The Truth About Stacey Read Free Page B

be avoided. I needed tests, I had to have my diet and insulin regulated, and once I fainted at school and went into insulin shock and the ambulance came and took me to St. Luke’s. If one of my friends got that sick, I would have called her in the hospital and sent her cards and visited her when she went home. But not Laine. She seemed almost afraid of me (although she tried to cover up by acting cool and snooty). And my other friends did what Laine did, because she was the leader. Their leader. My leader. And we were her followers.
    The school year grew worse and worse. I fainted twice more at school, each time causing a big scene and getting lots of attention, and every week, it seemed, I missed at least one morning while Mom and Dad took me to some doctor or clinic or other. Laine called me a baby, a liar, a hypochondriac, and a bunch of other things that indicated she thought my parents and I were making a big deal over nothing.
    But if she
really
thought it was nothing, why wouldn’t she come over to my apartment anymore? Why wouldn’t she share sandwiches or goto the movies with me? And why did she move her desk away from mine in school? I was confused and unhappy and sick, and I didn’t have any friends left, thanks to Laine.
    I hated Laine.
    In May, Mom and Dad announced that we were moving to Connecticut. I didn’t have any friends there, but I didn’t have any left in New York, either, so what did it matter? They said they were moving because Dad wanted to transfer to a different branch of the company he worked for, but somehow I knew they were moving partly because of me—to get me out of the city, away from the sooty air and the dirt and the noise, away from all the bad times and bad memories. They were overreacting and I knew it.
    But I didn’t care.

I might have continued to moon away all evening, except that my thoughts (all by themselves) suddenly turned to something much more interesting: boys. All boys are pretty interesting, but I like two in particular. One is Kristy’s brother Sam. He’s the one who’s fourteen, a freshman at Stoneybrook High. I know he liked
me
the first time we met. I was baby-sitting for Kristy’s little brother, and Sam came home, and his jaw nearly fell off his face when he saw me in the kitchen. I thought he was cute, too, and my own jaw nearly fell off. We had fun together that day, but not much has happened since. I don’t know why. I look exactly the same, I haven’t done anything to offend him, and although I go over to Kristy’s sometimes, hoping to see Sam, I never bug him. Maybe I’m just too young for him.
    I don’t worry about him much, though. I have a sort-of boyfriend in my own grade now. Hisname is Pete Black. He and I had been sitting at the same lunch table with Claudia and the other kids in the group she introduced me to—Dori, Emily, Rick, and Howie—since almost the beginning of school, but nothing special had happened with Pete until a couple of weeks ago, when he asked me to go to the Halloween Hop with him. Of course I said yes, and we went and had a wonderful time. Now we always sit next to each other in the cafeteria, and some evenings, Pete phones me just to talk.
    â€œKnock, knock,” called a voice from the other side of my bedroom door.
    Mom.
    I didn’t really feel like talking to her.
    â€œCan I come in?” she asked.
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œHoney, are you feeling all right?” She asked the question even before she sat down on my bed.
    â€œYes. Fine.” I hear that question about ten times a day.
    â€œYou didn’t eat much dinner tonight.”
    â€œI wasn’t hungry.”
    Mom began to look panicked. “You weren’t snacking over at Claudia’s, were you?”
    â€œMother.
Of course not.” The thing is, I
am
allowed a certain amount of sweet stuff each day. In fact, I
have
to eat a certain amount of sweets in order to maintain