Ready or Not by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online

down some choices for college for a while now.
    Leaving me to be all, um, hello? Remember me? Your other daughter? The one whose boyfriend just asked her to spend Thanksgiving weekend playing Parcheesi with him? And you said yes? Uh-huh, THAT daughter?
    I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it . My parents were letting me go away for the weekend with my boyfriend.
    And okay, you could see why they would, on account of his dad, being the president.
    But just because your dad is the president doesn’t mean you don’t want to play Parcheesi . I mean, had they ever thought of that?
    Apparently not. Apparently, my parents are the most clueless people on the face of the planet.
    And now, thanks to them, it looked like I was going to Camp David for Thanksgiving, to get an up close and personal look at my boyfriend’s inguinal ligament.
    Okay. This isn’t happening.
    And yet, apparently, it is.
    I was still reeling from the shock of it all when Lucy came flitting past my bedroom door a little while later. I had my headphones on—I was listening to Tragic Kingdom , in the hopes that Gwen’s assurance that she’s “just a girl in the world” would soothe my frazzled soul—so all I saw were Lucy’s lips moving for a minute. When she didn’t give up and go away after a while, I pulled my headphones off and went, in a voice unfriendly enough to startle my dog, Manet, from her sleep, “ What? ”
    â€œThat’s what I was asking you ,” Lucy said. “Why do you look as if you just found out John Mayer died?”
    Because in Lucy’s world, if John Mayer died, people would freak . In my world if that happened? No one would notice.
    â€œUm, because this year while you’re helping Grandma light her pilgrim candle replicas of John and Priscilla Smith, I’m going to be losing my virginity to my longtime boyfriend at Camp David.”
    That’s what I want to tell her.
    But since I can’t help thinking this isn’t the wisest thing to confide to my sister, I just say the first thing that popped into my head, which is, “I don’t know. I guess I’m just upset because…because…today, I saw my first, um, you-know-what.”
    I saw right away that I should have said something else. Anything else. Because this had the opposite effect of what I’d been hoping for—that Lucy would go away.
    Instead, she came barreling all the way into my room, not even looking where she was going and knocking over my Hellboy action figures, which I had artfully set up along the top of my dresser to portray the Liz-on-the-sacrificial-slab scene.
    â€œReally?” Lucy asked, all eager. “David’s? What’d he, whip it out while he was kissing you good night out there just now? That is so gross. I hate when they do that.”
    â€œUm, no,” I said, somewhat taken aback. Do guys actually do this? David certainly never has. But maybe only because he’s too polite.
    But it sounded like it’s happened to my sister a lot . And she supposedly has a steady boyfriend! And okay, he’s away at college, but still. What goes on at those parties she goes to, the ones at the popular people’s houses? No wonder Kris Parks had embraced Right Way with so much vigor. She was probably psychologically scarred from guys whipping it out right and left in front of her.
    â€œIt was this guy named Terry’s,” I said. “He’s a nude model Susan Boone made us draw.”
    This didn’t seem to strike Lucy as any better than David having whipped it out.
    â€œEw!” she said. “You saw some skanky model guy’s penis before you saw your own boyfriend’s? That is sick.”
    Considering that’s exactly how I’d been feeling a few hours before, it was funny that I heard myself replying, “Yeah, well, that’s what life drawing is all about. Because you can’t learn to draw the