Wake Read Online Free Page A

stop it. I’m serious. You’re turning mean like Melinda.” Janie glances at Cabel. His jeans are too short. She knows what it’s like to be teased for not having cool clothes and stuff. She feels herself wanting to defend him.
    “He probably has shitty welfare parents, like me.”
    Carrie is quiet. “I’m not like Melinda.”
    “So why do you hang with her?”
    She shrugs and thinks about it for a minute. “I dunno. ’Cause she’s rich.”

    Finally the bus comes. The ride is forty-five minutes to school, even though the school is less than five miles away, because of all the stops. Juniors like Janie and Carrie are considered by the unwritten bus rules to be upperclassmen. So they sit near the back. Cabel passes by and falls into the seat behind them. Janie can feel him push his knees up against her back. She peers through the crack between her seat back and the window. Cabel’s chin is propped up by his hand. His eyes are closed, nearly hidden beneath his greasy curls.
    “Fuck,” Janie mutters under her breath.
    Thankfully, Cabel Strumheller doesn’t dream.
    Not on the bus, anyway.
    Not in chemistry class, either.
    Or English.
    Nor does anyone else. Janie arrives home after the first day of school, relieved. October 16, 2004, 7:42 p.m.
    Carrie and Stu knock on Janie’s bedroom window. She opens it a crack. Stu’s dressed up, wearing a thin, black leather tie, and Carrie has on a slinky black dress with a shawl and a hideously large orchid pinned to it.
    “I saw your light on in here,” explains Carrie, regarding the unusual visit. “Come to the homecoming dance, with us, Janers! We’re not staying long. Please?”
    Janie sighs. “You know I don’t have anything to wear.”
    Carrie holds up a silver spaghetti-strap dress so Janie can see it. “Here—I bet this’ll fit you. I got it from Melinda. She’ll die if she sees you in it instead of me. And I’ve got shoes that’ll go with it.” Carrie grins evilly.
    “I haven’t washed my hair or anything.”
    “You look fine, Janie,” Stu says. “Come on. Don’t make me sit there with a bunch of teenybopper airheads all night. Have pity on an old man.”
    Janie smirks. Carrie slaps Stu on the arm.
    She meets them at the front door, takes the dress, and heads over to Carrie’s ten minutes later.
    9:12 p.m.
    Janie drinks her third cup of punch while Stu and Carrie dance for the billionth time. She sits down at a table, alone.
    9:18 p.m.
    A sophomore boy, known only to Janie as “the brainiac,” asks Janie to dance. She regards him for a moment. “Why the fuck not,” she says. She’s a head taller than him. He rests his head on her chest and grabs her ass.
    She pushes him off her, muttering under her breath, finds Carrie, and tells her she has a ride home and she’s leaving now.
    Carrie waves blissfully from Stu’s arms.
    Janie attacks the back door of the school gym and finds herself in a heavy cloud of smoke. She realizes she’s found the Goths’ hangout. Who knew?
    “Oof,” someone says. She keeps walking, muttering “sorry” to whomever it was she hit with the flying door.

    After a mile wearing Carrie’s heels, her feet are killing her. She takes off the shoes and walks in the grassy yards, watching the houses evolve from nice to nasty as she goes along. The grass is already wet with dew, and the yards are getting messier. Her feet are freezing. Someone falls in step beside her, so quietly that she doesn’t notice him until he’s there. He’s carrying a skateboard. A second and third follow suit, then lay their boards down and push off, hanging slightly in front of Janie.
    “Jeez!” she says, surrounded. “Scare a girl half to death, why don’t you.”
    Cabel Strumheller shrugs. The other guys move ahead. “Long walk,” says Cabel. “You, uh”—he clears his throat—“okay?”
    “Fine,” she says. “You?” She doesn’t remember ever hearing him speak before.
    “Get on.” He sets his board down, taking