Don't Tell Mother Read Online Free Page B

could be when she expected me to be someone I wasn’t, she’d lock herself in her room and cry for a month. I was hoping this school year Mother and I would actually get along. So far, we were off to a bad start.
    And tomorrow was Friday. Bob was coming over for dinner, which meant my relationship with Mother would go from bad to ugly—really ugly.
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    “What happened on the court last night?” Krysta stared accusingly at me from over the top of her puke-green vinyl bus seat.
    “Yeah,” Sophie scolded. “We waited for you after the game.”
    Krysta and Sophie shared nods of agreement. I suppose they’d rehearsed my butt chewing. Didn’t they understand I wanted to be alone?
    “We tried to IM you,” Krysta said, “but you never came online.”
    Sighing, I leaned my back against the window as I recalled how they cheered for me last night. Somehow, no matter how bad things got, they were always there for me. Too bad my own family couldn’t do that.
    “I was too pissed off to talk to anyone.” Even though my friends were trying to help last night, I didn’t trust myself not to take my anger out on them.
    Sophie’s eyes widened and then narrowed in a look of understanding. “Your new coach must have really pissed you off.”
    I couldn’t help but laugh. Sophie didn’t need to be a mind reader to figure that one out. “Yep.”
    Krysta smiled, nudging Sophie as if they were in on some private joke.
    Even though I had the night to cool down, I wasn’t in the mood for any games. “What’s that look for, Krysta?”
    Folding her arms across the top of my seat, Krysta leaned toward me. I could tell by the determined look in her eyes, she had some juicy gossip. “I think your coach pissed off Sparks, too.”
    “Really?” Finally—some good news. Principal Sparks was one guy you didn’t want to mess with. The only teacher I’d ever seen stand up to him and live to tell was my math teacher, Mrs. Stein, but she was way cool. Coach Lowe was a major dweeb. Maybe she’d lose her job, and Sparks would hire a real coach.
    Sophie propped herself next to Krysta. “We waited forever for you to come out of your locker-room, and when all the other players left, we heard Sparks yelling.”
    “We thought he was yelling at you.” Krysta’s eyebrows rose behind her bangs, as she placed careful emphasis on each juicy detail. “But then your new coach came out, and we could tell she’d been crying.”
    Crying? Good. Now she knew how I felt. But what did he say to make her cry? Was it about me? “Did you hear what he said?”
    “No,” Krysta moaned. “We heard screaming, but we couldn’t make out what he was saying. We had our ears against the door, the wall, the floor…”
    Hmmm. This was getting interesting. “Sparks must have chewed her butt for kicking me off the court.”
    “Uhhh, yeah,” Sophie snickered. “We lost by over fifty points.”
    “Holy crap!” Sparks hated losing—for any reason. But getting our butts stomped so royally must have really made him mad. No wonder Lowe was crying, but what did she tell him about me? Did she try to say it was all my fault? “Sophie, did you get a chance to read Lowe’s mind?”
    She shook her head. “I tried, but when she came out of the locker-room, she looked at us and ran.”
    “Crap.” I pounded the bench with my fist. “I wish I knew what she was thinking.”
    Squinting her eyes, Sophie creased her brow in confusion. “Well, I did get a chance to hear one thing, but it didn’t make any sense.”
    I shot up. Something was better than nothing. “What did she say?”
    “Twenty? Ha! Try thirty, stupid.” Sophie shrugged. “I told you it didn’t make any sense.”
    “Maybe your coach and Sparks were arguing about points,” Krysta suggested.
    “No,” I chewed on my bottom lip, trying to decipher Lowe’s thoughts. “That doesn’t make any sense.” Then a memory from last night hit me. Something I said to Lowe