Three Girls and a God by Clea Hantman Read Free Book Online Page A

whole reason for being.She’s a caring, thoughtful, sensitive, fun-loving soul. I’m sure she has other motivations for taking this course besides the cute-teacher factor. Like what she said earlier about being a stronger person. Right, Era? So give her a break and drop it, Pol.”
    “No, we can’t drop it—that’s the point!” cried Polly. “We just came from the vice principal’s office. Mrs. Haze says she’s through with our allergies and our class switching and she forbids it. Now we’re stuck in that dreaded survival class and we have to do this ridiculous obstacle course, five whole miles, and if we don’t, we fail, and we have to show up after school and on the weekends, not to mention scaling walls in dresses! Argh!”
    “What?” I asked. “I’m seriously confused.”
    Era explained at lightning speed. “Polly joined the class to check up on me, and she told the vice principal that she was allergic to something to get switched or whatever. So we went in and told her we now had to switch out of survival because we were both deathly allergic to dirt and she kicked us out of her office. She said something about not having any more of our ‘tomfoolery,’ whatever that means. So now Polly’s angry with me. But it will be okay, I know it will. I mean, I don’t want to do that military obstacle course, either, but Josh, that’s the teacher, Thalia, and he is beautiful, and he even calls us pansies, you know—like the little flowers—although I know he must be directing that atme especially—and, well, Josh seems like he can be reasonable. I’m sure we can talk to him and maybe sit this one out.” Era finally took a breath, and even though the words had come out of her mouth, she didn’t look convinced.
    “He’s not reasonable! He’s cruel. A machine!” cried Polly. “He’s a bully, and he has no respect for nature or the outdoors. He’s short-tempered and ill-natured and he wants us to scale walls in dresses!”
    “No, he’s not—how can you say that, Polly? Didn’t you notice how kind and beautiful he is? I’m sure he’ll allow us to sit out the obstacle course. Or he’ll at least help us out. Don’t say such horrible things about him, Polly, please—you’re really upsetting me!”
    And they went on like this back and forth, Polly trashing the teacher, Era defending his character. There wasn’t anything I could do but tune them out. They were giving me a headache. I sat back down on the grass in protest.
    And then I spotted the number fifteen through a bush. My film partner, Dylan from Denver, in full football regalia, wasn’t on the football field with all the other jockos. He was filming something behind the bushes.
    Wait a minute, he was filming us! I was livid!
    I was all ready to start screaming, “Stalker!” at the top of my lungs, but I stopped myself. (Hey, I watch a lot of Cops. ) I took a few deep breaths. I lookedaround nonchalantly, like I hadn’t spotted him. And I grabbed my notebook. I ripped a few pieces of paper out of my binder. I grabbed a pen. A fat pen. And I wrote. I held it up for him to see. It read:
    I see you
    I saw the bush move, but I could tell he was still there. The bush rustled some more. And then a sheet of paper, attached to a fist, came punching through the bush. In big, fat pen it read:
    I see you, too
    I had to laugh. But inside, so he couldn’t see my amusement. I grabbed another sheet and wrote. I flashed him my sign:
    Stop STALKING me!
    The bush rustled and then another fist, another piece of paper, and his read:
    Stop STALKING ME!
    Funny. Very funny. I grabbed a piece of paper and the pen. I scribbled, then held up my sign:
    Bush + camera = STALKING
    The bush moved some more. And then it revealed another sign:
    Dylan + Thalia = A+
    Cute, I thought. I mean, I could’ve been paired with that Neanderthal Greg Gatsby. He would’ve wanted to shoot girls’ butts and wouldn’t have given a hoot what kind of grade we got.
    Then another