Nine Inches by Tom Perrotta Read Free Book Online

ff ection for the girl, who really was a lovely person despite the awful things she’d written. Her attack was just a projection, an attempt to displace negative feelings for herself onto someone else. Vicki understood all too well how that sort of thing worked.
    Her relief didn’t last for long, though. Without meaning to, she found herself reading the review that had taken the place of Jessica’s at the top of the Vicki Wiggins’s page on grademyteacher.com. It was several months old, written by a student who called himself “Mr. Amazing”:
All in all Ms. Wiggins is a pretty good math teacher, except she’s pretty strict about stupid little things. Like she gave this one kid detention cause his cellphone rang in class. Ok he should have turned it o ff , but was it his fault that someone called him? But like I said she’s not that bad. I don’t care what anybody says there is no way she’s more boring than Mr. Ferrone.
    Vicki had read this post when it fi rst appeared and had barely given it a second thought. It was actually pretty good as far as these things went — Mr. Amazing had given her a higher-than-average overall rating of 6.0 — but right now it just seemed heartbreaking. Was this what she would be remembered for when all was said and done? Th at she gave some kid detention for a minor o ff ense? Th at maybe — just maybe — she wasn’t as mind-numbingly dull as Dennis Ferrone?
    I have so much to o ff er . And no one even notices.
    For a few seconds, she thought about approaching Jessica a ft er class tomorrow, suggesting that she post a new, more generous review on the site just to set the record straight. But it was a lot to ask. And the thought of making such a request was embarrassing beyond words.
    She wasn’t sure why it mattered so much, but it did. It just did. Why wouldn’t it? She was a good person, she worked hard, and it seemed crazy — crazy and wrong — that these things went unacknowledged.
    It turned out to be easier than she expected to register on grademyteacher.com. You just typed in an e-mail address and checked a box that said I AM A STUDENT AT GIFFORD HIGH SCHOOL . She chose the username Frappuccinogrrrl and wrote the following in the comments box:
My math teacher Vicki Wiggins is really nice. She’s pretty and really cares about us kids. Like if you were having a problem she’d meet you a ft er school and try to make you feel better because she just wants everybody to be happy. And she knows a lot about math too.
    Th ere was more to say — much more — but space was limited and she decided to stop there. She checked her work, pressed SEND , and turned o ff her computer. Th ere would be time enough in the morning to wake up and drink a cup of co ff ee, then maybe google herself before heading o ff to work. It would be nice, she thought, clicking on her own name and, just for once, fi nding something that felt like the truth.

TH E SMILE ON
HAPPY CHANG’S FACE
    THE SUPERIOR WALLCOVERINGS WILDCATS WERE playing in the Little League championship game, and I wanted them to lose. I wanted the Town Pizza Ravens and their star pitcher, Lori Chang, to humiliate them, to run up the score and taunt them mercilessly from the fi rst-base dugout. I know this isn’t an admirable thing for a grown man to admit — especially a grown man who has agreed to serve as home-plate umpire — but there are feelings you can’t hide from yourself, even if you’d just as soon chop o ff your hand as admit them to anyone else.
    I had nothing against the Wildcat players. It was their coach I didn’t like, my next-door neighbor, Carl DiSalvo, the Kitchen Kabinet King of northern New Jersey. I stood behind the backstop, feeling huge and bloated in my cushiony chest protector, and watched him hit in fi eld practice. A shamelessly vain man, Carl had ripped the sleeves o ff his sweatshirt, the better to display the rippling muscles he worked for like a dog down at Bally’s. I knew all about his