Read Online Blue Vengeance by Alison Preston - Free Book Online

worry on their faces, some slack-jawed, some turning away in embarrassment. He wanted to mow them all down.
    â€œCome on, cockroach,” Miss Hartley said. “If you can’t run, crawl. Look at her, girls. Watch the stinky cockroach. Puke stink. I can smell it from here.”
    Cookie looked close to collapse.
    Danny hesitated for a second or two. Did he want all these beautiful awful girls to know that the feeblest person in the class was related to him? He made a beeline for her at the exact moment that Janine stepped away from the others and moved forward, calling out words of protest.
    She got there first, and put her hand on Cookie’s arm to slow her down and then stop her. Her legs folded beneath her and she crumpled to the floor.
    â€œI can’t do it,” she gasped, all bony and bruised.
    Danny and Janine kneeled together, between Cookie and the teacher, who yelled at them to get out of her gymnasium and march right down to the office. They propped Cookie between them and walked her out of the gym and out the front door of the school. They sat on the grass, still brown and damp from winter, while Cookie caught her breath. No one followed, but Danny was ready for them if they did.
    The three of them walked to the Blue house on Lyndale Drive. It was chilly despite the sun, and the girls in their gym wear weren’t dressed for it. They stopped several times on the way; Cookie had trouble holding on to a breath once she caught it.
    â€œYou’re gonna be in trouble on account of me,” she said.
    â€œTrouble, shmouble,” said Danny.
    â€œDo I stink?” she said.
    â€œNo, Cookie. You don’t stink,” he said.
    Cookie turned to Janine and pleaded with her eyes.
    â€œNo,” said Janine. “She stinks. She positively reeks.”
    She left them at their gate.
    Their mother didn’t want to know.
    â€œThe teacher called her a stinky cockroach,” Danny said, after Cookie had gone upstairs. “She was the only one left running.”
    He hadn’t gotten into trouble, and neither had Janine. But not getting into trouble meant nothing. Miss Hartley was still there.
    Danny insisted that his mum write a note to the school saying that Cookie had a hole in her heart that made her weak and fragile, and could she please be excused from phys ed for the rest of the year. And he planned to insist that she write another one when school started again in September. They all knew that wasn’t the reason for her weakness, but it could have been.
    Â 
    â€œYou look different,” Danny said to Janine now.
    Her gaze was steady, steadier than Cookie’s had been. Her eyes had often darted from side to side, as though looking for a way out. He wondered if Janine was sixteen yet. Cookie would have turned sixteen in August, if she weren’t dead.
    â€œI cut my hair off.”
    â€œIt looks nice,” he said. “It suits you.”
    â€œThanks.” She tugged at a strand next to her ear. “It could use a little evening up in spots.”
    He didn’t know where to take it from there. He wanted to ask her to sit down beside him on the stoop, but it seemed beyond him, so he stood up instead and stepped down onto the grass.
    â€œYou’ve got a good setup here.” Janine gestured towards the fence posts.
    â€œThanks. It works pretty well for me.”
    â€œWell, what do you think?” she said. “About me helping, I mean.”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œIt’d be good. I promise I won’t be in your way.”
    â€œHelpin’ with what exactly?” He hadn’t voiced his plan to anyone, not even Paul.
    â€œWith you becoming the best slingshot shooter in Canada.”
    Her look faltered; she wasn’t telling the truth, not the whole of it. Danny admired everything about her, even her lie.
    â€œThat’s it?” he said.
    â€œI’ve seen you on your bike. No hands. Once even blowing a