How to Be Popular by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online Page B

are the same people in private as they are in public.

Do what they want to be doing in life. They enjoy various pursuits and hobbies and live with purpose.

Are direct and honest, while always being conscious of the feelings of others.

Are never “phony” or “fake.”
    Can you honestly say the same about yourself?
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Six
    STILL T - MINUS ONE DAY AND COUNTING
SUNDAY , AUGUST 27, 3 P . M .
    Jason came over as I was laying out everything I was going to need for the coming week. He went, “What are you doing?”
    “What does it look like?” I asked him.
    “I don’t know,” Jason said. “Sorting through your clothes?”
    “See,” I said. “They were right to let you go on to eleventh grade this year, after all.”
    “Funny,” Jason said. He was staring at all my clothes. “Are those new ?”
    “They are.”
    “Where’d you get the money?”
    I just looked at him. It is a well-known fact that Jason cannot handle money. The only way he was able to save enough for his car was by giving the money to me. Hegot it back six months later with a healthy return.
    I didn’t think it was necessary to reveal that, in this particular case, I had borrowed from Grandpa. I had only needed to borrow from Gramps because all of my savings are currently invested in mutual funds.
    “Well,” Jason said, apparently realizing the stupidity of his question, “okay. But, like…since when do you care about clothes?”
    “I’ve always cared about clothes,” I said, genuinely startled by this question “I mean, I care how I look.”
    “Oh, really, Crazytop?”
    “For your information,” I said, “this haircut is all the rage on the runways in Paris.” Well, the straightened version of it, anyway. But no way am I going to all the trouble to straighten my hair on a non–school day.
    “Paris, Texas, maybe,” Jason said, flopping down on my floor, the only place in my room not covered with the various ensembles I was putting together (because The Book very clearly states that you should pick out your clothes, including undergarments, well in advance of whatever event you are planning to wear them to, in order to avoid a last-minute fashion crisis).
    “Whatever,” I said. He’ll so be singing a different tune when he sees the straightened version of my haircut. More importantly, so will Mark Finley. “Don’t you have something you should be doing?”
    “Yeah,” Jason said. “I was thinking about taking The B to the lake.” This is how Jason refers to his new car. As “The B.” “Wanna come?”
    As tempting as the idea of seeing Jason without his shirt on was—and without the benefit of Bazooka Joe binoculars—I was forced to decline, due to the busy afternoon I had ahead of me, cataloging my entire fall wardrobe.
    “Aw, c’mon,” Jason said. “When’d you get to be such a girl ?”
    I glared at him. “Thanks.”
    “You know what I mean,” he said, rolling over and staring at the stick-on glow-in-the-dark constellations we’d pasted to my ceiling back when we were in the fourth grade. “I mean, you never used to care about clothes and your hair—and how big your butt’s gotten.”
    “Well, not all of us can eat anything we want and not gain weight,” I pointed out. “Not all of us NEED to gain weight. Like some people I could mention.”
    Jason propped himself up on one elbow. “Is this about Mark Finley?” he demanded.
    I could feel myself flushing. Not because he’d mentioned Mark, but because when he leaned up on one elbow like that, I could see some of his underarm hair tufting out from beneath his shirt sleeve, and that reminded me of the hair I’d seen tufting out from other parts of his body. You know. Through the window. With my Bazooka Joe binoculars.
    “No,” I said, more loudly than I meant to. “Because if it were, I’d be crawling all over myself to go with you, wouldn’t I? Since the lake’s the most likely place Mark and all the other A-crowders will be today. Which