How To Be A Perfect Girl by Mary Williams Read Free Book Online

her. “We know that girl!”
someone shouted. The window rolled down slowly, to reveal Keenan in
the passenger seat; beside him, driving, was Alex. Val hadn’t even
known they were friends.
    Val ran through her options quickly: she
could run away and pretend to have been somewhere else the whole
night, she could try to wipe away her tears before anyone saw, or
she could just acknowledge them and keep walking. Numb as she was,
the third option seemed best. “Hey Keenan, Alex,” she said.
    “Hey Val!” Alex grinned.
    “Hey Val,” Keenan looked worried, “What’s
wrong?”
    “Oh, nothing.” Val looked at the ground; why
did they have to run across her now, when all she wanted to do was
go home and hide under a blanket? She was sure they’d tell everyone
at Palm Lake about her walking home, and about why she was crying
if she told them. Keenan might be trustworthy, but Alex was the
type who always shared others’ secrets.
    They wouldn’t accept her vague answer,
“Look,” Keenan replied, “no one cries over nothing. Can we at least
give you a ride?”
    “Yeah,” Alex agreed, “We have an extra seat
right here. On my lap.”
    Val shook her head, “I guess I could use a
ride. But do I have to sit on your lap?”
    Alex rolled down the windows to reveal
Grant, Steven, and Logan in the backseat, “You’re gonna have to sit
on someone’s lap, sweety. Might as well be mine, right?” he
winked.
    Val wiped away some tears with her hands;
they came away black. “Still think I look like a goddess,
Alex?”
    Keenan and Alex both laughed. “It would take
more than a little smeared makeup to ruin your beauty,” Keenan
said, “You can sit in my lap if you want. I promise I’ll be more
respectful than Alex. Plus, my door’s closer.”
    Val thought about it for a moment, and then
stepped from the curb and pulled open the white sedan’s
passenger-side door. She settled down on Keenan’s lap; it was
pretty uncomfortable. He undid his seatbelt and re-secured it over
both of them, “There. Now if we get in a car crash we won’t
die.”
    “So where do you need to go?” Alex
asked.
    “1625 Cedar Avenue,” Val recited her new
address; she was glad that she’d memorized it.
    “Cedar,” Alex thought for a moment, “I used
to have a friend who lived there. I know exactly where it is.”
    “Great,” for a moment Val worried what her
parents would say when she was dropped off by five boys, but Keenan
and Alex kept up a running stream of jokes that made her forget
about that concern.
    Alex drove ten miles over, even on the
sidestreets, and as a result Val was home several minutes before
she’d expected to be. “Well, here I am. Thanks for the ride,” she
smiled as sweetly as she could, given her current emotions.
    “Any time, sweety. You owe me one
though.”
    “I do?” Val asked, worried.
    “Naw, of course you don’t,” Keenan assured,
“I owe you one for letting me use your Chem notes, and Alex owes me
one, so let’s just count this as repayment all around.”
    Val wasn’t sure she understood his logic,
“Yeah, sure. Bye, guys. See you tomorrow.”
    “Au revoir!” Alex shouted as he drove off;
Val thought she could hear Keenan making fun of him (“That’s not
Italian, it’s French, stupid”) as the white car sped away.
    Dad cleared his throat from the driveway,
“So—who were they?”

Chapter 6
    The second day of Val’s Flag
Football/Volleyball class found her learning how to throw a proper
spiral. It turned out to be a lot harder than Young made it look;
Val had discovered he was the school’s quarterback, which explained
why he knew Mr. Sharp so well. It would have been easier if she
hadn’t been one of only seven girls in the class; Mr. Sharp seemed
to take special pleasure in teasing her.
    “Come on ,” he said after Val threw a
particularly inaccurate pass, “You call that a spiral?”
    “I’m trying,” Val mumbled.
    “Yes yes, of course you are. And I’m trying
to be patient