Kiss & Sell Read Online Free Page A

and took out our books.
    “Arielle?” Mrs. Beckett called out from the front of the room.
    I looked over at the teacher surprised she already knew my name. Then I began to panic, because, well, why did she know my name?
    “I have a note here that says Principal Howard would like to see you,” she said, holding up a piece of paper for the whole class to see.
    Around the room, people erupted into “Ooooh’s” like I was in trouble, and I stood up nervously, worried they were right. Looking at McCartney questioningly, I headed up to retrieve the note.
    “Did he say what it was about?” I asked her quietly.
    “Sorry, but no,” she answered, already having lost interest in the situation.
    “Okay. Uh, well, I guess I’ll go then?” I said uncomfortably.
    I grabbed my things and left the class, starting my walk of shame down the hallway. As I went, I racked my brain for reasons why Principal Howard might want to see me. Was it because of the argument with Kristi? Nah. I shook my head. Kristi caused scenes all the time. Whatever it was, my mom would kill me if I managed to land myself in trouble on the second day of school.
    I took a deep breath as I arrived outside Principal Howard’s door and then knocked on it three times.
    “Come in,” his voice boomed from inside the room.
    Here goes.

I SAT NERVOUSLY in a chair directly across from Principal Howard, who was planted sturdily behind his big oak desk. This was my first time inside his office and I
so
did not want to be there. Everything was intimidating. The furniture was all a dark shade of cherry or black, and every decoration screamed “Scary adult.” He didn’t even have any family pictures on his desk or anything.
    I started to bite at my nail, as he sat there staring at me with a blank look on his face. Like he was sizing me up. I’d never talked to Principal Howard before, but I’d had a chance to observe him at the opening day assembly. He seemed
suspicious
of the students, like at any moment we might start a riot or something. The guy never really smiled, in fact, his personality sort of screamed, “law enforcement.” Before I could wonder any longer why I was in his office in the first place, he cleared his throat.
    “Miss Sawyer. Do you know why I asked you to come down here?” he asked, his voice monotone.
    Why do adults always ask that question? I mean, if we knew, why would we admit it, and if we didn’t, you were going to tell us anyway. Seriously, I wished you would just cut to the chase, so I don’t have to sit here ruining the nails I just polished last night.
    But I just answered, “No, sir.”
    “Well, I wanted to speak to you concerning this little
eBay
situation,” he said, his expression remaining the same.
    I laughed nervously. “Oh. You saw that too?”
    “Well, it
was
e-mailed to the entire school, Miss Sawyer,” he answered with what I assumed was his attempt at sarcasm.
    “Yeah, sorry about that,” I said, silently cursing McCartney and Phin. Note to self: When you send out a mass e-mail regarding your plans to score your first kiss to your entire school, it’s not such a good idea to
also
send it to the faculty. No matter how clever you think you are, they will
not
be impressed. You’d think this would be common knowledge, but here I was, having an incredibly embarrassing conversation with the principal. Not exactly my finest moment, I admit.
    “I’m not sure if this is exactly a safe or smart thing for a young lady to be doing,” Principal Howard continued. “Selling sexual favors on the Internet—in this day and age? it’s not appropriate and I’m afraid that it will be a distraction for students.”
    “I don’t think it’s going to be too much of a distraction, sir. You know how teens are. By tomorrow everyone will be talking about something else,” I said, although I knew this wasn’t entirely true. This juicy bit of gossip had legs.
    “Even so, I’m going to have to call your mother about this,”