"Truth or Dare - Pfeffer, Susan Beth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pfeffer Susan Beth)

"During the summer, my family went on a trip to Boston to visit my sister, Andrea, who went to college there. She has an apartment but we stayed at a motel."
The reason we stayed at a motel was because Andrea lives with her boyfriend, Harvey, and Dad hates Harvey. As far as I know, Harvey is the only person my father really hates, except for some politicians he's never met, but he sure does hate
Harvey. Harvey inherited lots of money from his grandparents, but he looks kind of sleazy. He has this little thin mustache that he's always bragging about, and he's already losing his hair. He met Andrea two years ago, and she moved in with him last year, and Dad got really hysterical then. Fortunately the apartment wasn't big enough for Mom, Dad, Mark, Paul, and me as well as Harvey and Andrea, so it made sense for us to stay in a motel.
"We saw lots of interesting stuff in Boston," I wrote. "We saw where Paul Revere rode. And we went to Concord and saw Walden Pond where somebody famous lived." I wished I could remember just who. "And we ate out every night except for when Andrea cooked for us." Andrea is a terrible cook, so eating out was like staying at the motel, more expensive but definitely necessary. "My whole family had a good time and I learned many interesting things."
I checked my paragraph over, and it looked okay to me. I'd left out all the interesting stuff about Harvey, but there are some things you just don't write about in junior high. I may have only been in junior high for three hours, but I knew that much.
"Very well," Mr. Flynn said. "Any
volunteers? Does anyone want to read his or her composition?"
Of course nobody volunteered.
"Then I'll pick and choose," he said. "You," he said, and pointed to a boy in the second row. "Ralph Smith, why don't we start with you."
"Do I have to stand up?" Ralph asked.
"Absolutely not," Mr. Flynn said.
"Okay," Ralph said. "During the summer I read a lot of comic books and watched TV."
"Is that it?" Mr. Flynn asked.
"That's all I did," Ralph said.
"Fine," Mr. Flynn said. "Pithy even."
Ralph smirked. I had to admit I was jealous. If I'd known that was all there was to it, I would have written the same thing, and left out Paul Revere and Walden Pond.
"All right then," Mr. Flynn said. "You, next. Jessica Green."
We all looked around to see who Jessica Green would be. She was sitting two seats away from me, so I got to look at her really carefully.
She had beautiful hair, reddish brown and lots of it. Her nose was small and it actually tipped up like a model's. She was wearing a shirt that looked like the kind that got pressed, and some sort of skirt that I couldn't see too well. She was definitely
the prettiest girl in our class, and probably in the entire junior high. I've always wanted hair that looked like that.
"I spent my summer vacation in Europe," she read out loud. "My father took my mother and me to France, England, and Italy. We saw the Eiffel Tower, the Crown Jewels, and the Vatican. My favorite part was seeing the Mona Lisa, a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci. That was at the Louvre, a museum in Paris. We also got to meet many interesting European families, and we stayed at their homes. I hope to go back to Europe someday and see the Mona Lisa again."
"Well," Mr. Flynn said. "Very impressive, Jessica. A lot more interesting than reading comic books and watching TV, I'd imagine."
Jessica smiled. She had the whitest teeth I'd ever seen. They were so white it looked like she'd painted them.
Mr. Flynn called on other kids then, but he didn't call on me, and I didn't listen very hard. Mark had said I'd make new friends, and he was right, the way he always was. And I knew who my first new friend would be.
All I had to figure out was how to get Jessica Green to like me half as much as I already liked her.
Chapter 2
Jessica and I had language arts, social studies, and math together. We already had our seats for language arts and math, but I made a point of sitting next to her in social studies. She didn't seem to mind, but she didn't smile at me or say hello or anything. Of course I wanted her to, but I knew it would take time before we really became friends.
So at lunch the second day of school I checked to see who Jessica was eating with. I was really happy to see she was with Libby, especially since I didn't know the other girls Jessica was with. But as long as she was with Libby, I figured it was okay to go to her table and act pleased to see Libby. Jessica would never guess I was really there because of her.
"Hi, Cathy," Libby said as soon as she saw me. She smiled and made me feel like
it was normal for me to be joining her for lunch.
"Hi, Libby," I said, balancing my books and my tray. "Can I join you?"
"Sure," she replied, and cleared off a spot next to her at the table. "Sit down."
So I did. Libby took a bite out of her sandwich, so I guessed she'd decided she'd done enough for me. "My name is Cathy," I said. "I went to South Street School."
"I'm Michelle," one of the other girls said. "I'm from Montgomery."
"So am I," Jessica said, with a friendly smile. "This is Amy, and she went there too."
"I guess you're all friends from there then," I said.
"Since first grade," Michelle said. "Are you and Libby old friends?"
I nodded, suddenly feeling terrible that Libby and I hadn't been close since third grade. But Libby didn't say anything about that.
"I really liked your composition yesterday," I said to Jessica. "We're in language arts together."
"I thought you looked familiar," she said. "Do we have any other classes together?"
I wished I'd made more of an impression on her, but at least she didn't hate me. "A
couple," I said. "Europe really sounded great."
"It was fun," Jessica said. "Except the food was terrible. Mom and Dad made us eat at all the foreign restaurants. I didn't have a single hamburger or slice of pizza the entire time I was there."
"Yuck," Amy said. "I'd die without pizza."
"I almost did," Jessica said. "But the rest of it was really great."
"Was the Mono, Lisa as wonderful as you said?" I asked.
Jessica shrugged her shoulders. "It was okay," she said. "There was a big crowd around it, so it was kind of hard to really see it. And it wasn't very big. I always figured a painting that famous had to be really big. There were other paintings I liked more, but I figured Mr. Flynn had probably heard of the Mono, Lisa, and I didn't want to make him feel dumb. Actually I liked the Crown Jewels best."
"I went to Disneyworld last year," Michelle said. "That was neat."
"I've never been anywhere," Libby said. "Unless you count Minnesota."
"You've been to Minnesota?" I asked. "Why?"