Free The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen by Susin Nielsen Page A

my face and breathed deep, and it was the worst thing I could have done because I could
smell
Jesse, I swear I could, and suddenly I was sobbing like crazy. I heard the elevator doors open, and I stuffed Softie into my mouth. My body kept shuddering, but no sounds came out. Mr. Atapattu walked by, but he didn’t see me. Finally, after he’d gone back upstairs, and after I was sure the coast was clear, I forced myself to shove everything back into the box. I left the storage locker and headed to the laundry room to get our clothes from the dryer.
    Mr. Atapattu had stuck a new handwritten sign under Karen’s. This one said IF YOU DO NOT REMOVE YOUR CLOTHES IN A TIMELY FASHION (WHICH IS COMMON COURTESY), THEY WILL BE REMOVED FOR YOU!!!
    Sometimes I truly hate living in this building.
    Midnight
    Questions I would like to ask Jesse:
    1) Why did you do it, you dick?
    2) Did you ever stop to think about what it would do to the rest of us?
    3) Where did you put the Settlers of Catan game, because none of us can find it anywhere?
    4) Why did you do it, you dick?
M ONDAY , F EBRUARY 18
    Trying to tell Farley “no” is like trying to tell a brand-new puppy not to pee in the house: Impossible. The moment he saw me in Math, he made a beeline for me, sliding into the desk next to mine.
    “
There
you are! I’ve been looking for you all day!”
    And I’ve been avoiding you all day!
I wanted to say.
    “So? Did you talk to your dad?”
    “No,” I told him.
    His face dropped. “Why not?”
    I took a deep breath. “It’s a long story.”
    “I’ve got time.”
    So I told Farley a portion of the truth, to get him off my back. “We don’t have any money. My dad can barely afford to pay our rent these days, and my mom isn’t working.… ”
    Farley studied me with his big magnified eyes. “Where is your mom, anyway?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “She’s not living with you.”
    “Who told you that?”
    “No one. I just noticed. There was no girl stuff at your place.”
    “You were snooping?”
    “No. It was simple observation. Only men’s shoes, no makeup in the bathroom, that sort of thing.”
    The tips of my ears felt hot. “This is so not your business,” I said to him, just as Ms. Wrightson entered the room.
    “I didn’t say it to make you mad,” Farley said. “And, anyway, it’s no big deal. Did you know that thirty-eight percent of marriages end in divorce before their thirtieth year? I learned that doing a project in Socials –”
    “My parents aren’t divorced!” I said, more loudly than I meant to. A few kids looked in our direction.
    “Farley and Henry, eyes to the front and mouths shut,” Ms. Wrightson said in her dreary monotone. “Fasten your seatbelts, kids, because today we enter the exciting world of trigonometry.”
    Farley tried to get my attention all through class – staring at me, clearing his throat, even poking me in the arm with his compass once. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I just followed Ms. Wrightson’s instructions and kept my mouth shut.
    The moment Math was over, I jumped up and headed for the door, but Farley was right on my heels.
    “Where are you going? We have to meet in the foyer.”
    “What for?”
    “Duh, our Reach For The Top game!”
    I’d totally forgotten. Five minutes later, Mr. Jankovich was herding all of us to the bus stop. We piled on to the number 99. Thankfully Jerome started to quiz Farley, so he stopped bugging me about the GWF.
    We played against Borden Secondary on the east side. And guess what: We won!! The other team was really good, especially this girl named Phoebe, who must’ve scored over half of their points. But their weakness was Canadian History. Lucky for us, Jerome is a Canadian History buff (who knew such a person existed). In the final round, we got a “Point Team Question.” This means, the team thatanswers the
first
ten-point question correctly gets dibs on answering the next
three
questions, and since all of the questions