Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee Read Free Book Online Page A

the school year ends next month.
    “ Miss Jones,” Catherine Hilliard booms
from behind me and I jump like somebody stuck a hot poker to my
ass.
    “ Yes ma’am?” My stomach knots up as I
turn around.
    “ In here, please, ma’am ,” she piles on the sarcasm when she
says ma’am and motions me
into her office.
    I sit down in a dusty, navy blue chair that
looks like it had its hey-day back when Axl Rose could still sing.
Mrs. Hilliard comes in and starts digging through a junky filing
cabinet behind her desk and pulls out a yellow slip of paper and I
realize with no small amount of apprehension what this meeting is
about.
    I thought I’d rejoice when this day came
but, in all honesty, I’m not feeling too peppy about this.
    “ For you, Miss Jones,” she says in her
most vindictive tone, “to reward you for your most inappropriate
conduct which resulted in your arrest Monday night.” She looks at
me with pure disgust. “Such unbecoming behavior for an educational
professional and I’m using that term loosely in reference to you.
You should be ashamed of yourself.”
    “ Why?” I ask sarcastically. “Did he
have a miscarriage after I hit him?”
    She doesn’t say a word. She just stares at
me like I have an arm growing out of my forehead.
    “ It would be in your best interest to
start keeping your mouth shut and minding your own business, Miss
Jones,” she says curtly and slides the ominous yellow slip between
her thumb and forefinger, revealing two slips instead of just one.
She flashes her big yellow-toothed smile. “One more write-up and
you will be suspended.” She
places the two slips on her desk side by side. “Without
pay.”
    “ What?” I practically shout. “What’s
the second one for?”
    “ Excessive tardiness,” she says with
no small amount of delight. “Surely this doesn’t surprise you since
you manage to get to work on time about two times a month, if
that.” She slides the two pieces of paper across her desk and they
leave a trail in the dust.
    I feel the fury welling up in my gut and I
am overcome with the urge to jump across her junky ass desk and
beat the ugly off her face with that 1979 model calculator.
    But I don’t because I can’t. She’s got me by
my metaphorical balls.
    I get up and snatch the papers off her
filthy desk and turn to leave.
    “ Toodle-loo, Miss Jones,” she calls as
I walk out the door. “Have a great day!”
    I resist the urge to give her the
finger.
    12
    I am a celebrity. At least at Ethan Allen’s
anyway.
    I walk in to a standing ovation and Logan
Hatter puts his arm around me and smiles like he’s Clint Eastwood
and I’m Hillary Swank with a much wider ass. Ha.
    Ethan pours up a Killian’s Red and puts it
down on the bar with great theatrical flair and people form a line
on either side of me like I’m the winning quarterback at the state
championship football game. I get hugs and pats on the back and
pats on the ass and high fives and smiles and winks from the
working people of Bugtussle who love nothing more than a good story
about a white collar asshole getting punched in the eyeball.
    I polish off a few beers and, after much
pomp and circumstance, I enthrall them with the details of
everything that happened from the moment I stepped off the elevator
on the ICU floor until Sheriff Jackson stuffed me in the back of
his patrol car. And I’m quite the storyteller, if I do say so
myself.
    The place erupts with laughter and cheers
and a few guys from the feed store break out in an Irish Jig. I
don’t mention that I puked my brains out when I saw Chloe. Instead,
while I have the floor, I decide to tell them about Catherine
Hilliard calling me into her dirty, stinking office and telling me
to mind my own business and keep my mouth shut and that I was about
to get fired because I wouldn’t get to work on time. Then I do what
I believe is a fantastic impersonation of her and, judging from the
laughs I get when I pretend to eat the barstool next