Wildlife Read Online Free Page B

campus called Mount Fairweather
for a whole term
to discover the real meaning of,
to experience
, independence and leadership.
    It is a campus in the mountains.
    This cushy campus promises to provide an authentic, rugged outdoors experience… resilience… core values… practical skills for… cocurricular… living… blah… educational adventure… foster… blah… connect… blah… challenge.
    A quarter of the year ten class is at Mount Fairweather at any given time. I am part of the quarter who will be enjoying the camp experience during fourth term.
    There will be lots of wonderful activities in which I will participate, including but not limited to hiking, cross-country running, group and solo camping, rappelling, canoeing, horseback riding, and environmental studies in situ.
    Classes will run in a five-day week from Thursday to Monday. Inclusive. Tuesdays and Wednesdays will be our “weekends,” so we can have the run of the wilderness without us bothering weekend hikers/campers, or weekend hikers/campers bothering us.
    It will be good for me. That’s an order.
    Good to make a new start.
    Good to get out of the house.
    Good to meet new people.
    Good to breathe some new air.
    Good to be getting fit.
    Good to have access to a fine counselor.
    So good I cannot fucking believe my luck.

9
    Parents were encouraged to say their farewells at home. Schools correctly believe hysteria to be contagious. So I get to have a whispered catch-up with Holly while everyone mills around looking excited or depressed or hungover and the sporty teachers help load the buses.
    Ben is in the distance laughing with some of his jock friends, guys I really don’t like. Rowing and football star Billy Gardiner with his look-at-me tan, protein-supplementmuscles, and blond hair is one of them. But I guess when you’re friends with basically everyone, you’re going to have some quality-control issues.
    “It was nothing, no big deal.” I’m trying to mean it.
    “You were practically having sex, so it’s not nothing.”
    “We weren’t. It was just a kiss. Can we move on?”
    “Last time Ben Capaldi did that—well, the time before—it was Laura, and they went out—for a while.”
    “Forget it. He’s not even my type.” I bite a shaggy cuticle. I’ve always wanted to say that—though in this context, it’s a big fat lie, and Holly knows it.
    “Your
type
? Your type is nerd meets doofus, hun, and you don’t want to go there.”
    “Thanks.”
    “What? I’m being honest,” says Holly. I consider the mixed blessing of having such an honest friend, but there is stuff I’m clueless about, and she’s a good interpreter.
    “No, you’re right—which means Ben Capaldi is definitely not the boy for me.”
    “Don’t you get it? This is not about who you are. It’s about who you want to be. You get to decide. Because of the billboard. No one
knows
who you are anymore. The whole class is confused.”
    “The billboard isn’t me.”
    “You haven’t tried on enough ‘me’s to even know.”
    “I’m Daria. I’ve even got the pain-in-the-arse little sister.”
    “You
were
Daria. Now you can be Hannah Montana.”
    “She’s not even a cartoon.”
    We both reflect on the shortage of good female cartoon role models in mainstream media. Or at least that’s what I’m doing.
    “Sibbie, you can go from drab to fab. You can be a babe—not everyone gets to do that.” Holly sometimes speaks as though she’s rehearsing for her planned career in the world of fashion journalism.
    “Even that word—
babe
—I hate it. I don’t want to be patronized, or infantilized…”
    Holly sighs, trying to keep her cool. “Think of it as a
visit
to babe-land. If you don’t like it, don’t stay.”
    “I won’t like it.”
    “You don’t know that because you’ve never been there. And Ben Capaldi is everybody’s type. If everybody wants brainy, funny, fit, handsome.”
    “If that’s true, then I’ve really got no