw you with a lunch bag today.” It was a now familiar voice, the only friendly voice I’d encountered so far, and a voice that somehow always managed to make my hands tremble.
        I smiled back at Nick. He looked gloriously handsome today in a black t-shirt and jeans. I glanced around to see if wretched Tina was in view. She was nowhere in sight. “I still have the bag,” I said. “Unfortunately, at this moment, the contents, which were no doubt delicious, are floating down to the sewer where some lucky pack of rats will happen upon them.”
        “Sorry about that. I’ll bet I can guess who did it too.”
        “She’d rather if I didn’t talk to you.”
        Now he surveyed the room as if he was looking for her. “I have nothing to do with her actions, but I won’t blame you if you don’t want to talk to me. I’ll be totally bummed, but I’ll understand.”
        “You’re the only person worth talking to here at school. I suppose I’ll put up with her threats.” We moved several steps closer to the food warming trays. None of the smells were making my mouth water. “However, I think I’ll keep a closer watch on my lunch bag from now on.”
        “People around here just don’t know how to react to strangers. Even though you’ve lived in Bitterroot all your life, you technically fall into that category. And