Straight Punch by Monique Polak Read Free Book Online

balloons trapped between two telephone wires, a perfectly blue summer sky in the background.
    I paused to admire the photo’s colors and composition—the intersection of ovals and horizontal lines. But what I liked even more was that whoever had taken this photo had noticed those balloons caught between the wires in the first place. I knew that person had to be special.
    â€œLove.” I didn’t realize I’d said the word out loud.
    Not until a lanky guy with a camera hanging around his neck touched my elbow. “Did you just say love ?” he asked. His hair was short and curly.
    â€œUh, yeah.” I knew I was blushing. “I really love this photo.”
    The guy grinned.
    â€œDid you ta—?” I started to ask.
    â€œI took it,” he said at the same time.
    Which made us both laugh.
    He reached out to shake my hand. “I’m Cyrus Hollis. I can see you like bold colors.” He was looking at my hair. “Very cool,” he said.
    â€œI’m Tessa McPhail.”
    â€œI’ve seen you around Tyndale,” he said.
    â€œYou go to Tyndale? How come I never saw you?”
    â€œI guess I’m easy to miss—unlike you. I mostly hang out on the second floor—with other kids in the camera club.”
    We went for hot chocolate that afternoon. I tried not to let on how much I liked him. But the library books gave me away. They were still in a pile by my feet when we got up to leave the café. Cyrus noticed them. “Hey, I think you forgot all about returning your library books.”
    â€œThey’re not mine. They’re my mom’s.”
    The next weekend, we went skating at Murray Hill Park. I waited until we were taking off our skates to tell Cyrus about my tagging and how I’d had some trouble with the police.
    At first, he didn’t say anything, which made me worry that he might not want to keep seeing me. But then he leaned in close and whispered, “I never thought I’d want to kiss a juvenile delinquent.”
    And then Cyrus had kissed me. It was only when he was walking me home that afternoon that he said, “Just so we’re clear about this, tagging isn’t art.”
    I admired—sometimes even envied—Cyrus’s passion for photography. But I have to admit, there were times I wished he didn’t lug his camera—a Canon DSLR—and his tripod every single place we went. Like Friday night at Girouard Park, after we’d had dinner with his parents.
    Girouard Park is halfway between Cyrus’s house in Westmount and the apartment in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce where Mom and I live. We were sitting on “our” bench when Cyrus took his hand off my shoulder and rested it on his camera case. “You shouldn’t have told them that story about how the dog got its name,” he said.
    Though I didn’t feel like admitting it to Cyrus, I knew I’d gone too far by telling his parents about Ruger. Mrs. Hollis had nearly choked on her green beans.
    Usually, I liked how predictable the Hollises were—how they called each other darling and how I knew, even before I rang the doorbell, what we’d be having for dinner, since Mrs. Hollis made the same thing every Friday—roast chicken, potatoes and green beans, apple pie with ice cream for dessert.
    But that night, everything about the Hollises had gotten on my nerves. It started when they asked how things were going for me at that school . Neither of them called it New Directions. I recognized the irony. I wanted to be able to complain about New Directions, but it bothered me if anyone else spoke about the school in a disrespectful way.
    â€œIt sure beat your mother telling the story of how she inherited the gravy bowl from her great aunt—or supervising while you ate all your beans.”
    I was relieved when Cyrus laughed. “You make a good point.”
    Except for some homeless guy arguing with himself under a