Drawing Amanda Read Online Free

the welcome screen. It was the entryway to his best chance, maybe his only chance, to go somewhere with his art.

Chapter 5
    Amanda Signs On
    S WEAT TRICKLED DOWN AMANDA’S FACE and stung the chapped edge of her lip as she ran. Finally the week was over. She loved how her muscles started to ache as her feet pounded on the pavement, so different than the packed dirt road in Nairobi. The city buildings blurred as she picked up the pace of her run. The avenues changed from names to letters of the alphabet and the big glass towers yielded to low brick buildings. She slowed to watch a group of girls jumping rope, and caught her breath before turning around and heading home. She missed running with the African kids whose marathon dreams pushed her and Derek to run ever faster. Too bad her new school didn’t have a track team.
    When she got home, her parents were on their way out to dinner. She could see her mother’s reflection on the window, her thick orange pashmina wrapped around her shoulders. Her father stood at the door ready to go.
    “I’ll just microwave something,” she said, seemingly to herself. Since coming to the States, Amanda had a new-found guilty pleasure. She loved frozen dinners—the ice crystals like a first snow on the vegetables and gooey cheese sauce over the chicken. Maybe the American glop would help her through the weekend’s homework.
    Her brain hurt from all the English—American really, not like the British English her father spoke. She struggled to understand her teachers; her last two schools were taught in French. But compared to the slang her classmates used, the writing in her textbooks was easier to understand. She looked over the handouts for her core class. They were starting with anthropology: Social Order . Presentation of Self in Everyday Lif e. The Caste and Outcasts in Modern India . Lucky her. An hour of reading about the doomed and the damned. At least she could relate.
    When she was done, Amanda turned on her laptop. There was nothing fun on the Wacky World News site, and Facebook didn’t appeal, either. She opened her notebook and typed in the site info that had leaked through when that Thai boy grabbed it. This would be like fieldwork, she thought.
    She figured it would be a sports site, although she hadn’t seen them with the soccer players. Maybe the American one was into baseball.
    She was not expecting bubble type and neon colors. The “Welcome to Megaland” screen felt as homespun as baskets in a central market. Even more unexpected was the chat box that opened up.
    Megaland: Hello. Welcome. What brings you to Megaland today?
    Unexpected, but she liked that it was interactive. Amanda typed in “a friend.”
    Megaland: Good, good. Pick a screen name that reflects who you are. Are you a rocker? Like sports? Goth? Avid reader?
    Amanda thought a second, looking for a word like she would among the scrabble tiles. Then she had an idea and typed,
    Justagirl
    Megaland: Very clever. That’s a great screen name. What are your interests, Justagirl? What do you do with your friends?
    The screen went blank for a moment then refreshed with the cursor positioned by her screen name in the corner. Justagirl. She liked that identity.
    Justagirl : I’m new here so I don’t know anyone.
    Megaland : OK. What activities do you like to do with your brothers and sisters?
    Justagirl : My brothers are away at school.
    Megaland: OK. We can 86 that portion.
    She wondered if 86 was a grade and if that was good. Or maybe there was math involved.
    Justagirl: 86?
    Megaland: Drop it. There are other questions in the survey.
    Normally she hated the surveys that popped up on websites, but tonight she was happy to fill out a questionnaire. She was glad that someone somewhere cared what she thought. She answered the questions about her game choices; she had to think about why she liked Scrabble and avoided sites with celebrity gossip. She liked the “hot or not?” and “cool or fool?” questions.