Read Butter for Free Online Page B

there, ready to fill me in on her cafeteria drama, beginning with the fight with Jeanie. Apparently the spat was over some Web list billing Scottsdale High students as “most likely to make a million dollars” or “most likely to become a doctor” …
or a stripper, or a crook, or a warthog. Who cares? Forget the list and fast-forward to the part where the fat kid came after you!
    But Anna was furiously typing every detail of her exchange with Jeanie, down to direct quotes. Anna had been voted mostlikely to have a white-picket-fence life, and Jeanie had been selected most likely to get divorced—
twice
. Somehow, these facts had led Jeanie to call
Anna
a slut and make up a story about how Anna had hooked up with a lifeguard at their country club last summer. Or at least, Anna
claimed
it was made up. If it was true, I didn’t want to know. In fact, I didn’t want to hear about that or the stupid list or any of this shit.
    Finally, the message I was waiting for came.
    So I told Jeanie to go to hell and tried to walk away but this big kid at school stopped to ask if I was okay and kind of made a scene, so everyone was staring at me. It was sooo embarrassing. Anyway, I stayed mad all day, but Jeanie’s my best friend, so I tried to make up with her after school but she just got in her car and drove away and now she’s not even speaking to me! As if I did anything wrong! She should be apologizing to me!
    What? That was it? I was a
footnote
? I struggled to compose my thoughts before typing back.
    Sorry you had a bad day, babe, but it sounds like a dumb fight. Who cares about some list?
    There was some snark in her reply.
    Only everyone at my school.
    Anna went quiet after that, and I wanted to keep the conversation going, so I asked her for a link to the list. She sent me the Web address of a blog run by some anonymous student. The top entry was a post listing the results of the Scottsdale High “most likely” poll. I scrolled through it and confirmed Anna’s and Jeanie’s rankings. I agreed with a few of the votes. Trent Woods—
I was right, his name
is
Trent
—most likely to get a football scholarship. Jeremy Strong: most likely to cheat on his SATs. I could barely muster a grin at that one.
How about most likely to fail at life?
    I was about to click out of the site and navigate back to my conversation with Anna when my own name caught my eye, right next to this category:
    Most likely to have a heart attack.
    There was even a little thumbnail photo of me, sitting at my lunch table alone, stuffing my face! Some jerk probably snapped the shot off with a cell phone. I swallowed hard. I knew they all watched me eat—it’s hard not to—but I didn’t know they
watched
me.
    I clicked into the comments section to see if anyone fessed up to having taken the photo.
    No confessions, but my category had definitely drawn some attention. A few kids from other schools had found the site and asked about my photo. The comments from strangers were mostly nasty, but the posts from Scottsdale High students were almost proud.
    I once saw him eat an entire large pizza without taking a breath!
    He has to park in a handicapped spot, because he gets tired just walking!
    I bet he weighs 500 pounds! Top that!
    Top that? Seriously? It was like I was their mascot. Our yeti can eat your yeti!
    Then I saw this:
    This dude is amazing. Do you know he actually ate an entire tub of butter in one sitting? My friend was there. He saw the whole thing. The guy ate the entire tub and didn’t even barf. That’s why everyone calls him Butter.

Chapter 7
    Red.
    And spots.
    And a tunnel.
    Or whatever it is they say you see when you’re so angry your vision blurs.
    A tub of butter? No puking? What bullshit! What fucking garbage!
    That was
not
how it happened.
    I looked at the name next to the comment. I didn’t even recognize it. Who was this kid to be talking about me? Like he