Free So Shelly by Ty Roth

debut novel made the “Must-Read” lists of several national magazines and was picked as one of
USA Today
’s Hot Summer Reads for Young Adults. Reporters from a variety of teen-oriented magazines and websites interviewed Gordon and featured his photograph in their articles. His stock quip was “I awoke one morning and found myself famous.”
    Gordon spent much of those months driving with Catherine from one bookstore to the next for signings and meets and greets. She was the mother of all cock blocks; Catherine intercepted or fished from his pockets every phone number slipped to him by members of his largely female fan base.
    In the fall, Catherine enrolled him for his sophomore year at Trinity Catholic, a school primarily populated by the children of Ogontz’s shrinking middle class, who were desperate to avoid the blacks and Hispanics now constitutingthe majority of students in the Ogontz public school system. At Trinity, based upon his filial heritage, Acedia address, and burgeoning celebrity, Gordon was immediately welcomed as a member of the noblesse oblige.
    I’m sure that secretly Catherine was relieved by the reduction in tuition costs afforded by Gordon’s departure from the Rood. The cost of maintaining two children in private boarding schools had depleted her cash reserves and she had nearly exhausted the generosity of her parents, who actually still blamed her for the demise of her marriage and, therefore, her current financial shortfall. As a result of her divorce settlement, she’d received substantial shares in the Byron Boatyards. However, consumers’ discretionary spending on luxury purchases is often the first to be cut in tough economic times; therefore, her dividends fluctuated wildly. Lately, cash flow had been tight. Despite Catherine’s legitimate legal access to his earnings, Gordon maintained tight control over the advance he’d received for
Manfred,
and since his homecoming, he had taken to intellectually bullying his emotionally fragile mother, and saw no good reason why he, as a minor, should be expected to reduce her financial responsibility to raise and educate him.
    After his termination from the Rood, Gordon possessed even less regard for formalized schools and the fascists who administer them. To his mind, he’d done nothing wrong; each so-called offense had been victimless. Caroline? Mrs. Guiccioli? He’d liberated them. He’d given them what they wanted. If anything, he was the victim.
    Therefore, Gordon was relatively indifferent to his enrollment at Trinity. He would never conform his intellectualor existential pursuits to their narrow-minded curriculums or reading lists, anyway. His interest
was
piqued, however, by a photograph in a full-color Trinity brochure, which his mother left conspicuously open on the island in the kitchen, of a fully extended swimmer diving off starting blocks. Beneath the photograph the caption read “Twelve State Swimming Championships!” Browsing a list of extracurricular sports offered at Trinity, Gordon was disappointed to find lacrosse absent, but he was impressed by their athletic success in general and was especially intrigued by the swim program. His aquatic prowess was entirely natural and, even worse, unheralded. Despite his stubborn independence and aversion to authority, Gordon wondered what he might accomplish as a swimmer if he only had a little coaching.
    When she heard the news of Gordon’s enrollment, Shelly was nothing short of euphoric. She had attended Trinity’s schools since kindergarten. Her father was a product of the school himself and a staunch supporter of All Saints, tithing ten percent of his income to the church since his first paper route; however, despite her father’s wealth and standing in the community, or maybe because of it, she had never fit in with the other kids at Trinity. She’d always been picked on, always been alienated, nicknamed Psycho Shelly.
    Though bright, Shelly had the focus of a gnat, and