And Then I Found Out the Truth Read Online Free Page A

exceptionally perceptive, but now she looked around the cafeteria and then blankly back at me, like she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “It’s high school, Delia. What do you expect?”
    She was totally oblivious, but she had a good excuse: A guy she’d met at one of those science fairs Charley had been threatening to send me to had texted her. She tried to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, but as soon as I asked for the details it was like a dam broke. She couldn’t stop gushing.
    It was nice to hear Natalie obsessing about something other than what type of graduate degree she should pursue after college or which tech start-ups had the most family-friendly employment policies. For once she actually sounded like a regular, non-genius person. But after a half hour of gushing, my attention started to wander, and that’s when I noticed the poster on a wall nearby: Prescott’s annual Homecoming weekend was less than two weeks away.
    West Palo Alto High had Homecoming, too, every fall. There’d be a football game against North Sunnyvale, with a tailgate party before and a dance in the courtyard after. I’d gone last year with friends, but it wasn’t like I’d had a date. I’d never had a date of any sort back home.
    But now I had Quinn, and that changed everything. Immediately, I started wondering if he’d ask me to the dance and, if so, what I should wear. I’d need to tell Charley — she’d want to make sure we found just the right outfit, and that meant shoes, too —
    Natalie snapped her fingers in front of my face. “If you’re thinking Quinn Riley is Homecoming King material, you are deeply, deeply confused,” she said with a dismissive nod at the poster. “He’s not exactly the school spirit type.”
    There was a segment of the student population Natalie had labeled the Apathy Alliance, because they weren’t interested in much of anything except, as she put it, “acting bored and spending their parents’ money.” She’d explained this on my first day at Prescott, citing Patience’s kids, Gwyneth and Grey, as charter members. And I had to admit, in their case, it was pretty accurate. Personally, I called them the Ennui Twins, which was still a lot kinder than what Charley called them.
    Of course, Natalie had also identified Quinn as the Alliance’s de facto leader. And though Quinn did have a certain following among Alliance types — hence the minions — Natalie didn’t know him the way I did. She’d never seen him rehearsing Romeo and Juliet or teaching his little brother and sister how to surf. Besides, anybody who kissed the way Quinn kissed me couldn’t be apathetic. He might even be into the whole Homecoming thing.
    Anyhow, Natalie eventually agreed to disagree on that topic so she could get back to gushing. Then the bell rang, and I spent the next two class periods trying to figure out an incredibly subtle way to bring up Homecoming when I saw Quinn in drama. But once class arrived, I was thwarted by Mr. Dudley, our drama teacher.
    Usually Mr. Dudley waits until the final latecomer has straggled into the auditorium before he begins class. He perches on the edge of the stage with his leather portfolio open before him, pretending to be thinking deep, artistic thoughts or studying a script, but everyone knows he’s really either texting his agent or admiring his latest headshots. He does happen to be unbelievably good-looking, but he also talks a lot about “channeling the Muse” with a phony British accent.
    Today, however, he started class in a crazily punctual manner. We were due for new assignments, and I’d been hoping he’d pair me with Quinn again in more Romeo and Juliet. Instead he callously handed me Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking rant, the one where she’s having nightmares about not being able to get the blood off her hands. He assigned monologues to the other juniors in the class, too.
    So that was already sort of odd, though it’s not like Mr. Dudley’s mind