The Hybrid Read Online Free Page B

students at the school to take them, so having classes like
that would have been pointless.
Finally, the lunch bell rang. As Tru walked out of the
main building and across the open, circular quad to the
cafeteria, she could see Bethany and her friends waiting
for her by the bright red, open cafeteria doors.
When they had reached a rectangular table ⎯ almost
perfectly center in the large, white and red themed room
⎯ Tru pulled out a chair, took a seat, and unzipped her
backpack to reach for her wallet. But when she inserted
her hand, Tru felt something papery against her fingertips. She pulled the paper out of her backpack, realizing
that her
grandmother
had
slyly
packed
her
a
sacked
lunch. As the girls continued talking around her, Gertrude began slowly munching on her peanut butter and
jelly sandwich.
Tru wasn’t used to girl talk. Fashion this, boys that, it
just didn’t make any sense to her. Most of the boys they
talked about had been boys they had crushes on, the same
boys they had known since kindergarten, and Tru was
completely out of the loop. She still didn’t really know too
many people, but she sat there anyway, listening, and
hoping she might possibly learn something.
“So guess who Hailey is dating?” one of the blonde
girls spoke after taking a bite of her salad.
     
Bethany looked at her in shock, “who?” She practically
choked on her food.
    The blonde girl continued, “well, Mark heard from
Zach that Christine told Justin that Hailey was single, so
Justin grabbed his brother ⎯ who you know has had a
crush on her for like ever⎯ so they are going out now.”
She rambled on, hardly taking any breaths as she spoke.
    “Oh my God,” Bethany said.
“Yeah, I know right?”
    Tru watched the three of them as they continued. She
felt like she was in a new episode of Laguna Beach , listening to a bunch of gossip. She almost wanted to yank
out her hair, but she resisted the urge, smiling and nodding along as she ate the remainder of her lunch.

3
The Myth
    Tru had only two more classes after lunch, and sitting
through them, waiting for the day to end, was like waiting
for grass to grow. She hardly liked school, and remembered the days when she used to beg her parents to put
her into home school, away from the students, away from
the teachers.
    When school had finally ended, Tru decided to save
her grandmother the trouble of picking her up, so she
pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed the
house number.
    “Hello?” Tru’s grandfather had been the one to answer
when the ringing had finally stopped on the third chime.
“Hi, Grandpa. It’s Tru.” She spoke slowly, hoping the
old man’s hearing wasn’t starting to fail him yet.
“Oh, Gertrude! Are you ready to be picked up?” It
sounded like he had lost track of time. Tru imagined him
staring down at his watch wrapped tightly around his left
wrist.
“Actually, I think I’m going to walk home today, if
that’s alright. Can you let Grandma know?” Tru had already begun walking down the sidewalk before taking the
time to wait for an answer.
“Okay, Sweetheart. We’ll see you here in a little bit
then.”
“Okay, Grandpa, bye.”
“Bye.” Then, the line went dead.
Tru closed the small grey cell phone, and then slid it
gently back into her front pocket as she continued walking down the sidewalk. Without noticing, she came to a
stop at an intersection that looked like a T . If she had decided to turn to the left, and walked a bit further, she
would reach the house. If she turned to the right, she
would head into the main part of town. If she walked
straight ahead, crossing the street, and then over the other sidewalk, she would head right into the forest. It was so
close, just feet from where she stood, and just a quarter of
a block from the house. Tru looked toward the direction
of her grandmother’s house, and then back at the trees.
“Tru!” Bethany called from behind her. “Wait up!”
Tru turned around and