The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets Read Free Page A

was an accident.” She appealed to her classmates, but they offered no support. Not a smile, not a nod. She felt her face flush, the sweat blossoming on her forehead. She knew her carefully blown dry hair was beginning to frizz. “Okay. Fine. I turned it off. See? It’s off.”
    â€œGo.”
    Lacy waited for Mr. Bronson to change his mind. “This seems like a really important lecture,” she said. “I hate to miss it.”
    â€œToo bad.”
    â€œYesterday, when Eric’s cell went off, you didn’t ask him to leave. I mean, just because mine happens to go off more often is no reason to punish me. Either there should be a policy of no cell phones at all—which I personally do not support—or youneed to treat us all the same.”
    â€œNot again,” a kid in the back groaned.
    â€œI agree,” Mr. Bronson said, “Not again. Lacy, get out of here.”
    She gathered her books and her backpack and headed for the door. Even her classmates were rejecting her. She paused at Marissa’s desk and made a face. She wanted Marissa to be her friend; she thought Marissa would commiserate with her about the cell phone, but Marissa just turned away. Her long dark Latina hair rippled and gleamed. A hot pink bra strap peeked from her tank top and graced one cappuccino-colored shoulder. Even Marissa’s underwear was perfect.
    â€œClose the door behind you, please.”
    Lacy left and closed the classroom door. The hallway was empty and that was a relief. Why had she been born so damn white? She was white, white, white with almost white hair that wasn’t even WASP-y straight, but curly, like some Aryan Afro. Which her mother refused to let her chemically straighten. Her stupid actress grandmother had the same white hair and skin, but her hair was shiny straight and on her the pallor was stunning. Lacy also had her father’s ridiculous curls, adorable ringlets when she was little that had gone nuts with puberty. Lacy hated her hair and her skin. Her translucent thighs and inner arms revealed every blue vein. Her areolas were the palest pink, barely visible on her breasts. In the dim light of a man’s bedroom, she would look nipple-less. Not that any man had seen her yet, but she had tried various lighting conditions at home as she posed in front of her mirror. She thought candlelight was the worst; her skin looked healthier, but her breasts became two round undefined orbs like the tits on a Barbie doll. Her mother said she spent too much time obsessing, but what did she know? She had straight dark hair and dark eyes. That great olive skin.
    Just thinking about Winnie gave Lacy a scruffy feeling in her stomach. Dry, as if she had swallowed dirt. Her mother was just so boring. She had that stupid job which she hated. She had that one friend who was always busy. She never went anywhere. When Lacy got home from visiting her dad, Winnie would be sitting on the couch reading, exactly the same as when she left. It wasn’t Lacy’s job to entertain her, was it? And since she had found that cigarette butt in her backpack (and she had been so damn careful!) she wouldn’t let up on her about smoking. Then it was the piercings. And her grades. Even when Winnie didn’t say anything it was there in her face; the disappointment absolutely obvious every time she looked at her.
    And now this. Principal Dickhead would call Mom for sure. Lacy could not go to the office. Her mother was at her stupid tennis lesson anyway. She dawdled in the hallway. Her next class was in fifteen minutes, but Marissa was in that class too. That was too much. She could just imagine Marissa looking at her, then whispering to her friends and all of them laughing. Then she had stupid English and horrible lunch and then European History and she had not done her homework and there was going to be a test. So she just bent her head and walked past the office toward the doors. Who the fuck