Too Cool for This School by Kristen Tracy Read Free Book Online Page A

swung the bathroom door open about five seconds later. “Finished!”
    I didn’t bother to ask her if she’d flossed. We went back to my room and Angelina turned down the blanket on the left side of my queen bed. She’d taken off her bra in the bathroom, and she placed the carefully folded square of straps and cotton cups on the table beside my bed. I climbed into my spot and kept my night-light on so she wouldn’t stub her toe on anything if she had to get up.
    “Do you want me to keep the light on for you?” I asked. This wasn’t ideal, because I needed total darkness to sleep. But I figured on her first night after having lived through so many solo adventures, I should let her write in her journal.
    “It’s okay. My diary has a built-in light,” she said.
    What?
    When she got in bed next to me, she opened her diary and a tiny light popped on. I knew it was rude to watch her scribble, but I couldn’t help myself.
    “I’m almost done,” Angelina said. “Just want to capture the conversation I had with the cabdriver before I forget it. Diego had some wise guidance.”
    This was so weird.
    “Done!” Angelina said, slamming the book closed. As soon as she rolled over, I felt her tug the covers a little bit, which didn’t thrill me. I really didn’t enjoy sleeping with a cover-tugger.
    “Night,” I said.
    “Night,” she said.
    I turned off my light and nearly screamed. There was a creepy glow coming from my closet. Then I realized what it was. “Does your wolf shirt glow in the dark?”
    “Yeah.”
    Poor Angelina. She was just too weird. Clearly, the next month was going to be brutal. And what was my job in all this? Was I supposed to be some sort of friendship lifeline for her? Or a public-humiliation shield? Since I was class captain, I had clout, but should I waste it all on Angelina? Shouldn’t I waste it on myself? And my friends?
    Sixth grade was under way and running like a well-oiled machine. How would Angelina find her place? Would she make friends? Would she be teased? Would she perform well on our frequent vocabulary exams? Would she end up having at least two cute shirts in her duffel bag? I had so many questions. But zero answers.
    On the verge of sleep, I turned and looked at Angelina one last time. Poor Angelina. In the dim light of evening, with her choppy bangs pasted to her sweaty forehead, shelooked very much like a geek.
Blink. Yawn. Blink. Yawn. Blink
. I highly doubted daylight could improve this situation.
    Buzz. Buzz. Buzz
.
    I grabbed my phone and looked at the message.
    Todd: Jagger thinks she’s cute.
    I stared at my phone in disbelief. And then Todd sent a second message.
    Todd: We want to crash your sleepover!
    On a normal day, that would have been thrilling news. But today was not a normal day. Then I did something that I had never done in the history of owning my phone. I deleted a message from Todd Romero.
Jagger thinks she’s cute
. I plunked the message right in the trash, where it belonged.
Plink
. It didn’t matter, I reassured myself. Angelina was only here for a month. And once Jagger met her, he’d see that she wasn’t
that
cute. He’d be way better off with Ava.

7
    I was fairly certain Angelina would crash and burn without my social guidance.
    The next right at my sleepover, as soon as Angelina was out of earshot, I asked my friends what they thought of her.
    “She’s sort of fascinating,” Lucia said.
    “She has cute hair,” Rachel added.
    “She is
W-E-I-R-D
,” Ava said.
    “Shhh,” I said. “Be quieter with your insults.”
    We were all waiting for Angelina to join us on the trampoline, anticipating her makeover. We weren’t aggressive about it. Nobody wanted to cut her hair or smear her face with a bunch of makeup. We were only interested in improving her wardrobe.
    Then the screen door creaked and we all watched Angelina slide it open. As an experiment, we’d given her apair of Ava’s triple-soft, hand-dyed pajamas, which she’d bought at