The Star Group Read Online Free Page B

your family.”
    He patted me on the arm and held my eye. “It's been nice having you in my class. You're going to do something important for the world, Daniel, I know it.”
    I didn't know what to say. Something important? Important was not always good. Hitler had been important. So was the hydrogen bomb. The compliment disturbed me. Now, looking back, I think it was an omen.
     
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    GALE WASN'T IN HISTORY AND I FEARED that she had skipped the last day. But I caught sight of her at lunch eating by herself under a tree. Gale often brought her lunch from home and ate in solitude, which I naturally thought was sexy of her. She had many friends, yet no boyfriend.
    Gale was a quiet beauty. Her hair was the color of fading sunshine, her lips as sweet as fresh strawberries. Well, in reality she had blondish brown hair and she did in fact have nice lips. I don't know, maybe she wasn't beautiful, I was the wrong one to ask. Her demeanor was gentle, that was for sure, and she had lovely green eyes. Her body I unfortunately didn't know much about, except that it looked nice from a distance. Yet I knew for a fact that she had wonderful skin. I had touched her hand once, when she wasn't looking.
    I hyperventilated for five minutes and said a few prayers to the Virgin Mary and a couple of lesser known deities before I walked up to her. She shielded her eyes from the sun as I approached. I liked that, I had my yearbook in hand, an excuse in case all else failed. She had on baggy white shorts and a red top. Her legs were lightly tanned, totally acceptable. My yearbook had developed a case of the jitters; I had to hold it down with both hands.
    “I'm sorry, I can't see who you are,” she said in her sweet Gale voice.
    “It's Mel Gibson. Daniel, I mean, it's me.”
    She patted the grass beside her. “Sit down and get out of the glare. It's giving me a headache.”
    I sat beside her; the ground felt firm and unshakable. I forced a casual smile that felt like a painful grimace. She was chewing on an orange and looking at me as if I were a nice guy, a nice, friendly guy, but not someone she'd want to take her clothes off with and make passionate love to. It wasn't a smart idea to think of her naked being so close to her. The image did nothing to loosen my tongue. I kept right on smiling as if I had tiny nails drilled into the corners of my brain. Thankfully she was enjoying her orange. She nodded at my yearbook.
    “I haven't picked mine up yet,” she said.
    “That's terrible,” I said. Perhaps I said it with too much passion, because she raised a quizzical eyebrow.
    “I m going to get it in a few minutes,” she said.
    “OK.”
    “Did you go to class today?”
    “History, yeah.”
    “What did we do?” she asked.
    “Nothing.”
    “I didn't miss anything?”
    “No.”
    “That's good,” she said.
    “Yeah.”
    She was almost done with her orange, the pressure was intense now. I knew I had to say something witty soon or else risk a lifetime of loneliness. Ordinarily I'm a pretty funny guy, but just looking at her shorted the left hemisphere of my brain. I wasn't sure if I was relieved or not when she smiled – she may have been laughing at me.
    “What are you doing, Daniel?” she asked, when I didn't say anything.
    I blinked. “Nothing. I'm just tired.”
    She nodded. “I heard you were up early surfing.”
    Gale had heard something about me and remembered the fact? Had stored the details away in her adorable little head? I was stunned, really, it was almost as if she had told me she loved me. I'm an easy-to-please kind of guy, and her comment gave me a mountain of confidence.
    “Sal and Jimmy and I went to Huntington Beach early,” I said. “The surf was up.”
    She gave me a serious look. “I heard about your heroics.”
    “Who told you?”
    “A dozen people.” She paused. “You must have been out of your mind.”
    Over you. I shrugged. “Sometimes I feel a little wild.”
    She liked that. “How