Can You Keep a Secret? Read Online Free Page B

squeezed Eddie’s hand, so hard he cried out. The light disappeared. I stared out the window, stared at Danny Franklin, a pleased grin on his face.
    He stuck his head into the car. “Scared you,” he said, still grinning.
    I heard laughter behind him. My eyes were returning to normal. I saw Callie Newman, his new girlfriend, behind him, enjoying Danny’s joke.
    Danny tugged open my car door. “You should have seen the look on your face,” he said.
    Eddie shoved his door open, leaped out of the car, his fists curled. “I’ll pound you!” he threatened, only half-serious.
    Danny backed away, both hands raised. “You know I’m nonviolent. Peace. Peace!”
    Yeah, right. Danny is a joker, but he’s also hot-headed and impulsive, and gets in fights all the time. He’s a strange combination of a fun guy who can turn angry in a second. A guy who loves to play jokes on other people but who always has to win.
    Eddie says it’s because Danny has red hair. “It means his head is on fire,” Eddie explained once. We both laughed. We knew that wasn’t very scientific.
    “You two were totally getting it on,” Danny teased. “Better save something for later.”
    “Danny, give them a break,” Callie said. She grabbed Danny from behind and tugged him away. “You’re about as funny as stomach cramps.”
    Danny laughed. “Did you just make that up?”
    She rolled her eyes. “You’re not the only funny one here.”
    “Funny looking,” Eddie muttered.
    Danny is kind of funny looking. He has his red hair shaved real short, and he has big Dumbo ears that stick straight out, light freckles on his cheeks, and a little pointed nose, with his brown eyes real close together. He’d look exactly like an elf, except he’s the tallest one in our crowd.
    I don’t know Callie very well. She transferred to Shadyside last year. She seems really nice, and she can be funny, and she’s very good with Danny. I don’t blame her for stealing him away from me. Danny and I weren’t getting along, and I think we were both relieved when we broke up.
    Callie is very pretty, with straight straw-blonde hair, bangs across her forehead, pale green eyes, high cheekbones like a model, and a really warm, friendly smile.
    She was wearing a T-shirt under a satiny black jacket and straight-legged black denim jeans that showed off how thin she is.
    Eddie and Danny were having a pretend fistfight on the grass in front of the car. I gazed over Callie’s shoulder and saw our two other friends at the back of Danny’s SUV.
    Riley Jeffers and Roxie Robinson were leaning into the hatchback trunk, pulling out camping equipment. “Hey—somebody give us a hand,” Riley boomed. He’s big, I mean huge, built like a middle linebacker, which he is, on the Shadyside High Tigers.
    Eddie says that Riley does his strength training by crushing beer cans in his bare hands. It’s true that Riley likes beer and partying, which could get him tossed off the football team. But he’s also good at not getting caught.
    You have to be eighteen to drink beer in Shadyside, but it’s not like I know anyone who obeys the law. And now I watched Riley unload a case of Bud from the back of the SUV.
    I followed Callie across the grass to greet Riley and Roxie. It’s a riot to see them together, mainly because Roxie is half Riley’s size. I mean, I’ve seen him actually pick her up and carry her around.
    She likes it. She calls him “Teddy Bear,” which makes the rest of us gag. But Riley smiles every time she says it.
    Roxie is okay, but I think sometimes she’s a little too cute. She has a funny lisp. She can’t pronounce her s ’s. and it makes her sound even more cute, sort of like a character in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. She looks a little rabbitlike, actually, with two front teeth that stick out and big, round brown eyes.
    Roxie is into Hello Kitty, and she wears all these plastic Hello Kitty pins and plastic necklaces, and bracelets that are always clicking and