Shutout by Brendan Halpin Read Free Book Online

how special our beloved Charlesborough is, that meant I had basically been cut from the A team
again
.
    â€œThose of you who are certain there’s been a terrible mistake in your placement, put your complaint in writing, and I’ll be sure to file it appropriately.” Mr. Knarr held up the wastepaper basket when he said this. Did everybody on the staff here have, like,
1001 Corny Jokes for Teachers
or something? “No, I’m kidding. Go down and fight the crowds atguidance if you have questions. You’ll probably have to make an appointment.”
    I fumed until the bell rang and we had time to go set up our lockers and go to guidance. I met Lena in the hall and looked at her schedule. We had the same classes, except, of course, for math, where she had level one and I had level two.
    â€œWell, at least we’ve got everything else together,” Lena said. “See?” She handed me her schedule.
    â€œYeah, that’s—wait a minute. You’re in English 9-1-B!”
    â€œUm, yeah?”
    â€œSo I’m in English 9-1-A! We’re not in the same English class!” In fact, we were in different sections for everything, no doubt because me being in bonehead math had messed up my schedule so I wouldn’t be with Lena
at all
.
    I figured I could set up my locker later, so I said goodbye to Lena and practically ran to guidance. One good thing was that I was able to talk to my guidance counselor right away. He was a tall, white-haired guy who was the boys’ JV soccer coach, and somehow he knew I was Conrad’s sister even though we have different last names.
    â€œI’m really sorry, Amanda,” he said. “I know this is hard. But the eighth grade teachers make the recommendations for leveling ninth graders, and the teachers will murder me if I mess with that stuff. If they’ve made a terrible mistake, your math teacher will see that, and you can move up.”
    It turned out that Mr. Blair, my eighth grade Algebra teacher, was evil as well as boring. Of course I hadn’t done well in his class! He was the most boring person on the face of the earth, and he spoke in a monotone all the time. How canyou possibly pay attention to somebody droning on and on at 7:40 in the morning?
    I really wanted to cry, but I pushed my tears back inside and made them stay there and was determined to walk through this horrible day in this horrible school with my head held high.
    I heard Dad’s voice in my head again. “Tough as an old boot,” he whispered.
    Yeah, Dad, but if I’m the old boot, why am I the one who keeps getting kicked?

8
    Back in middle school, lunch with Lena always helped me get through a stressful day. Like pretty much whatever was going on, she could get me to laugh about it. And that’s the way lunch started today.
    â€œOh my God, this math class is going to kill me,” I said. “It’s me and a bunch of burnouts and poor Nick Randall. I mean, the kid is nice, but he’s dumb as a doorknob, and I’m in class with him!”
    â€œToo bad you don’t sell weed,” she answered.
    â€œWhat the hell are you talking about?”
    â€œWell, burnouts with bad math skills—it seems like an awesome moneymaking opportunity. You could totally cheat them and they’d probably thank you for it!”
    I was upset, but I couldn’t help laughing, picturing me in the back of the room with baggies and a scale and everything, as if that would ever happen. I’d be more likely to startshopping in petites. “I think I’ll probably go for the job over at the ice cream shop, if it’s all the same to you.”
    â€œYeah, I don’t know how often my mom would let me visit you in jail.”
    â€œIt might solve my problem of never having anything to wear though.” Yes, my fashion problem is so bad I was actually pondering the positives of prison uniforms.
    â€œDon’t go to jail for