Waiting For Sarah Read Online Free Page A

his eyes closed until they had put him down in the front hall. Then he glared at his friend. “I toldyou I’d manage by my — ”
    Robbie turned away. “Thanks,” he said to his helper.
    The boy smiled. “No problem,” he said as he walked away.
    Robbie turned back to Mike and grinned. “There’s an entrance around the back. It’s near the band room. No steps. I knew you wouldn’t remember.” He turned on his heel before Mike could say anything else. “See you later. If you’re polite maybe I’ll walk home with you.” He grinned again and was gone.
    Mike looked around. It seemed to him that every eye was on him. He wheeled past the band room and through the halls, staring straight ahead, scowling, hating everyone. The secretary in the school office had his timetable ready. He snatched it from her hand and turned to go.
    She stopped him with a word. “Wait.”
    He paused, but did not look back.
    â€œMr. Warren, the vice-principal, wants to see you before you ...”
    â€œWell, I don’t want to see him.”
    He found his first class and insisted on sitting at the back of the room. Desks were moved; space was made for him. If anyone stared he glared back at them, and they turned away, withered by his hate.
    Even Carleton’s new, cute and over-excited eighth graders, all with two strong legs, all with mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, all with proper homes and families. He despised them all.

9 ... back with friends
    Robbie helped him home, pushing on the uphill parts.
    â€œSo how was it, Mike? How did it go?”
    He played dumb. “How did what go?”
    â€œYou know. Classes, crowded hallways, being back with friends, stuff like that.”
    â€œFriends! Hmmph!” He was still ticked off at Robbie for lifting him up the school steps. He’d felt so helpless. “Who was that other kid this morning?”
    â€œWhat other kid are you talking about, man?” Robbie playing the innocent.
    â€œI’m talking about the one who helped with the skyride.”
    â€œOh, him. He’s a new guy. In my history class. He’s big and he happened to be passing by so I grabbed him. Name’s Ben Packard.”
    â€œHmmph!”
    He went to school every day.
    He hated it.
    He was unfriendly. Kids he’d known for years,who had been with him through elementary school, he ignored as though they were strangers; he wanted nobody’s sympathy. He was asked to join the yearbook committee. “Not interested,” he told them. He was invited to join the chess club and the debating club, but he refused; he was no longer interested in chess, and as for debating, he didn’t much like the sponsor teacher, Mr. Dorfman. So he joined no clubs. Mr. Estereicher, a popular PE teacher, asked him if he might be interested in wheelchair sports; there was a meet coming up, and Estereicher would be happy to coach him for track or basketball or whatever interested him. “I don’t give a damn about wheelchair sports — thanks very much,” he added sarcastically.
    People soon learned to leave him alone.
    They didn’t like him. He didn’t care.
    Someone hung a bumper-sticker on the back of his wheelchair: Ban Leg-hold Traps. Robbie managed to remove it without Mike knowing.

10 ... fright mask
    By the end of October it was almost as though he had never been away from Carleton High. The school was still the same, but he had changed. In tenth grade he had been busily involved in the school’s classes and activities; now everything was meaningless. He endured it only because of Aunt Norma and Robbie.
    Today he had Dorfman first period. He didn’t like Dorfman’s class. He didn’t like Dorfman. History should be interesting, exciting even, but Dorfman managed to convert it into sleeping pills. For the first fifteen minutes of each seventy-five minute period there was a quiz on