Things Are Gonna Get Ugly by Hillary Homzie Read Free Book Online Page B

her to sell shares of me on eBay, she would do it.
    â€œI don’t feel well,” I say, sinking farther down into the beanbag chair. I’m not about to get into the whole I’m-not-myself thing again. Then I remember the quake. “Maybe I’m still jittery, you know, from the tremor yesterday, waiting for an aftershock, or whatever.”
    Mom opens my door and peers into the room. I can see the hall is filled with unopened moving boxes. “You sure?”
    â€œYes,” I say, standing up. “It felt pretty major.”
    â€œLet me go check online because I didn’t feel a thing yesterday, and I was shooting some photos for The Palo Alto Tribune up on the ninth floor of the VA Hospital. Believe me, if there’d been a quake that thing would’ve been swaying like a pendulum.” Mom pads into the hallway, hopping over the boxes, down to the computer in the kitchen, and a moment later, she calls out. “Nope. Honey, nothing. Maybe it was construction or something.”
    Construction? I don’t think so. As she closes mybedroom door, it comes to me. It was something all right. I know I felt the floor shaking right after Dribble said he was going to help me. Hello. Right afterward, as in microseconds later. Earthquake. Fresh start. Dribble. Helping me. Major life change.
    I think I’m getting this. Why did it take me so long to see what happened?
    The direct connection jolts me, and it’s like my whole body’s buzzing. Quaking. Alive. But not in a good way.
    Yesterday afternoon, when Dribble asked me if I wanted a fresh start, I thought he was talking about the test. Now I know better—he meant my life.
    I Have to Get to School
    For the first time, I’m dying to see Dribble.
    But not to see me and my scary clothing. Apparently, it’s not a budget reality to go to the Stanford Shopping Center and get a whole new wardrobe. Even when I very reasonably suggested a couple of small items from Max Heeder online, like their baby doll T-shirts, which are on sale for three hundred dollars, my mother declined.
    With no decent choices, I pull on a pair of baggy jeans and a T-shirt that says QUESTION REALITY.Lovely. My new motto. On a hook behind my door, I spy a purple hoodie with flowers, and put it on over my shirt. Looks-wise, I feel like I’ve stepped into a vat of bugs.
    Is There Anybody Out There?
    I slink down the hall with my hoodie pulled down over my head. Except for a custodian pushing a mop bucket down the hall, the place is deserted.
    I race until I’m in front of my first-period class, social studies with Mr. Dribble, classroom number thirteen.
    Of course.
    How hadn’t I noticed the BAD LUCK number on the door? Duh. I always knew he was a veeeery strange teacher—but completely altering someone? That’s just WRONG!
    I look both ways, expecting a black cat to cross my path or a ladder to crash on my head.
    â€œDribble! Yo, Dribble!” I bang on the door. “Hello in there!” Caylin opens the door, and I have never been so happy to see her freckled ski-jump nose and Tahoe blue eyes. “Girlfriend, I’ll explain everything la-ter.” She glances at me, her eyebrows raised into a question. Dribble dramatically throws up his hands.“Welcome to class, Ernestine. I’ll need your late pass, ma’am.” He turns to face the rest of the class. “Anyhoo, what page did I say?” How can he act like everything is normal?
    â€œDid you just call me Ernestine?” I ask.
    â€œDid you just call me Dribble?” He wriggles his bushy mustache. His real name is Mr. Drabner, of course. But it’s easy to forget.
    Twenty-nine eighth graders sit at their desks with government books open to men in white powdered wigs. Caylin giggles, Petra makes the hand sign for “wacko,” and Olivia Marquez frantically motions for me to sit down. She’s wearing a red babushka scarf over her hair, and a white