Yes, sometimes he can be annoying, which you'll soon find out. But the best of him def outweighs the part which can bug the crud out of me. My favorite thing about him? He doesn't care about the popular kids or what anyone thinks of him. Which is how I try to be, too. It's just harder when Kelley Coffey torments me. She's the only one who can make me feel like an idiot, even though I'm totally smarter and funnier than she is. So I do a lot of acting whenever she's around, like nothing she or her friends say matters to me. Even though deep down it does. Evan says she's the b-word and I totally think she is, too.
And the rest of our group feels the same way about Kelley. We all know sixth grade means no more kid stuff, and you've got to stick together to stand up to people like her. It's when you need your friends more than ever—especially at lunch time. We form a united front against her and the rest of her evil cheer team friends at the long table in the caf. Kelley likes to call our small group the extra special name of the Marginals when she spots us at lunch. But she didn't exactly come up with the name on her own. It was only after I called her mile run time "marginal at best" that she stole the word and began calling us that. Otherwise she probably wouldn't even know what it meant.
Don't get me wrong. We aren't epic failures socially. True, we don't hang with the super popular kids. You know, the ASB reps, the jocks on the Crossley Prep football team, or the cheer squad. Unlike my group, they are all in a butt-load of yearbook pictures. And we also aren't the perfect Honors kids who play the tuba or trombone, and already do community service hours in sixth grade for their college application. Our group was lucky to have one or two extra pics besides our class photo in the yearbook. We were, well, the in-betweens.
"Hey, be careful with that thing!" I didn't want to yell at Mr. Cuteness but he gave me no choice. The cuff from the blood pressure machine began squeezing my arm like a boa constrictor. "You wanna loosen it up a notch?" Seriously. What if he had to give me CPR because I passed out? I so don't want my first kiss to be because of a lifesaving event.
"It's got to be tight to get a good read." Then he said something totally cool, making me forget about the tunnels. Or the fact my arm was about to be permanently separated from my body. "Hey, I do know you! You go to Prep, right?" His biceps moved while he squeezed the little rubber bulb on the blood pressure thingamajiggie, and he made me feel all gooey inside.
"Uh, yeah." Wow. That's the best I could come up with? My tongue felt thick and my heart was probably clocking two hundred beats a second. Kind of like after I'm done with the uphill mile our Nazi P.E. teacher makes us run on Fridays. By the way? Some kids built a whole website about mean teachers and she's top of the list on the mean-ness scale.
I sure wish I could ignore the tanned beautifulness of David's muscular upper arm, which is inches from me. You're probably thinking this is fantastic—I could just lean in and smell whatever body wash he's wearing. And it would be, for a normal girl. Me? Nuh-uh. Instead, I could feel my face turning the color of the fire engine my hero drove in on.
"Perkins—you got that BP yet?" Matt was busy writing down notes. "Let's get this tied up and load her into the ambulance."
Ambulance? Are you kidding me? What if someone sees me? "You know, guys, I'm good. Seriously." My voice came out like Jenny's squeaky rubber porcupine toy and they all stared at me like I was losing it.
"'Fraid not, Red," Matt said as he held the door open while David and the two others lifted me in. "Your parents will be at the hospital when you get there."
Donkey Sense Page 10