Shingaling by R. J. Palacio Read Free Book Online Page B

Gordon Johnsons. Gordie Johnsons. There’s a famous jazz musician named Gordy Johnson (which we theorized could explain the rumor the eye-shop man had heard about
our
Gordy Johnson). There are politician Gordon Johnsons. Construction worker Gordon Johnsons. Veterans. Lots of obituaries. The Internet doesn’t distinguish between names of the living and names of the dead. And every time we clicked on one of those names, we would be relieved that it wasn’t
our
Gordy Johnson. But sad that it was someone else’s Gordy Johnson.
    At first, Ximena didn’t really join in the search. She would be doing her homework or texting Miles on one side of the bedroom while Summer and I huddled around my laptop, scrolling through page after page of dead ends. But one day, Ximena pulled her chair next to ours and started looking over our shoulders.
    “Maybe you should try searching by image,” she suggested.
    Which we did. It was still a dead end. But after that, Ximena became as interested in finding out what happened to Gordy Johnson as we were.

How I Discovered Something About Maya
    Meanwhile, at school, everything was business as usual. We had our science fair. Remo and I got a B+ for our cell-anatomy diorama, which was more than I thought we would get considering I spent as little time on that project as possible. Ximena and Savanna built a sundial. The most interesting one was probably Auggie and Jack’s, though. It was a working lamp that was powered by a potato. I figured Auggie probably did most of the work, since, let’s face it, Jack’s never been what one would call a “gifted student,” but he was so happy to have gotten an A on it. He looked so cute!!! Like a little happy but somewhat clueless emoticon.
    And this was my emoticon when I saw him:
    By the end of February, the boy war had really escalated, though. Summer filled me in about what was going on, since she had the inside scoop on everything from Auggie and Jack’s point of view. Apparently—and I was sworn to secrecy—Julian had started leaving really nasty yellow Post-it notes for Jack and Auggie in their lockers.
    I felt so bad for them!
    Maya felt bad for them, too. She had become obsessed with the boy war herself, though I wasn’t sure why at first. It’s not like she had ever made any attempts to be friends with Auggie! And she always treated Jack like a goofball. Like, back in the days when Ellie and I would point out how cute he looked in his Artful Dodger top hat, Maya would stick her fingers in her ears and cross her eyes, as if even the thought of him repulsed her. So I figured her interest in the war had to do with the fact that, quirky as she was, Maya had a good heart.
    It was only one day at lunch, when I saw her hard at work on some kind of list, that I understood why she cared so much. In her notebook, where she designs her dot games, she had three rows of tiny Post-its with the names of all the boys in the grade. She was sorting them into columns: Jack’s side; Julian’s side; neutrals.
    “I think it’ll help Jack to know he’s not alone in this war,” she explained.
    That’s when I realized:
Maya has a little crush on Jack Will! Awww, that’s so cute!
    “Sweet,” I answered, not wanting to make her self-conscious. So I helped her organize the list. We disagreed about some of the neutrals. She ultimately gave in to me. Then she copied the list onto a piece of loose-leaf paper and folded it in half, then in quarters, then in eighths, then in sixteenths. “What are you going to do with it?”
    “I don’t know,” she answered, pushing her glasses back up her nose. “I don’t want it to get in the wrong hands.”
    “You want me to give it to Summer?”
    “Yes.”
    So I gave the list to Summer to give to Jack and Auggie. I think Summer might have assumed that I had made the list myself, which I didn’t correct because I
had
helped Maya work on the list, so I thought it was fine.
    “How’s the dance stuff going?” Maya asked