Read Chance Of Rain for Free Online Page B

threw on a little bling, and grabbed my cell and backpack. I took one last look in the mirror.
Not bad!
I thought.
I look nice, but it doesn’t look like I’m trying too hard
.
    My mom was already in the kitchen downing a cup of caffeine. “Ready for your first day? Senior year!”
    Honk! Honk!
    I smiled. “Wish me luck.”
    She gave me a hug. “Oh, where did the time go? Love you!” She stood in the doorway and watched me go. “Be safe!” she called out.
    Bri and I waved bye to my mom and headed to school. Bri looked great. She always did, though. She had thick, auburn hair and was voluptuous and gorgeous—a swirl of Marilyn Monroe and Adele.
    When we got to school, the parking lot was loud and crowded.
    “My, my, my,” Bri said, peeking over the top of her sunglasses. “Would you look at that?”
    It was Angel Martinez. He and I had been friends since elementary school. He was my first crush, and it lasted for years, but he never liked me like that. At the time it almost broke my heart, but I eventually got over it and had a good friend that I probably wouldn’t have had if we had dated then broken up. And we would have broken up. Angel liked to flirt with everyone. He’d been in a dozen relationships, and none of them had ever lasted long.
    Bri and I slung our backpacks over our shoulders and followed the crowd. We were like ants marching into our hill.
    We waited in line for only a minute to pick up our schedules. We quickly compared first period.
Yes!
To our delight, we had English together.
    We headed to the stairs, found our lockers, then went to class.
    We were surprised to find not a single desk, other than the teacher’s, when we entered the room. Instead we saw a very large plush rug on the floor, sprinkled with huge, colorful beanbag chairs. We turned and looked at each other. The confusion on our faces was slowly replaced with toothy grins. “This is going to be freakin’ awesome,” Bri whispered.
    Ms. Elliott greeted us. “Welcome, friends. Please take a seat.” She motioned toward the beanbags.
    There was an empty one near Lacey, which we avoided like there was something sticky on it. We found two in the corner and plunked ourselves down into them. While other students filed in around us, Bri and I finished looking over our schedules. We didn’t have any other subjects together. That wasn’t so bad, though; we only had two other classes.
    Bri and I, along with a large portion of the senior class, were in a work program this year. If you had completed your core classes or were on the verge of doing so and you were passing, you got to participate. We only went to school in the morning, and then we got to work the other half. It was a great incentive to get everyone where they needed to be to graduate. Not to mention, most ofthe kids I went to school with needed to get a head start on earning money for next year’s college tuition.
    The bell finally rang. We stood for the Pledge of Allegiance and listened to announcements. Then Ms. Elliott called roll. She addressed everyone by his or her last name, and then each student told her what he or she went by.
    “Miss Branson.”
    “You can call me Bri.”
    She continued, “Miss Devoe.”
    “Everyone calls me Ash.”
    She ended with, “Mr. Novak.”
    A familiar voice said, “Trent, ma’am.”
    Bri and I looked up and then at each other. I turned my head, and there he was. He raised his eyebrows at me and grinned.
    “I know it’s the first day, but we’re going to jump right in,” Ms. Elliott said. “We have a lot to cover.” She handed out a set of small, worn paperbacks titled,
Edgar Allen Poe: A Collection
.
    “This is a senior-level class. The purpose of this course is to refresh your memories for college next year. Everything I show you is supposed to be familiar. That’s why we’re going to zip through it.
    “We’re going to read, read, read, then read some more. That’s why there aren’t any desks. Most of our tests will be