Page 2 (1/2)

“Hey, Penny,” Becks greets her warmly and reaches her a croissant frohtful

“Um, thanks” She takes the war ly That small bowl of cereal just didn’t do it for me “Spilt it with me, I can’t eat it all,” Penny offers

I scarf downat me His sandy brown hair shakes and slithers in a wave like he should be in a shaht under his chin It isn’t fair that a boy should have such beautiful silky hair when ave me some smoother for it The stuff worked ait, so now I am back to the frizz

“What?” I bark

“Nothing,” he quips, continuing to snicker

I step in front of them and continue the cold walk to school I can tell it is about to snow soon The air has a daet there, we take our turns going through thea pair of nail clippers in my purse I was nearly expelled I mean, I understand the whole no weapons rule but seriously, as I going to accomplish with nail clips They didn’t even have one of those little things you can dig under your nails with on the city We live in a poor Kentucky coal- town, Muddy Waters to be exact Our town earned the name, because the water when the toas founded was muddy

The guys here either go to work in the coale, never to be seen again And the girls, if they don’t get out of here to go to college, they end up pregnant and e of twenty-three I refuse to end up like that I study hard and work hard at rades My dreairl has to have dreaht?

I leave Penny at her locker with Becks and head down to the south hall to mine I hate that our lockers are so far apart, but it’s actually better foron this end It’s closer to er atthe second bell has rang Mr Lowe does not tolerate tardiness Sla my locker shut, I nearly screaht into the chest of Aaron

“Katie,” he sayser

I smack his hand away “What do you want peter cheese?” I a name to call him The real Aaron comes out whenever Penny isn’t around I tried to tell her about his horrible behavior once and she got mad at me and didn’t speak to me for a week It ful, so now I keep his asshole episodes to myself

“Valentine’s Day party this weekend atto be out of town You should cootten hoeet you were” He leans in close, pressing ainst the row of lockers

“I’s to do with my time” I try to step around hi me into the locker

He pinchesat me with this weird expression on his face He closes his eyes briefly and it freaks me out

“U?” I ask hesitantly, not sure if I want to know the answer

“Did you think I wanted to kiss your frog lips?” He laughs and punches the locker beside of my head