Brett McCarthy by Maria Padian Read Free Book Online

blaming her r u?
    Sockrgurl: r u kidding? this was totally her idea! she called l & used my name! she got us in trouble! she’s an idiot!
    2Di4: ok she shouldn’t have used your name. but mrs. l is glad someone called so she didn’t drive around looking 4 josephine.
    I stared at the screen. Somehow, this “conversation” wasn’t going right. Was 2Di4 taking “j a’s” side? Just then she sent another message.
    2Di4: G2G.TTYL.
    The message “2Di4 has signed off” popped up, and Diane disappeared into cyberspace. Nothing about her parents.
    “Brett, dinner.” My parents carried steaming plates to the kitchen table. Mom had made one of my favorites: meat loaf and mashed potatoes. I knew it was her way of making peace. Of getting us back to a normal, good place, where we hung out in the kitchen after school and talked about easy stuff, like sports or Nonna’s latest inventions.
    As I sat down at my place at the table, I caught Dad’s eye. He winked at me and put one hand over mine.
    “‘You may write me down in history / With your bitter, twisted lies. / You may trod me in the very dirt / But still, like dust, I’ll rise,’” he said quietly. “Maya Angelou.”
    One of the weird things about having an English professor for a dad is that he quotes poetry at random moments. One of the cool things is that when you’ve screwed up, he quotes poetry instead of getting mad. Quoting Maya Angelou was Dad’s way of letting me know he’d heard all about my great day. I winked back at him, then filled my mouth with meat and gravy.
    “Mmmm. My favorite,” I said, glancing at Mom. My way of making peace. If I had decided to keep the Cold War going, I would have taken two bites, pushed the plate away, and asked to be excused to do homework. But I’m too much of a chow hound to be a successful Cold Warrior, especially when the potatoes are garlic-mashed.
    Anyone peering in the window would have seen a happy family having a perfectly ordinary evening together. But as Tuesday, October 16th, drew to a close, I knew it was going to take more than meat loaf to make things normal. And while I had a feeling Diane was looking forward to school the next day, I sure wasn’t.

fea•si•ble
    As I stared at my bedroom ceiling the night of October 16th, two questions kept a steady drumbeat in my head. First: What was the feasibility of hiding my identity at school the next morning? Could I slip on dark glasses and a hat every time I saw Bob Levesque?
    Feasible:
capable of being done or carried out; likely.
    Second: How had the Pelletiers broken the news to Diane and Merrill that they were splitting? Was it feasible that Diane didn’t know yet? Was it likely that she already knew and hadn’t said a word to anyone?
    Morning and October 17th finally came, and I stumbled to the bathroom. The big raccoon circles under my eyes, the direct result of no sleep, were the bad news. The good news: I wouldn’t need a disguise at school after all, because no one would recognize me.
    Not wanting to face Mom’s inevitable “My goodness! Do you feel all right?” when she saw my eyes, I raced through a quick shower, packed my gym bag (we had a soccer game that afternoon), and grabbed a box of blueberry Pop-Tarts. I shouted goodbye toward my parents’ bedroom as I headed out the door and walked to school.
    Pop-Tarts are sort of okay toasted and totally gross un-toasted, so after the third one I needed a drink, badly, to wash the saturated-fat gunk down my throat. I also needed to wipe off my shirt; it’s hard to walk and eat breakfast at the same time. So I headed to the outdoor water fountain behind the main school building.
    If you had asked me to list the Top Ten People Brett McCarthy Didn’t Want to See at the Water Fountain, I couldn’t have come up with anything nearly as bad as I actually encountered. Rounding the corner at a full run, I crashed into some tall guy’s T-shirted back.
    “Hey, watch it!” he exclaimed. There was