Too Cool for This School Read Online Free

dinner. Night!
    I felt bad that I was so disappointed. Because Rachel was a great friend. I should have been happy to hear from her. I texted her back.
    Me: Welcome! Night.
    And while I continued to wait for Todd to text me back, my dad knocked on my door. “It’s great that you’ve got such good friends,” he said, walking in.
    I lifted up my head from my pillow and looked at him. “Yeah,” I agreed.
    “But family is important too,” he said.
    I nodded. “I know. You and Mom are great.”
    “Right,” he said. “And even though you don’t see them every day, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about your relatives. You know, your extended family.”
    My mom raced into my bedroom like she was missing something important.
    “What are you talking about?” she asked.
    “Extended family,” I offered.
    “Michael,” my mother said in a stern voice. “Lane looks ready for bed.”
    I watched as my mother practically dragged my father out of my room.
    “Not yet,” she told him in a hushed voice.
    And I probably should have wondered about that comment all night long, but I didn’t. Because my phone buzzed.
    Todd: Iron dwarves are kicking my butt.
    I was so thrilled. Because not only had Todd texted me, but I mostly understood what his text meant.
    Me: Isn’t steel stronger?
    Todd: Not in this cave.
    Me: Good luck.
    Todd: Ditto!!
    I stared at that word for a long time. Ditto. With not one, but two exclamation points. I felt so lucky. I was twelve and I had everything.

4
    While becoming class captain changed a lot of things for me, one thing it did not change was my class schedule. I still had Mr. Guzman as my main teacher for English Language Arts, Social Science 6, Geography, and Creative Writing. And Ms. Fritz still taught Science 6, Algebra Readiness, and PE 6. But the great thing about Rio Chama Middle School was that even though I had two teachers, I didn’t have to change classrooms. My teachers did. So my desk was my desk and I didn’t have to share it with anyone.
    This was a great arrangement, because I used my desk as a well-organized storage area. It was the kind of desk with a lid that lifted up, so I kept all sorts of things in it: lip gloss, magazines, notebooks, pens, exciting notes passed to me by my friends, et cetera. My desk was situated inthe ideal place for sending and receiving notes. It sat kitty-corner from Todd, Lucia, and Jagger. So we had a good note-passing flow. I could pass any slip of paper to any one of my friends anywhere in the room. And because we were careful note-passers, we never got caught. And since Ava was just one row away, I was usually partnered with her for group work. It was a dream seating chart.
    The day of my first class-captain meeting, I obsessed about what would happen. I knew we met for forty-five minutes in the administrative meeting room next to the secretary. But I had no clue what happened beyond that. Did they serve snacks? Who was going to be our faculty mentor? Would we take the group photo at the beginning? At the end? Would we start planning the Halloween Carnival? Ooh. Would we start purchasing carnival supplies online? I really hoped we’d start party planning as soon as possible. Because the more we planned, the better the party.
    “You look really happy,” Lucia said as she walked past my desk to turn in her Algebra worksheet.
    I glanced up from my worksheet and smiled. I’d decided to wear my denim skirt with magenta tights and a white cotton top. Lots of people had given me compliments. Even Coral Carter, who I wasn’t really interested in talking to and was actually trying to avoid. Beating people in a competition and then seeing them in class was awkward.
    “Time to turn in your worksheets,” Ms. Fritz said as she erased the white board.
    Ms. Fritz was such a down-to-earth teacher. She wore jeans and chewed gum and flat-ironed her curly blond hair.I thought that style made her look a little bit like a model. I watched as she walked