Pluto Read Free Page B

on time. Honestly, I don’t know why. Every day, it’s the same thing. I sleep through my alarm. Mom or Dad wakes me up. Whether I take a shower or not, whether I have a big breakfast or a Pop-Tart, we end up scrambling before we leave, Mom or Dad yelling at me to hurry up and get my coat, hurry up and tie my shoelaces. And even in those rare moments when we do get out the door on time, I’ll forget something, so we end up having to turn back anyway. Sometimes it’s my homework folder I forget. Sometimes it’s my trombone. I don’t know why, I really don’t. It’s just the way it is. Whether I’m sleeping at my mom’s house or my dad’s house, I’m always running late.
    Today, I took a quick shower, got dressed super fast, popped my Pop-Tart, and managed to get out the door on time. It wasn’t until we had driven the fifteen minutes it takes to get to school and had pulled into the school parking lot that I realized I had forgotten my science paper, my gym shorts,
and
my trombone. A new record for forgetting things.
    “You’re kidding, right?” said Mom when I told her. She was looking at me in the rearview mirror.
    “No!” I said, biting my nails nervously. “Can we go back?”
    “Chris, you’re already running late! In this rain, it’ll take forty minutes by the time we got home and back. No. You go to class, and I’ll write you a note or something.”
    “I can’t show up without my science paper!” I argued. “I have science first period!”
    “You should have thought of that before you left the house this morning!” she answered. “Now come on, get out or you’ll be late on top of everything. Look, even the school buses are leaving!” She pointed to where the school buses had started driving out of the parking lot.
    “Lisa!” I said, panicked.
    “What, Chris?” she shot back. “What do you want me to do? I can’t teleport.”
    “Can’t you go home and get them for me?”
    She passed her fingers through her hair, which had gotten wet from the rain. “How many times have I told you to pack up your stuff the night before so you don’t forget anything, huh?”
    “Lisa!”
    “Fine,” she said. “Just go to class, and I’ll bring you your stuff. Now go, Chris.”
    “But you have to hurry!”
    “Go!” She turned around and gave me that look she gives me sometimes, when her eyeballs get super big and she kind of looks like an angry bird. “Get out of the car and go to school already!”
    “Fine!” I said. I stomped out of the car. It had started raining harder, and of course I didn’t have an umbrella.
    She lowered the driver’s side window. “Be careful walking to the sidewalk!”
    “Trombone, science paper, gym shorts,” I said to her, counting on my fingers.
    “Careful where you’re walking,” she said, nodding. “This is a parking lot, Chris!”
    “Mrs. Kastor will deduct five points off my grade if I don’t hand my paper in by the end of first period!” I answered. “You have to be back before first period ends!”
    “I know, Chris,” she answered quickly. “Now walk to the sidewalk, sweetie.”
    “Trombone, science paper, gym shorts!” I said, walking backward toward the sidewalk.
    “Watch where you’re walking, Chris!” she shrieked just as a bike swerved around to avoid hitting me.
    “Sorry!” I said to the bicyclist, who had a baby bundled up in the front bike carrier. The guy shook his head and pedaled away.
    “Chris! You have to watch where you’re going!” Mom screamed.
    “Will you stop yelling?” I yelled.
    She took a deep breath and rubbed her forehead. “Walk. To. The. Sidewalk. PLEASE.” This she said through gritted teeth.
    I turned around, looked both ways in an exaggerated way, and crossed the parking lot to the path leading to the school entrance. By now, the last of the school buses was pulling out of the parking lot.
    “Happy now?” I said when I reached the sidewalk.
    I could hear her sighing from twenty feet away. “I’ll