The Explorers’ Gate Read Free Page B

into the building like I was six again.
    Yeah. Charlie will do that to you.
    Remember how my father spends his Friday nights drinking beer and sleeping on the couch in front of the TV?
    Saturday nights work pretty much the same way.
    So, while he snored at his baseball game, I decided what I really wanted was to slip out for some frozen custard up the block at Shake Shack. Actually, I was in the mood for what they call a Concrete—super-dense frozen custard blended with junk like cookie dough and marshmallows.
    Unfortunately, a Concrete costs like six dollars and, even though I’d been saving my money for a couple weeks (sometimes, Charlie sends me to the deli to grab him a cup of coffee and lets me keep the change), I didn’t have enough.
    So, I decided to settle for a Nutty Buddy ice-cream cone out of the freezer box at the deli up the block from the Shake Shack.
    Checking traffic, I dashed across 77 th Street so I’d be on the north side when I hit Columbus Avenue. The American Museum of Natural History is right across the street from our apartment building. It always looks magical at night, like Cinderella’s towering castle lit up by spotlights. Well, Cinderella after she and the prince do the whole shoe-fitting thing.
    Since it was just after eight on a warm Saturday night, lots of people were sitting on the park benches ringing the museum. The scent of hamburgers and french fries was definitely in the air.
    Almost everybody had Shake Shack sacks.
    One bench, right at the corner of Columbus and West 77 th Street, was particularly crowded. A cluster of maybe a dozen kids hovered around it. Boys and girls, my age or a little older. They were all sucking down Concretes and munching burgers. They were also laughing, flirting, and having fun.
    For half a second, I wondered what that would be like.
    But then I saw who was sitting at the center of the cluster.
    Brooke Billingsley.
    Our eyes made contact.
    She sneered.
    I dropped my head.
    â€œEwww, hold your noses, everybody. Here comes the janitor’s daughter.”

Chapter 5
    â€œCan you smell her perfume?” said Brooke. “It’s either Pine-Sol or puke.”
    Now the sniggering boys and girls surrounded me.
    â€œExcuse me,” I mumbled, as I tried to shuffle forward, my eyes staring straight down at my shoes.
    â€œWait a second, Janitor Girl,” said one of the boys, stopping me with a firm hand to my shoulder.
    I looked up. The boy blocking my path had poofy lips, bouffy hair, and a sinister sneer. Abercrombie & Fitch’s initials were scribbled over every piece of his clothing.
    He leaned in and snobbishly sniffed my neck. “It’s not Pine-Sol or puke. It’s poop. From cleaning too many unflushed toilets!”
    The crowd howled with laughter. Brooke pressed in tight to playfully squeeze her handsome A&F prince’s beefy arm. “Plus, she shampoos with Liquid Plumr—the only thing strong enough to cut through that greasy clog she calls her hair.”
    The kids kept laughing. They tightened their circle around me.
    â€œSo,” said the handsome boy as he checked out the graphic on my T-shirt, “who’s Ima Gene?”
    Okay. I had to chuckle at that.
    â€œIt’s not Ima Gene. It’s Imagine .”
    â€œHuh?” He did not sound like a happy camper.
    â€œYou know, from the John Lennon song?” I mumbled. “‘Imagine all the people living life in peace?’ It’s on the mosaic in Strawberry Fields.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt’s this super dorky place in Central Park,” said one of the other boys. “Old farts go there to burn candles, strum guitars, and make peace signs out of flowers. It sucks.”
    â€œJanitor Girl is a Central Park freak,” said Brooke.
    â€œReally?” said her boyfriend.
    â€œYunh-huh. Get this: She even wears a stupid piece from a Central Park jigsaw puzzle around her neck instead of like a diamond or