Nothing But the Truth by Justina Chen Read Free Book Online Page A

better, but free is best.
    Worse, I can feel Mark scrutinizing me, but when I glare at him, dare him to look at me straight in my face, his eyes fall to his hands, twisted on his desk. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is our future leader of America.
    “Everything OK, Patty?” asks Mrs. Meyers.
    I nod and plaster an A-OK smile on my face even though I don’t think I’ll B-OK for a while. As I slide into my seat, Janie whispers, “What happened to you?”
    I take one look at Janie with her pink miniskirt and funky cowboy boots and chubby thighs. She can complain all day long about being fat, but her extra fifteen pounds don’t stop her from getting dates, don’t stop her from fitting in, don’t stop her from being normal. By virtue of blotchy red skin that is still white when it counts, she doesn’t get spit upon. Jealousy scrambles sure-footed into my heart.
    Her forehead-wrinkling half-smile of support makes me ashamed of my Janie-envy. This is my best friend, after all.
    “He spit on me,” I mutter to Janie, as I pass up my English composition book. I don’t have to tell her who the “he” is. “And Mark was with him.”
    Janie’s solidarity is immediate, never mind that she’s had a not-so-secret crush on Mark for the past two years, too, not that I’ve ever admitted my own stupid infatuation. She screws up her face in disgust. Without any hesitation, she swivels in her seat, facing Mark, and mouths: “Asshole loser.”
    We can glare all we want at him, but there’s nothing anyone can do about the real loser. Not when Steve’s mother is on the school board. Not when the last time I lodged a complaint, my ju nior high school principal, Mrs. Stark, justhemmed and hawed and said she’d look into it. What she meant was she was looking into her future as a principal.
    “Some of my favorite reads, perfect for keeping your brain sharp this summer,” says Mrs. Meyers, back to business. Normally, I’m all ears in Honors English, totally absorbed because Mrs. Meyers talks to us like peers, not kids. Her hand floats across the chalkboard, but her writing could have been Sanskrit for all its wriggles in front of my unseeing eyes.
    “I loved
The Corrections,
” cries Anne, ever the dedicated Asian student even on this last day of school when all the grades have been calculated. I want to shake her: You are the reason why everyone hates us. Why everyone calls the two of us the Asian Mafia even though only one of us dominates every class discussion. Guess which one? God, Anne, why do you have to raise the curve? Why can’t you stay quiet like me?
    Mrs. Meyers hefts a huge cardboard box onto her desk. Her hands are on either side of the box, like she’s protecting its contents. “Now the day you’ve been waiting for. I can honestly say that I enjoyed reading every one of your Truth Statements.” She picks a couple off the top of the stack. Thick binders. Laminated covers. Professional bindings.
    I feel like my lungs have collapsed. On the Monday they were due, Mrs. Meyers gave us an extension until three in the afternoon to turn in our Truth Statements, a special dispensation because of the Spring Fling. I hadn’t seen anyone else’s work. Until now. Hadn’t we all moaned about how behind we were on writing our Truth Statements?
    Talk about truth is cheap. The whole truth was that everyone—except me—went full-throttle for the A+.
    Mrs. Meyers beams, proud mama who gave birth to all these overachievers. “Most of you are ready to write spectacular,honest college applications. Just remember, dig deep inside yourself to find the real answers. The real truth.” Then Mrs. Meyers starts calling up people to collect their Truth Tomes from her. “Anne.”
    The front of Anne’s three-inch binder is decorated with a collage, rice paper decoupaged with photographs of a traditional Chinese garden moongate. Geez, even if she listed all her spelling bee trophies and math championships and geography ribbons, they