Ink Is Thicker Than Water Read Online Free

like the demure version of the top she wore to Saturday night’s party. “Do you have to go somewhere after school?”
    “Some of us just care about how we look, you know.”
    I figure that might be a comment on my jeans and faux-vintage mod symbol T-shirt, but I let it go. Really I don’t care very much about how I look, at least at school.
    For a split second, I think of asking her what I should do about Oliver’s text, but in order to get that advice, I’d have to tell a bunch of truths that are pretty inconvenient. Or at least embarrassing. “Did you get anywhere with your geometry?”
    “Here.” She hands me her notebook. “But look at how I did the work, don’t just copy.”
    Of course I’m just going to copy, even though I promise her otherwise. “Thanks. So I was thinking this weekend we could—”
    “Hey, Kellie.” My English teacher, Jennifer, walks up to us, bearing this huge grin. That’s right, Jennifer . Our hippie school thinks forcing kids to address their teachers by prefix and last name creates an unfair power dynamic, so we’re all on a first-name basis here. Jennifer’s the kind of person who’s always trying way too hard. No one has ever been that happy to see anyone unless it was someone returning to his great love post-wartime. “Do you have a few minutes before class? I’d love to talk to you.”
    I assume this has something to do with the paper and my potential as their new op/ed writer. So even though I would rather spend my last minutes of morning freedom talking to Kaitlyn, I follow Jennifer farther down the blue wing to her classroom.
    “Kellie, I wanted to congratulate you,” she says, and I feel myself grinning even though I’d told myself not to care about this too much. “We got a lot of applications, but the editor and I thought yours was one of the most impressive.”
    “I’m the new op/ed writer,” I say like I’m telling myself. I still have to figure out the least dorky way to do this thing, after all.
    “Well…not exactly.” She laughs and riffles through the stack of papers on her desk. “Your take on cafeteria selections, well, your style is perfect for us. But not for the op/ed column. We actually already chose a new op/ed writer, so we’ve decided we’re going to add a humor column to the Ticknor Voice . It’ll be the same kind of topics explored in the op/ed column, but with a funnier angle. And you are the perfect writer for it.”
    “Um, thanks.” I can’t believe I’m getting called something so impressive as a writer based off of a goofy piece about the quality of chicken nuggets and fruit cocktail. I also can’t believe that my life is changing and I’ve actually achieved something, and all I could think to say was um, thanks . I smile just short of maniacally so Jennifer will know my feelings run deeper.
    “Our next meeting’s tomorrow, right after school. See you then.”
    “I’ll actually see you in five minutes,” I say. “In class. But, yeah, I’ll be here tomorrow.”
    I duck out of the room so I can finish getting my stuff out of my locker, and when I head back into Jennifer’s classroom, it hits me that I’m still smiling.
    Mom texts me around lunchtime to go straight to the shop after school. According to the Ticknor Day School Guidebook, we aren’t supposed to have our phones on at all during the day, but every time I’ve gotten caught, I showed whatever teacher had spotted me that every single new message was from Mom and were all like, Please pick up Finn on your way home or, Can you please buy vegan hot dogs after school? or even, I love you, Kellie baby!! and then whichever school official would just smile and say something cheesy about The American Family and Its Beauty, and I’d be off the hook.
    So once my last class is dismissed (just like colleges, we don’t believe in bells at Ticknor), I drive to South Grand. I love living in Webster, with its storybook houses and hatred of chain stores and the cute