Three Days (eBook)

K.Y. Chan (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
104 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
9798350976083 (ISBN)

Infos

The survivor of an incomprehensible family tragedy, Janelle has been homeschooled by her grandfather for the past four years. Now forced to return for her junior year of public high school, Janelle must learn to navigate the all too real ghosts of her past while confronting the anxieties of starting at a new school and maybe, just maybe, forging a new friendship. At once witty, profane, and moving, this is the story of her first Three Days on that journey.

K.Y. Chan is a high school senior at a public school in Los Angeles, California. She has been the starting point guard on her school's varsity basketball team since her freshman year. She enjoys cooking, writing stories and poetry, and listening to music. This is her first publication.

Textauszug

Chapter Two

 

The most bizarre thing happened to me this morning: I woke up excited to be alive. Taylor Swift songs played on repeat while I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I curled my hair for the first time in my life, and the front looks really good…and the back of my head is none of my business. I put on mascara and threw on all the rings I have, even though they make holding a pencil hard.

Grandpa and I played the animal guessing game on the ride to school, and when I realized that he was confusing a hedgehog with an armadillo, I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

We get to school and he makes it all the way to the front gate this time, and while I’m hauling my backpack out of the trunk, I notice the girl from Fred’s classroom climbing out of the car behind us. I walk super slowly so that she can catch up to me. I’m actually losing my mind. Apparently, the girl’s slow as hell though, because I lose her somewhere around the bathrooms. Now I’m outside my class, but before I can get inside, Fred comes up behind me and rubs my head like a crystal ball.

“GOOD MORNING JANELLE! Today is such a wonderful day to be alive, wouldn’t you agree?” He grabs a fistful of my hair and uses it like a steering wheel, turning me around so that I have to make eye contact with him, and when he finally releases me, my curls are all messed up.

“Mmhmm,” I mumble angrily.

“Tell me what number you want, I’ll hold the jersey for you!”

“No thank you.”

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry, just accept my offer.”

“No thank you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to.”

“That’s not a good reason.”

“It’s my reason.” Then I hit the gas and don’t look back until I get to homeroom. I’m looking forward to putting my earphones in and daydreaming until first period, but Ms. De Nieves has other plans.

“Come here Janelle.” She motions at me with her finger and heads towards a door which I thought connected to another classroom, but actually leads to a little side room where Ms. De Nieves apparently makes her coffee and does something with twenty-two bottles of olive oil. I’m not joking. Between a mini fridge and a stack of copy paper taller than both of us, my homeroom teacher has an antique mahogany desk with twenty-two bottles of olive oil on it.

“Are you excited to be here Janelle?” Ms. De Nieves’ forehead wrinkles in concern.

“Yeah, I am.” It’s not a complete lie.

“That’s good.”

Soooo…can I go?

“Have you made any friends yet?”

WHAT DO YOU THINK? “No, I haven’t,” I say.

Ms. De Nieves gives a small smile, “Yeah, I didn’t think so.” SO WHY DID YOU ASK? “It can be really hard to make friends,” she continues, “especially coming to a new school in your junior year. I’ll have one of my AP Spanish students show you around, just help you get acclimated, and I’m sure she’ll welcome you into her group.”

I’m so humiliated by her offer that I don’t reject it. “Okay,” I’m so zoned out right now, the world is out of focus. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome!”

I officially hate school. The excitement from earlier is gone, and my usual irritation has returned. Homeroom is about to end by the time we emerge from the olive oil room, so I pack up my stuff and head outside to meet my tour guide. Her back is turned to me, but her hair alone is enough for me to identify the girl from Fred’s classroom.

The visceral reaction I have to seeing this girl needs to be studied in a lab. All of a sudden, the air feels hot and thick and a sheen of sweat coats my forehead. My heart pounds in my chest like I’ve just completed a triathlon. For a moment, my knees give out and I have to grip the door handle to steady myself. Everything else disappears. I almost black out.

I consider running away – go splash water on my face in the bathroom and hide there until I’m ready to act like I’ve seen a human girl before – but all of my teachers have a copy of my “504 Plan” and if I don’t show up to class, they’re going to call the office and then the office is going to send school police looking for me. Indecisiveness proves to be my fatal flaw when the girl turns around before I can decide which direction to sprint in.

“Hey, I know you!” She walks towards me, her baggy jeans dragging on the floor a little, “You were in Fred’s class yesterday.”

PLAY IT COOL, PLAY IT COOL. “Yeah.” I did in fact not play it cool.

“I’m Maya,” she introduces herself, pretending that she didn’t just hear my voice crack like a pubescent boy, “What’s your name?”

“Janelle,” I fight to keep my voice steady, “Did Ms. De Nieves send you?”

“Yeah, she told me you’re new here,” the late bell rings and all the teachers close their doors, “I can show you around if you want...or, we can jump the fence and go to a park or something.”

“I, um-” OH MY GOD. MAYA, smart, sexy Maya – whose clothes look better on her than the mannequin, who’s like looking at a surrealist painting for the first time (your first thought isn’t “Wow, this is so pretty,” but just “Wow” and then you think about it the whole drive home from the museum), and who’s so nice to me despite the fact that talking to someone like me could be social suicide – wants to hang out with ME? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Pretty and kind, she’s like an endangered species.

And yet, I’m seriously considering not going with her.

I don’t want to get in trouble. Call me lame, but I’m literally petrified of being sent to the principal’s office. I’ve never broken a school rule. Never. I remember one time in third grade, we had a class party and I drank three Capri Suns because Mom never let me have them. An hour later, I needed to pee so badly, but it was a rule that you couldn’t go to the bathroom in the last ten minutes of class, and it was the last ten minutes of class, so I just held it. Luckily, I’m fast. The second the bell rang; I ran to the bathroom and was able to make it before I exploded. But that’s how afraid I am of breaking rules. I would rather pee my pants and endure the subsequent bullying than get a stern talking-to. That being said, I really like parks and I really want Maya to like me. “Yeah, I’m down.”

Maya beams at me. “Cool.”

She strides towards the bathroom and I follow.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“To jump the fence on the P.E. field, but the only way to get there without admin seeing us is to go out the window in the girls’ bathroom.”

“Oh.” The fact that I’m still on board with this plan is really a testament to how interesting of a person I think Maya is. I’m not attracted to girls, but I’m weirdly drawn to her.

“So, what school did you go to before here?” she asks.

“I was homeschooled.” I bite the inside of my lip. I hate telling people I was homeschooled. It makes me feel inferior for some reason. “Do you play any sports?” I ask her, desperate to change the subject.

“Yeah, I play basketball. Fred is my coach, so I just hang out there whenever I don’t feel like going to class. How about you, do you play any sports?”

I used to play basketball, but I don’t like telling people that. I don’t like remembering that I quit the one thing I was actually kind of good at. I also don’t like acknowledging that I was good at it. “No, I don’t play any sports,” I say.

“Would you ever join a team here though, just for fun? All of our sports are kind of ass,” she laughs, “they’d probably put you on varsity just because you look athletic.”

I feel blood rush to my cheeks and my skin grows noticeably hotter. If you call me pretty, I’ll smile and say, “Thank you so much,” and probably I’ll have a pep in my step for the next half an hour. However, if you compliment my body, not for the way it looks, but for the things it’s capable of doing, I might just fall in love.

We arrive at the bathroom, and it looks like the most uncomfortable place you could possibly take a shit in. Grout overflows out of the cracks in the pink tiled walls. I accidentally brush up against one of them and the texture is so unsettling it sends shivers down my spine. The wooden stall doors are so short, anyone taller than four feet could sit on the toilet and simultaneously have a staring contest with someone at the sink. Above the sink is a tiny window.

“We’re going through that?”

“Don’t worry,” Maya chuckles at the panic in my voice. “It’s easier than it looks. Here,” she puts one foot on the sink and pushes herself up so that her head is level with the window, “I’ll open it for you.” She throws her elbow at the glass three times before it finally pops open. “And then just climb through.” She looks like she’s floating as she swings her leg over the ledge, then straightens her back like she’s playing limbo to avoid being decapitated by the brick window frame. I hear her land on the floor and yell, “Your turn!”

She’s talking so loudly, it’s like she wants to get caught. I take a deep breath before I step up onto the sink, and then I follow Maya’s instructions to a tee. Or, to the best of my abilities. I didn’t realize the sink was wet so I almost slipped off and smashed my teeth into the floor. Then I cut my hand on a...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 2.10.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kinder- / Jugendbuch
• ISBN-13: 9798350976083 / 9798350976083