Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances by John Green, Lauren Myracle, Maureen Johnson Read Free Book Online

maybe a little more sharply than I intended. “Do guys really believe that if they are the only male in the area, that girls will suddenly crawl on top of them? Like we scavenge for lone survivors and reward them with group make-out sessions?”
    “That isn’t what happens?” he asked.
    I didn’t even dignify that remark with a comeback.
    “But what’s wrong with cheerleaders?” he asked, sounding very pleased that he’d gotten such a rise out of me. “I’m not saying I only like cheerleaders. I’m just not prejudiced against them.”
    “It’s not prejudice,” I said firmly.
    “It’s not? What is it then?”
    “It’s the idea of cheerleaders,” I said. “Girls, on the sidelines, in short skirts, telling guys that they’re great. Chosen for their looks.”
    “I don’t know,” he said tauntingly. “Judging groups of people you don’t know, making assumptions, talking about their looks . . . it sounds like prejudice, but—”
    “I am not prejudiced !” I shot back, unable to control my reaction now. There was so much darkness around us at that moment. Above us, there was a hazy pewter-pink sky. Around us, there were only the outlines of the skinny bare trees, like thin hands bursting out of the earth. Endless white ground below, and swirling flakes, and a lonely whistle of wind, and the shadows of houses.
    “Look,” Stuart said, refusing to quit this annoying game, “how do you know that in their spare time, they aren’t EMTs or something? Maybe they save kittens, or run food banks, or—”
    “Because they don’t,” I said, stepping ahead of him. I slipped a little but jerked myself upright. “In their spare time, they get waxings.”
    “You don’t know that,” he called from behind me.
    “I wouldn’t have to explain this to Noah,” I said. “He would just get it.”
    “You know,” Stuart said evenly, “as wonderful as you think this Noah is—I’m not all that impressed with him right now.”
    I’d had it. I turned around and started walking the way we had come, taking hard, firm steps.
    “Where are you going?” he asked. “Oh, come on . . . ”
    He tried to make it sound like it was no big deal, but I had simply had it. I stamped down hard to keep my gait steady.
    “It’s a long way back!” he said, hurrying to catch up with me. “Don’t. Seriously.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said, like I didn’t really care very much. “I just think it would be better if I . . . ”
    There was a noise. A new noise under the whistle and the squeak and shift of ice and snow. It was a snapping noise that sounded kind of like a log on a fire, which was unpleasantly ironic. We both stopped exactly where we stood. Stuart flashed me a look of alarm.
    “Don’t mov—”
    And then the surface beneath us just went away.

Chapter Six
     
    M aybe you’ve never fallen into a frozen stream. Here’s what happens.
    1. It is cold. So cold that the Department of Temperature Acknowledgment and Regulation in your brain gets the readings and says, “I can’t deal with this. I’m out of here.” It puts up the OUT TO LUNCH sign and passes all responsibility to the . . .
    2. Department of Pain and the Processing Thereof, which gets all this gobbledygook from the temperature department that it can’t understand. “This is so not our job,” it says. So it just starts hitting random buttons, filling you with strange and unpleasant sensations, and calls the . . .
    3. Office of Confusion and Panic, where there is always someone ready to hop on the phone the moment it rings. This office is at least willing to take some action. The Office of Confusion and Panic loves hitting buttons.
    So, for a split second, Stuart and I were unable to do anything because of this bureaucratic mess going on in our heads. When we recovered a little, I was able to take some stock of what was happening to me. The good news was, we were only in up to our chests. Well, I was. The water came exactly breast-high.