Ready or Not Read Free Page B

for her. I really do. Because what’s going to happen to her when she gets out into the real world? She’s just going to get eaten alive.
    â€œCatherine,” I said. “I don’t want people to think I’m copying Ashlee Simpson’s look. That would not be cool.”
    â€œOh,” Catherine said. “Okay. Sorry.” She appeared to think about this for a minute. Then she asked, “Well…what else did Lucy say?”
    â€œThat Mom’s going to kill me.”
    â€œOh,” Catherine said. “That’s not good.”
    â€œI don’t care,” I said, as I hurried down the leaf-strewn street.
    We live in Cleveland Park, a section of Washington, D.C., that isn’t actually that far from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a.k.a. the White House, where my boyfriend lives. Most everyone who goes to Adams Prep lives in my neighborhood or Chevy Chase, the next neighborhood over, where Lucy’s boyfriend, Jack, lived before he went to college.
    â€œIt’s my head,” I said into the phone. “I should be able to do what I want to it.”
    â€œPower to the people,” Catherine agreed. “Are you going to the studio now?”
    â€œYes,” I said. “I’m Metro-ing it.”
    â€œGood luck,” Catherine said. “Look out for any Johnson Family Vacations In Progress. And let me know what David says. About your hair.”
    â€œOver and out,” I said into the phone, as a sort of joke, because this was how we’d signed off on our walkie-talkies as kids. Really, cell phones are just like walkie-talkies. They just cost more. The sad thing is, Catherine’s parents won’t get her one, so it’s kind of a one-sided experience. Catherine’s parents are very strict and won’t even let her talk on the phone to boys, let alone date, except group dates, which made it quite hard on her and her boyfriend…back when she still had one. Sadly for Catherine, her boyfriend’s diplomat father got himself transferred to Qatar, and now she and Paul are doing the long-distance thing, like Lucy and Jack….
    Only Qatar is a lot farther away than Rhode Island, so Paul can never drive down for the weekend.
    Catherine’s parents, in addition to not getting her a cell phone, would never let her ride the Metro alone. Actually, mine wouldn’t have been too thrilled about it, either, if they’d known. Not because of them being afraid I might get lost or abducted and sold into white slavery (which happens a lot more in the Midwest, at places like the Mall of America, than it does on the Metro…I know because Rebecca and I watched an episode of National Geographic Explorer about it) but because of the whole Johnson Family Vacation In Progress thing.
    Sadly, it doesn’t worry them enough to get me out of my job at Potomac Video.
    But I could see right away that, thanks to my new hair color, things were going to be different. No one on the train recognized me. No one even glanced at me twice, as if trying to remember where they’d seen me before. I made it all the way to R Street and Connecticut—right across from the Founding Church of Scientology—where Susan Boone’s art studio is located, without a single person going, “Hey, aren’t you Samantha Madison?” or “Hey, wasn’t there a movie made about you last summer?”
    I was so excited about not being recognized for once that I ran right past Static, the record shop next door to the studio, without even stopping to see if they’d got anything good in…though I did pause to admire my reflection in the store window. I was stoked that I apparently looked so different that people didn’t even know who I was.
    Because, as far as I’m concerned, different can only mean better.
    Although I wasn’t quite sure that David, when he got to the studio a few minutes after I did, agreed. He glanced my way, then went right