We Were Here by Matt de la Pena Read Free Book Online Page B

office with Tommy when Lester dropped Mong off. And when Reggie asked him a simple question, if he was still gonna help out with dinner or not, Mong just totally flipped. He threw down his bag and leaped at Reggie, got him in some crazy sleeper hold and pulled him to the kitchen floor. And he kept saying the same thing over and over: “I could kill you! I could just kill you right now! Do you even understand that?”
    We all just stood there watching. It was so weird seeing some skinny-ass Chinese kid on top of this big muscular black kid. But Reggie didn’t even fight back at all. He just stayed quiet and laid there, stared straight ahead. Even when Mong finally let him go and stood up, grabbed his bag. All Reggie did was slowly reach for his own neck where Mong was choking him, and then he stood up carefully and went back to cooking dinner. He never even looked at Mong. The rest of us went back to what we were doing too.
    I gotta say, man, there’s something freakish about Mong.I can’t put my finger on it, but I been watching him lately. And it’s more than just the fights he gets in or the nasty scars on his cheeks. There’s something else. Like how depressed he seems and the way he keeps to himself even worse than me. And people walk on eggshells when he’s around. Tommy just looks at the ground. Reggie and Demarcus don’t have any jokes. Even Jaden acts different.

July 3
    Tonight Jaden came up to me when I was washing the dishes and asked if I could join him in his office for a few minutes. I shrugged, dried my hands on the dish towel and followed him, thinking if maybe I was in trouble and what for. I was pretty sure I hadn’t done anything.
    Jaden keyed open the door, set down a bag and told me to have a seat. I watched him then key open the desk drawer, put a fat envelope into the petty-cash tin and close and lock it back up. He put the keys back on his side belt loop, where he always has them.
    Watching him, though, I thought how easy it would be to swipe all that cash late one night and bury it out back until my time was up. Then I could buy whatever the hell I wanted when I was free. Like new hoop shoes from Foot Locker or some low-tops to roll in. That’s another thing about me, by the way. I love getting new kicks. I take care of ’em too. Take a wet rag to the leather and wash the laces so they always seem like I just got ’em. And I always keep ’em in the box when I’m not rockin’ ’em.
    Anyways, I was already at the damn mall in my head when Jaden spoke up. “You’ve been here a full month now,bro,” he said, leaning back in his chair, linking his fingers behind his head. “Did you know that?”
    I shook my head and said I didn’t, even though obviously I did ’cause of my journal.
    “Well, you’re a veteran now, Miguel. And I just wanted to bring you in here and get your status on things, know what I’m saying?”
    I shrugged and looked at that spot on the wall again, the boomerang or cocoon or whatever. Now I had a feeling how this was gonna go down. I wasn’t in trouble or nothin’, dude just wanted to know how I feel . If me and Diego were watching this scene in some movie we’d be laughing for days at how mad gay it was. But I kept a straight face in front of Jaden.
    He sat up, said: “Let’s get it all out on the table, bro. You give me your honest take, and I’ll give you mine, cool?”
    I rubbed the back of my head and took a deep breath.
    He kept quiet for a sec and then he set his hand on the desk and said: “You haven’t really been mixing much with the rest of the fellas. Not that I’ve seen, anyway. Look, you don’t have to befriend anybody for life in here, bro. But it makes it easier if you have someone to goof off with a little, maybe make fun of your counselor behind his back.” He winked and reached out to smack my knee, smiling. “Right, bro?”
    I shrugged.
    “Any idea why you’re isolating yourself?”
    I had about a thousand ideas why I was