Beautiful Souls Read Free Page A

guess though,” she laughed in her peppy high-pitched cheerleader voice. “We…” Emmy was cut off by the bell, and Mr. Stanley proceeded from his desk to the front of the classroom.                   “Enough!” Mr. Stanley shouted, just the same as every other morning.
                       Emmy and I both adjusted ourselves in our seats and faced forward to listen to the morning announcements.
                       I could see that Emmy was still jittery with the excitement of her news. She sat in her seat anticipating the very second when Mr. Stanley would turn away, giving her an opportunity to share with me whatever it was that had her on the edge of her seat.
                       We listened to the latest news on the previous night’s football game against Madison Central: who scored points, the highlighted plays, and names of the outstanding players. Leo’s name had always been mentioned multiple times, of course. He’s the starting quarterback for the varsity football team, after all.
                       We listened to the information about the upcoming Homecoming game and dance the coming weekend and lunch specials for that afternoon.
                       Then an announcement that had taken me a little by surprise. The latter welcomed our school’s newest students, Zoey and Luke Fitzgerald.
                       Emmy leaned in toward me and whispered in my ear, “That’s what I was trying to tell you…new kids!” She continued, “Zoey is a junior like us, and Luke is a senior.”
                       I wasn’t as shocked, excited, or full of gossip and wonder about the new students as the rest of our student body appeared to be, but I had to admit I was a little intrigued. Our small town didn’t see new residents on a regular basis --- or ever --- so the fact that a new family had moved to town was bound to spark a little curiosity.
                       The regular questions popped into my mind: ‘What did they look like?’ ,  ‘How well would they fit in to such a small town?’ , ‘Would I have any classes with Zoey?’ , ‘Would I possibly be friends with Zoey one of these days?’ , and of course the question that filled every teenage girl’s mind, ‘How cute was the new boy?’ . That one would never fail. All of the questions floated around in my head, but definitely were not pressing issues as they seemed to be for everyone else.
                      The bell rang, letting us out into the halls for passing period, and we all sprung from our seats, heading toward rows of lockers as Mr. Stanley wished all of us a “good day”.
                       Emmy walked with me back to the junior hallway, and she was full of gossip and information that she had already accumulated about the Fitzgeralds. She filled me in on the stories and rumors she had extracted from friends and family so far as we loaded our arms with books and folders for our first period classes.
                       “Apparently, like, their family moved here from, like, a suburb just outside of Chicago.” Not only did Emmy look like she belonged in California’s surf community, but she sounded like it too.
                       She continued, “Their dad is, like, a fireman or something and took a job here with our fire department. Something about wanting to, like, make a change.”     
                       Lots of eye rolling and sarcasm accompanied that last sentence. People around our town were never too confident in “big city folks” making much of a life in our little town.
                         “Like, good luck,” she giggled.
                      “Oh yeah.” My mom had mentioned last week that there was a woman moving to town and opening the empty