Unforgettable Read Online Free

right at the time.
    Later I worried what would happen if I turned it in, if I would get in trouble. So I’ve never spent any of it, not even the ninety-seven cents. The coins jingle at the bottom of the envelope.
    If Mom knew, she’d say it’s not right to keep it. But I still say Dink owes us.
    I put the guitar case back in my closet and go into the living room. Mom is still outside. The newspapers tagged me the Memory Boy when it was discovered that I’d written six hundred credit and debit card numbers from memory after viewing them as they flashed across a computer screen. I’m the kid who can memorize a phone book or a thick novel because I don’t forget anything once I see or hear it. I don’t forget anything.
    Most people are impressed by that. They don’t know how crowded my head feels or what a curse it is. Plus there are too many Dinks in the world who see me as a way to cheat the system.
    It’s nice being in school again with other kids, doing the same work as them, even if it’s just to read three chapters of The Great Gatsby . But Dink lurks around every corner. The memories pop up more often; his heavy brows that furrowed at the least little thing, his receding hairline, and the sneer he reserved for me when Mom wasn’t watching.
    Even when Dink isn’t here, he’s here, like a disease that won’t go away. And like the disease he is, I know I need to find a cure. Dr. Anderson thinks that if I fill my head with new memories at a new school I’ll figure out a way to get rid of him. But Dr. Anderson doesn’t know about the money. And he doesn’t know Dink.

The Sound of Daffodils
    The bus pulls up three minutes early today. There are usually four of us at the corner—the two girls who laughed at me and a sophomore guy with short-cropped hair, but the girls aren’t here yet.
    â€œI’m getting my license in a couple months,” the guy tells me as he rocks back and forth on his heels. It’s become a mantra. He says it every day, as though he’s ashamed to be riding the bus.
    I tug at my jeans, which are too loose because I’ve grown three inches this summer and it’s either wear them too big in the waist or walk around in high-water jeans. I tower over the guy and I wonder if that’s why he keeps reminding me he’s older.
    Since today is my first meeting with Halle, I sit in the fifth seat from the front on the left-hand side, just like I did in kindergarten. Maybe it will bring me good luck. The guy sits in the back with the other sophomores. The driver peers around for the two girls and revs the engine. He has a gray beard and a permanent scowl on his face.
    â€œWe’re missing two. They’re late. Hope they didn’t sleep in or they’ll be walking today.”
    â€œYou’re three minutes early,” I say. “Yesterday you came at 7:38.”
    The driver lifts the bill of his cap and stares back at me through the mirror. “Is that so? I was here the exact same time yesterday. Maybe your watch is slow.”
    I shake my head. “Not possible.”
    His eyes become slits. “I don’t make mistakes with time, kid.”
    I open my mouth and close it. The guy doesn’t understand. Time is important. Or rather, the keeping of time. I may not be able to control the flood of memories, but I can at least make sure they’re accurate. I want to inform him that there’s no way my watch is slow, that it receives daily time-calibration radio signals and is accurate to less than a second a day. I want to tell him that he’s wrong and he’s probably left kids stranded at bus stops all over town because of his inability to keep accurate time.
    The old Baxter would have told him all that. The old Baxter also would have gotten kicked off the bus. Instead I jab my pencil into the vinyl seat in front of me when the driver isn’t looking. Blurting out random information