The New Year's Party Read Free Page B

varnished wooden peg.
    â€œGreta and the others are here. They’re in your room.”
    â€œOkay, thanks.”
    Reenie hurried down the hall and into her room. “Sorry I’m late!” she called.

    Her best friend, Greta Sorenson, tossed the copy of
Vogue
she’d been reading onto Reenie’s nightstand. “Don’t worry, we saved you a few problems,” she teased.
    â€œYeah,” Greta’s boyfriend, Artie Hodges, added. “About ninety-nine of them.”
    They had a group project due in a week—one hundred killer trig problems. Reenie didn’t know how they would ever finish in time.
    â€œNo. Only ninety-eight,” Ty Lanford told Reenie. He stretched his arms over his head, balancing Reenie’s desk chair on its back legs. “I finished one while those two were fighting about Artie’s sneakers. He says comfortable. She says gross.”
    â€œFighting, huh?” Reenie glanced over at Greta and Artie. They sat on the edge of her bed—Greta almost in Artie’s lap.
    â€œNow we’re making up,” Artie explained, looping one arm around Greta’s waist.
    Reenie tried not to laugh. They made such a goofy-looking couple. Artie in his plaid shirt, ripped jeans, hair in a buzz cut, an earring in one ear. Greta in her long straight skirt and belted jacket, every strand of blond hair carefully tousled, makeup perfect.
    Reenie could hardly believe it, but Greta and Artie had been going together since the ninth grade. A lot longer than she had been going out with Sean.
    â€œWhere’s Sean?” Reenie asked. “He’s never late.”
    â€œCan’t start without him,” Greta replied. “He’s the only one who understands this stuff.”
    â€œI think I saw him with Sandi Burke after school,” Artie joked.
    Greta swatted him playfully on the leg. “Don’t believe him, Reenie. He’s making it up.”
    Reenie forced herself to smile. She knew Artie was kidding her. But Sandi Burke could make any girl feel insecure. All the guys at Shadyside High drooled over Sandi.
    Reenie knew she was pretty enough—tall and slim with long light brown hair. But she also knew she was no Sandi Burke. Sandi could be on the cover of one of Greta’s fashion magazines.
    â€œI’m serious. Sandi was all over him,” Artie insisted. “Now’s your chance to make a move on Reenie, Ty. Go for it.”
    â€œOoooo!” Greta exclaimed. “You’re terrible. Really terrible.”
    He always carries a joke too far, Reenie thought. She shot a glance at Ty. He smiled at her, but he seemed embarrassed.
    I bet Ty doesn’t know that half the girls in school are dying to go out with him, Reenie thought. I wish he could hear them talking about how cute he is. Ty had transferred to Shadyside in September, and he still hadn’t asked anyone on a date.
    â€œGo on,” Artie urged Ty. “Reenie’s—”
    â€œTy, Sean’s not working at the Burger Basket today, is he?” Reenie asked.
    Ty shook his head. “Sean is off till Saturday. We both are.”
    Then why is Sean so late? Reenie wondered.
    Ty let his chair fall back to the floor with a thump. He turned to the trig book, open on Reenie’s desk. He frowned. “I finally got to where I understood degrees of angles,” he muttered. “Now I’m supposed to forget degrees and start using radians.”
    â€œIt’s a plot,” Artie said. “All the teachers have secret meetings. They figure out new ways to make us suffer.”
    â€œTrig is an elective,” Ty replied. “Nobody made us take it. I guess we can’t complain.”
    â€œActually studying this stuff is pretty stupid when you think about it,” Artie declared. “How many people out there in the real world worry about radians and sines and cosines and stuff like that?”
    â€œEngineers do,” Greta shot back. She