The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson Read Free Book Online

heard. I showed her a book once and she kind of shrank away, like Dracula from garlic or something.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œAnd my classes were just kind of stupid, you know? All kinds of stuff I didn’t need. For my core science class I was taking their highest level of Biology 101, which was for majors,and I wasn’t a major. But it was nothing . I did all of that in high school because we had a completely amazing biology program. My high school was so much harder, you know? Because I went to an alternative school, right?”
    May was taking seven periods of biology a week, along with an introductory chemistry class to prepare her for the two more years of chemistry she still had to face. She somehow doubted that Nell had ever done the same amount of work, but she said nothing.
    â€œSo I’m kind of taking some time to think it all over,” Nell continued. “I want to reapply to some really good schools, like Bennington and Smith. You know Bennington and Smith?”
    â€œWhat? Oh. Uh-huh.”
    â€œBennington is like amazingly cool, but it’s really expensive. Sylvia Plath went to Smith, and she totally exposed it for everything it was, but I think it’s really cool now. Did you read The Bell Jar ?”
    Actually, May considered, this wasn’t the worst of the stories she’d had to endure. Nell had once entertained May with a two-hour saga on how she’d been vegan for two years during high school, but then someone had slipped her some cheese-mushroom ravioli and the whole thing had fallen apart, ending with her decision to revert back to ovo-lacto. There had been another grueling evening in which May had learned all about Nell’s eight piercings: the two on her face, the three on her ears, the one on her belly button, and two small rings that she actually called “knocker knockers.” Now that had been a really bad night.
    Nell snapped her fingers in front of May’s face.
    â€œWhat?” May jolted.
    â€œA guy. A guy is here.”
    May followed Nell’s gaze. She was staring out the front windows at Pete. He was getting out of his big gray sedan.
    â€œWhat?” May said. “Him?”
    â€œYou see another guy?”
    â€œThat’s Pete,” May said. She realized as she looked at the clock that Pete was fifteen minutes early.
    â€œPete?” Nell asked.
    â€œYeah. That’s Pete.”
    â€œRight. Got that part. And who is Pete?”
    â€œOh,” May said, “he’s kind of like our neighbor. A family friend. Kind of like one of our old friends.”
    â€œBoyfriend?” Nell said.
    â€œWhat? Mine? No.” May hastily dusted off her apron. “No.”
    â€œCheck out that hair. He’s got a full-on ’fro. You like him?”
    â€œHe’s Pete,” May said.
    â€œOh.” Nell nodded. “It’s like that. Okay.”
    â€œLike what?”
    Pete came in before Nell could answer and before May could remove the baseball cap with the cartoon of the dancing bean on it. That was probably for the best anyway—Nell would have noticed if she’d taken it off.
    As the assistant manager, Nell was able to use her rank to push the uniform to the limit, adding a studded black belt to her ragged cargo pants and wearing a torn black mesh shirt over her white T-shirt. She decorated her fiendishly healthy complexion with a few small bits of metal, including the stud in her nose and the ring through her lower lip. She didn’t have to wear the hat, the name tag, or the apron. May did. Nell liked topoint this out—as a joke, or so she pretended. Nell had an annoying sense of humor like that.
    â€œYou’re early,” May said. The abruptness of her remark caused Pete to stop in his tracks. Nell snorted. Her nose always whistled a bit when she did that as the air passed by the nose stud.
    â€œIf you’re busy”—Pete motioned toward his car—“I can