After Ever After (9780545292788) by Jordan Sonnenblick Page B

whether the school was really allowed to do this. I mean, I was passing all of my classes, and the length of the school day was supposed to be the same for everyone, right? She took off her bifocals and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Then she told me I had a point, but that it wasn’t up to her to decide what the district could or couldn’t do. “If I were a student, and I had a legitimate problem with a district policy,” she said, “I would tell my parents all about the situation and let them fight it out with the superintendent’s office.”
    â€œSo you think I have a legitimate complaint?”
    She hesitated, then nodded.
    â€œAnd do you think my parents have a shot at getting me out of this class?”
    â€œWould you like another candy heart, Jeff?”
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    I was totally bummed about this. Wouldn’t you be? I couldn’t believe I was busting my butt, and getting better grades than ever before, but I was in danger of getting held back in eighth grade AND now I had to go to these stupid remedial math classes. What were they going to teach us after school that we couldn’t learn during the day? I figured all I was going to get out of this course was some extra reasons to hate math — not that I needed any.
    To top it all off, Tad was absent. In fact, he was out all week, and he wasn’t answering IMs or e-mail. His cell phone wasn’t even turned on. The message said he was out of town, and when I finally broke down and called his home number, his dad told me he was down in Philadelphia for tests. My heart skipped for a minute, but then Tad’s father went on to say that everything was fine, they were just monitoring Tad’smed dosages, checking his bone density, blah, blah, blah. This had happened a bunch of times before, so that seemed pretty normal.
    Tad usually told me before these little trips, though.
    At lunch on Wednesday that week, Lindsey asked me if I wanted to come to her house and hang out after dinner. I said I couldn’t, because I was still grounded. If anything, I was even more grounded now that my parents knew about the pretest. The school had mailed a letter home, and called, AND given every student who’d failed a sign-up form that the parents had to fill out by the end of the week. It was amazing: I was almost surprised they hadn’t sent singing telegrams or smoke signals.
    I had never seen the school having such a major cow about anything before.
    Anyway, Lindsey said, “So you still aren’t allowed to go anywhere, huh? That’s too bad, because my mom and my big brother are going to be out shopping for hours, and my dad’s editing a film ondeadline, so he won’t be leaving his office in the basement all night. I’m going to be so lonely! Can’t you ask?”
    â€œThere’s just no way. I’m only allowed to go to Tad’s.” Wait a minute , I thought. I’m only allowed to go to Tad’s. But Mom doesn’t know Tad’s in Philadelphia.
    â€œPretty please?” Lindsey asked. “For me?”
    I remember once, when I was in my last year of treatment, I saw a poster in the bookstore that said, LIVE EVERY DAY AS THOUGH IT WERE YOUR LAST . That became sort of my unofficial motto. I mean, there was a pretty good chance I was going to die at that point, so why not live it up a little? The problem was, there isn’t that much a seven-year-old can do to live it up. Fortunately, as an eighth grader with a girlfriend, my situation was a little different.
    Plus, my parents were expecting me to go out to Tad’s that night anyway. I wouldn’t even have to lie, exactly — just take my bike and go. In the words of Miss Palma, carpe diem . Or, hakuna matata . I always get those two confused.
    I smiled at Lindsey. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said.
    What I did was flee my house after dinner like it was on fire and I was wearing a backpack full of propane.