Read Amandine for Free Online Page B

where’s your books?”
    With showy deliberation, Amandine pulled a piece of paper from her pants’ pocket. “Cheat sheet,” she said. Then in a tired voice, read, “‘Now to that name my courage prove my title! I am fire, and air; my other elements I give to baser life.’ See? And you better not say anything.”
    “You idiot, you could get expelled for a cheat sheet,” said Brett, impressed.
    “Gee, tell me something I don’t know.”
    Rudy yawned. “Let’s go,” he said to Brett. “I don’t know what’s up with these two freaks. Bye, girls.” He stretched the last word into a chiming song.
    They left.
    “What twerps.” Amandine exhaled a thin laugh.
    “Is that really your cheat sheet?”
    “Scrap paper.” Amandine held it out for me to see. All that was on it was her name in doodle script alongside a sketch of a ballet shoe and a few words from a French vocabulary list.
    “Then how did you know to say that stuff?” The freshman class truly was studying Antony and Cleopatra, and most kids had hardly read it, let alone learned it by heart.
    “If it’s a play or a dance routine, I memorize it,” she told me. “Even if I don’t want to, it’s like I have to. I guess it’s from all the plays I was in.”
    I believed her, and was impressed. Amandine had saved us. Her grace under pressure was enviable. But afterward, I wondered whether kids did think that there was something freakish about Amandine and me, and I couldn’t help but keep an ear close to the ground, listening for the stealthy crawl of rumors. I knew that Amandine didn’t feel any of that and I tried to imitate her indifference, but it was hard.
    That Friday, I was staying at Amandine’s house. I would be getting into the low red car. I would meet the face that belonged to the snappish voice of Amandine’s father, whom she called Roger or Dad, depending. I would be having dinner at the gated mansion, which I pictured having stone fireplaces and mounted elk heads and a pool table.
    After school, we stood by the curb together and passed the time doing skits.
    We did a skit where Mark Ingersell asked me to the school dance, and he shows up at my front door wearing a mouth-guard retainer.
    We did a skit where I had to accept a ride from our classmate Meggie Riet’s snobby mom, and I have dog mess on my shoe.
    “Sweetie,” said Amandine as Mrs. Riet, her hands on a pretend steering wheel as she wrinkled her nose and looked over at me. “Have you been eating prunes? You smell a bit overripe. You know, the best prunes are imported from Persia.”
    I was laughing so hard I had to sit down. I could never keep in character. Maybe Amandine did it on purpose. She always seemed to know what to say to crack me up. It was one thing that I tried to hang on to when everything else made me want to forget all about her; that I never laughed so hard as when I was with Amandine.
    Eventually, we got tired of skits and collapsed on the sidewalk in a fit of boredom. All the buses had left, and the parking lot was almost empty.
    “Should we call?” I asked finally.
    “No point,” she answered.
    After almost an hour more of waiting, a car drove up. It was not the low red car, but a regular blue parent-y looking one. A rabbit-faced woman beeped and signaled.
    “Where’s Dad?” asked Amandine, opening the front door. I climbed into the back.
    “Roger is having trouble keeping on top of his one responsibility as your chauffeur,” the woman answered. “Hi, Delia, nice to meet you. He went over to Amherst to get some antique parts for his installation piece, and now he’s stuck waiting for something, I didn’t really listen. I mean, if you even want to believe him … and of course I was right in the middle of pouring a mold when he called, so …” her voice trailed off into a sigh of irritation. I noticed that her arms were crusted in gray chalk.
    “Sculpting mud,” she said when she caught my eye. “I’m Roxanne, by the way. I’m