Free Brittany Bends by Kristine Grayson Page B

wait decades to get it back.
    When I do, I’ll snap my fingers at anyone who stares at me and make their stupid eyes bug out of their stupid heads.
    The locker door bounces open again. I close my eyes. I can’t just leave it unlocked. I don’t have a backpack and my stupid denim purse only carries a few books at a time. If we lose the books, we have to pay for them.
    “Here, let me.” One of the boys who was watching has come up beside me. He’s taller than I am, but just as blond. He’s not in my grade, and I don’t know his name, but I do know he’s on the basketball team because Lise told me (in a whisper one day, like it was important).
    He smells of soap and he’s standing just a little too close to me. He pushes the coat inside the locker and makes sure that the edges of the coat brush against the interior edges of the door. Now the coat can’t expand outward.
    Then he closes the door quietly, grabs the combination lock, and closes it.
    “See?” he says. “Magic.”
    Then he smiles.
    My skin gets even warmer. Does he know about the magic? Is he making fun of me? Because if he is, and I don’t realize it, I’ll look even stupider than I already do.
    “Thanks,” I whisper, because Mom says that be-nice covers every situation, even the situations where someone is trying to make a fool out of you.
    He hasn’t moved away from me. His smile brightens though. He has lovely brown eyes—not that blue that seems natural to the Johnson Family—and a little bit of stubble on his chin.
    “You’re welcome. You’re Lise Johnson’s sister, right? The one that grew up overseas?” His smile fades and now he just looks intense. “I’m Jake Krueger. I have AP English across the hall from your Modern World History Class.”
    My flush travels down my face to my neck and into my chest. I must look like a giant blonde tomato.
    He clearly expects me to say something.
    I manage, “I’m…um…Brittany.”
    I forget about the last name for a minute because I’ve never had one before, and Johnson doesn’t feel like me.
    “And you’re Lise’s sister?” he asks.
    “Stepsister,” I say, hating the word. That makes me sound like those idiots from the Disney movies, the ones that Cinderella’s Wicked Stepmother loves and no one else does. (I’ve heard that the stepsisters are actually nicer than the real Cinderella, but I heard that from Lachesis, one of the original Fates, and I’m not sure I can trust her.)
    “That explains why you look different.” He’s still too close, but I’m pressed against the locker and can’t move away without being impolite.
    Still, I slid toward the middle of the corridor. “Thank you for the help.”
    “Looks like you needed it,” he says. “Sometimes there’s a trick to the simplest things.”
    Don’t I know it. And I don’t know any of the tricks.
    “What do you got now?” he asks.
    It takes me a minute to realize he’s talking about classes.
    “Drama,” I say.
    He smiles. “I bet you’re good at it.”
    I shrug. I don’t say anything in drama class. I just listen. I took it because the principal and Mom thought it would be both familiar and easy for me, since the other classes are so different from anything I had back home. (Except math. Thank you, Athena.)
    “I’ll walk you there,” he says.
    I don’t move. I’m not sure I like the attention. “What’s your first class?”
    “Study hall,” he says. “Stupid way to start the day. And today, I have an excused absence because I’m trying out for the basketball team. Maybe this year, I’ll make varsity.”
    I know that varsity is a big deal, although I don’t know why. Leif talks about varsity all the time. He plays a bunch of sports.
    “I don’t want to keep you from it,” I say.
    “You’re not,” he says. “First bell hasn’t even rung yet.”
    Dang.
    “Do I make you nervous?” he asks.
    I shrug. “I’m just not used to talking to people here. Usually, no one notices me.”
    “Oh,