Art Geeks and Prom Queens Read Free Page B

I mean, maybe it won’t be as bad as I thought. It’s only my first day and I’m already having an awesome lunch with the cutest guy I’ve ever seen in real life. I can’t wait to tell Paige.
    After lunch Jas stacks the plates and takes them inside, and when he comes back out he has a box in one hand and a thick stack of papers in the other. He hands Mason the papers and sets the box on the end of his lounge chair, then he lifts the hinged lid and pulls out a bag of weed and some rolling papers.
    I just sit there and watch him casually lick the edges and twist the ends, then light it up and take a deep drag. When he passes it to me he’s still holding his breath and like a ventriloquist with his lips barely moving he goes, “Do you smoke?”
    Well, the real answer to that question is probably no, even thoughI did it a few times before with Paige and Hud. But that was back in junior high when we found Paige’s sister’s not-so-secret stash hidden in a Nirvana album jacket.
    Because her sister was really pretty, four years older, and would barely ever speak to us, we were in total awe of her. So we used to sneak into her room when she wasn’t home and look at all of her cool, “grown-up” stuff. She had this stack of vintage eighties albums, even though everyone else was into CDs, and we liked to look at all the covers and vote on who was the most kissable. I always voted for Bono because I thought that he was not only cute but also
a good person.
But Paige voted for Adam Ant because she said it was just about kissing, not marriage, so it was okay to just go for looks.
    So this one day we’re looking at the picture on the
Nevermind
jacket of the naked baby swimming after a dollar bill, and we’re thinking about poor, misunderstood Kurt Cobain, when Paige tipped the album on its side and three joints fell out. She quickly scooped them up and held them to her nose, and after one sniff she looked at me, and her eyes went wide, and without saying another word, we stuck the joints in my backpack and raced over to Hud’s.
    We found him in his backyard in the tree fort his mom kept threatening to tear down, and the three of us lay on the rough wood floor and smoked one of them ‘til there was nothing left. Then on a dare, I climbed down and snuck into his house, and when the maid wasn’t looking I grabbed a brand-new box of double-stuffed Oreos and ran it back to the fort. We lay there eating and laughing until it was dark, and then we hid the other two joints for future use.
    But all that happened like way long ago, and I haven’t really done it since. But not wanting to look like a total geek, I go, “Yeah, I light up every now and then.”
    And then I pinch it from his fingers, take a long, deep drag, and go into a major hacking coughing fit that’s so bad it wakes up Holden, and Mason has to lean over and slap me on the back a few times until I stop. When I calm down my eyes are all watery, and my face feels like it’s all red, and there is absolutely nothing cool about me now.
    After passing it around a few more times, Jas stubs it out, and Mason shows me the papers she’s been holding. Apparently they used towork on the school newspaper. The Sea Crest Chronicle, but last year when Jas wrote an article protesting the war in Iraq it sparked a whole lot of trouble. All of a sudden parents started calling the school to complain and threatening to pull their kids out unless something was done.
    “They said I was anti-American and didn’t support the troops. Can you believe that shit?” Jas says, shaking his head.
    Mason goes, “Yeah, and since I was the editor, we both got called into the office. So we go in and we’re sitting right across from the principal and he looks at us and says, The parents are upset.’ So I just shrug you know, ‘cause like, what do I care, right? It’s not like my mom was upset. And then he goes, I want you to write an apology.’ ”
    “And I go, ‘forget it. I quit,’ ”