Switch by Tish Cohen Read Free Book Online Page B

it. But I can’t move.
    Will’s guitar strings collide with a desk and reverberations of musical notes strum without any rhythm. Thrum. Thrum Thrum. Thrum.
    Joules liquefies—who wouldn’t? It’s the most perfect kiss I’ve ever seen, far more exciting than I will ever experience in my Andrea Birch existence. I close my eyes and imagine my lips are touching Will’s. That it’s my back his fingers are caressing. My life his is entwined with.
    The sound of shuffling. I open my eyes to find Joules and Will heading outside, and right away I’m embarrassed. Here I am, the dorky third wheel, watching them kiss, then standing there with my eyes shut as they exit. Unwilling to face either of them out in the hall, I count to ten before starting through the doorway.
    Bad idea. Mr. Buchanan walks right into me on his way into the room, and he looks none too pleased. “Andrea Birch, you know the rules about my room. Report to detention after school.”

chapter 4
    I f my mother looked upset after yesterday’s detention, she looks furious after today’s. As I walk across the crispy lawn Dad tries so hard to make green—can it not rain just once a week, for his sake?—I feel her eyes boring into my soul.
    “Honestly, Andrea. I don’t know what is happening here. Is this some sort of passive-aggressive way of saying you’re not willing to help out with the kids? Because if it is, quite frankly, I’m hurt. Not only is it self-destructive but it’s insulting. I thought I raised you to be open with me.”
    I can hear Kaylee or Kaia, or both, playing in the background. I step up onto the porch and try to decide whether it’s better to look straight at Mom or avert my eyes in submission. In the interests of not looking shifty, I go with the straightforward glance.
    “And don’t give me that look, young lady. Mr. Buchanan tells me you were in a room you’d been strictly forbidden to enter. When you were supposed to be in Spanish.”
    “I’m not.”
    “You’re not what?”
    “Trying to be passive aggressive. It’s not a way to get out of helping with the kids. I swear, this is all just circumstantial.”
    She sighs, exasperated, and crosses her arms. “Honestly, I find it very hard to understand how, after sixteen years of not having detentions, you find yourself with two in two days.”
    “I swear.”
    “The situations we find ourselves in don’t just happen, Andrea. We create them. Just like we create our lives. I didn’t just wake up to this life with all you kids and call it circumstance. I manufactured this family of ours.”
    “Yeah. I know.”
    “I don’t like your tone!”
    “What? No tone! I just meant—”
    “You know, after I got the call from the school today, for the first time ever, I toyed with the idea of bringing in a mother’s helper. I did. And I’ll tell you something, it pains me that I feel I can’t count on you. It really does.”
    I decide to change the subject. “Has Michaela spoken yet?”
    “Maybe if I’d been able to work with her a bit. But the twins were wild today. And it’s quite possible one of them swallowed Play-Doh.”
    Kaia and Kaylee toddle up behind her, all sweaty white hair and fat pink cheeks and brown eyes the size of CDs, both cute as anything, but Kaylee is whining. She tugs on Mom’s pant leg. “Up?”
    Mom continues. “If trouble is not what you want at school—or at home—then do something about your behavior. If you ask me, it is twice as hard to get in trouble at school as it is to just put your head down and get to work.”
    “You don’t understand. The first time it was Joules and the second time it was Will.”
    “Up?”
    “Andrea. Worse than getting yourself in trouble is pointing your finger at someone else.”
    “Up. Up?”
    “I am not pointing my finger at anyone …” I pause to consider this. “Okay, maybe I am, but I’m not kidding when I say …”
    Kaylee tugs harder on Mom’s pant leg, then bends over to throw up blue