The Thing About the Truth by Lauren Barnholdt Read Free Book Online Page A

going to dismiss me, basically letting me start whatever kind of club I want? “So I was thinking about maybe newspaper,” I tell him. “I’ve always been interested in journalism.”
    “We don’t have a newspaper here anymore,” Mr. Colangelo says.
    “Yes, that’s why I was hoping I could start one.”
    “Start one?” He sounds shocked. “I don’t think you need the kind of stress that comes from starting a school club when you’ve just enrolled here.”
    “But you just said . . .” Wait a minute. Did Mr. Colangelo think I said I wanted to join an existing club? And so he was giving me permission to do that? Way to listen. Not that there’s anything wrong with joining an extracurricular activity, but let’s face it: When you don’t have an alumnus as a parent, or some kind of famous relative, you can’t just join some clubs for your college applications. You have to do something big and meaningful. Especially if you’ve gotten kicked out of your last school.
    There’s a knock on Mr. Colangelo’s door, and the secretary pokes her head in. “Sorry to interrupt,” she says, “but Isaac Brandano is here. He said he was supposed to be joining you and Ms. Romano?”
    “Is that true, Kelsey?” Mr. Colangelo asks.
    “Um, well . . .”
    But before I can tell him no, Isaac appears in the doorway of the office. He’s now wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, with a blue zip-up on over it. Why did he change his clothes? And why is he here? Shouldn’t he have scheduled his own meeting?
    “Hey,” he says when he sees me, like we’re old friends and not two people who barely know each other and got into a fight in the hallway this morning.
    “Hello,” I say tightly. “It’s nice to see you, Isaac, but Mr. Colangelo and I aren’t done with our meeting. As soon as we are, you can talk to him about how you want to run an extracurricular too.”
    “Oh!” Isaac says. “I thought we’d talked about doing it together.”
    “You two?” Mr. Colangelo says. He looks interested, probably because anything Isaac does is going to get a lot of people signing up for it. Not to mention some kind of funding from his dad. Hell, maybe they’ll even pass some kind of bill, like “Isaac’s Law” or something, and his club will get a big grant from the state that won’t ever be able to be taken away.
    “Yeah,” Isaac says. He’s moving into the room now, I guess because he thinks he’s been invited in, even though he so totally hasn’t. He drops his book bag down at my feet and then slides into the chair next to me.
    “Ow,” I say, pretending that he dropped his bag on my foot. I move my feet away from him.
    “We were talking about it this morning before school, remember?” Isaac asks, ignoring my fake injury.
    He gives me a big grin, like he’s challenging me to say we weren’t.
    “Well,” I say, wondering how I’m going to get out of this one, “we were talking about it, that’s true, but—”
    “Well, Kelsey, why didn’t you say so?” Mr. Colangelo bellows. “As long as you have another student helping you, I think starting a club is a great idea. Does either of you have any ideas about what it could be?”
    “I do,” Isaac says.
    I cannot believe this. Not only is Isaac pretending that we had some kind of plan to do this together, but now Mr. Colangelo is giving me permission just because Isaac isinvolved. And now Isaac is even claiming he has some ideas about what kind of group we can start!
    “Me too,” I say, not wanting to be outdone. Maybe when Isaac starts giving his half-baked ideas for whatever stupid things he’s come up with, I can jump in with mine. And then maybe Mr. Colangelo will see that I actually can do this on my own, and I don’t need Isaac Brandano’s name or influence to help me.
    “That’s so great,” Isaac says. “Do you want to present your ideas first?” He’s giving me this sort of smarmy smile, a smile that makes me think he just wants me to give my