Free How To Steal a Car by Pete Hautman

said.
    “I know. I’m just being a bitch.” I shrugged. “You find a dead rat yet?”
    “Huh?”
    “You know. To hide in Alton’s new car.”
    “Oh. No.”
    “I bet you could find one over by the grain elevators. They must have lots of rats. I think they poison them.”
    “I’m not really so into the rat thing anymore. Even if I did it, it wouldn’t change anything. Alton would still be an ass.”
    “You sound like my mom.”
    “Your mom’s nice.”
    It was true. My mom is nice.
    How nice my mom is:
When Mrs. Hallsted went to visit her sister in England, my mom invited Mr. Hallsted to have dinner with us every night for a week because she knew he didn’t cook.
Whenever she sees a guy standing on a corner with a sign asking for money, she gives him a dollar.
Every year on my birthday she makes shrimp scampi and red velvet cake, my two all-time favorite foods.
When Jen or Will come over she always makes us some sort of snack.
She never forgets to send a thank-you note, even when she doesn’t actually feel thankful.
If you have ever exchanged more than one sentence with her you will get a Christmas card.
She irons my T-shirts.
    There’s more, but you get the idea. My mother has dedicated her life to being a nice person. Now, you might be thinking that she must have a not-nice side, but you would be wrong. All of my mother’s sides are nice, which puts a lot of pressure on a person like me, who can be sort of nasty, even to her friends.
    I did not call Jen back for two days, even though she kept texting me. That might seem cruel, but the thing was, I knew if I talked to her I’d say something really nasty. But after two days I was feeling guilty for being mad at her so I called her and said (like nothing was ever wrong), “Let’s go check out the shoe situation at DSW.” Jen is crazy for shoes.
    “How come you haven’t called me?” she whined.
    I told her my phone was messed up. I’m pretty sure she knew I was lying.
    Designer Shoe Warehouse, by the way, is one of the worst places to buy shoes. They mostly deal in shoes nobody bought at full price because they’re ugly. But it is also the very best place to buy shoes, because it’s self-service and you can try on a hundred pairs and nobody makes you feel guilty for trying on too-small sizes, or not buying anything, or not putting socks on, and it’s mostly free because you hardly ever find anything you want to buy. So in a way it’s the perfect shoe-shopping experience if you don’t actually need new shoes.
    Will thinks it’s ridiculous that Jen and I like to shop when we are not planning to buy anything. He calls it “air shopping.” But what he doesn’t get is that we just might buy something—and that’s what keeps it interesting. Every now and then DSW will have the perfect pair of shoes in the right size and color and price. I bought my high-heeled strappies there. If I ever go to a formal I will have to learn how to walk in them.
    Jen said she was looking for some boots for fall.
    “Like elf boots,” she said.
    I knew exactly what she meant: pointy toes, soft floppy leather around the ankles, low heels, but not too low. I figured her chances of finding such a thing at DSW were about as good as her chances of riding her bicycle to the moon. But like I said before, that was just fine.
    Me, I was hoping to find some black suede faux-athletic shoes, preferably with no stripes. Not likely, but then I didn’t have any money anyway, having invested heavily in important items such as Phrap-o-chinos, fast food, and cell phone bills.
    I could hardly imagine how I’d ever be able to afford a car. I mean, a car of my own.
    How I get money: My father gives it to me.
    He gives me an allowance of two hundred dollars a month, which is not as much as it seems like because half ofit goes into a savings account for college. It used to be that all my money went into the college savings account. My parents opened it when I was practically a baby and put