Six: Favorite.
“Only in today's sick society can a man be persecuted for reading too many books.”
-Markus Zusak
I have favorites. I have a lot of favorites, actually. There's my favorite color (gray), and my favorite animal (capybara), and my favorite movie (The Birds). There are plenty of other things too, but none of them really matter to anyone but me.
My favorite day of the week, though—that's a big deal, because it's Thursday. I guess that by saying “because,” I'm kind of making it sound like everyone should know why Thursday is such a great day. And I might be the only person in my entire school who really cares, but Thursday is the day that the weekly meeting of the Lincoln High book club commences. Sure, there are only five of us, but that's more than the one it used to be when it was just me, reading alone in the school library.
They say that misery loves company, and I guess it's true. Maybe I'm not a people person, but I do like the meetings, even though the other club members are indifferent at best. Well, except for Carolina Knowles.
Her last name has the word “know” in it, and it actually fits quite perfectly because she's the biggest know-it-all I have ever met. I already know that you would hate her, because on top of that, it was forty degrees outside and her shirt barely skimmed her midriff. But Carolina was the unofficial club president, a role that I would have taken except that I'm too shy, and nobody else cared enough to object when she decided that she was in charge. Unofficially.
She called that Thursday's meeting to order in her usual way, which was by banging two books together in a way that made me wince. Her lips were pursed, and she was looking down her long nose at us, condescending as ever.
“Today,” she sneered, “we were supposed to have read the next five chapters of Anthem. Is everyone caught up?”
I was more than caught up. I'd finished Anthem in one night, then gone on to the next book on our list, then the next one. I couldn't help it; they were addicting. But when I told Carolina that, she just wrinkled her nose like she smelled something bad.
“Sam,” she said. Sam, like my name was a disappointing movie or a terrible disease. “Sam, don't you think you're being kind of, I don't know, inconsiderate to the rest of us? We all know that you're a fast reader, but it's not like you need to rub it in our faces. Can't you just read something else?”
I didn't tell her that I had read something else—I'd read plenty of something-elses, it's just that I was greedy and I wanted even more. But the way Carolina was looking at me, it was as if I'd committed some kind of federal offense. She didn't get it. I figured that you would, and that if you said my name it would sound much nicer than when she did, but you weren't there and you didn't know my name so all I had was an annoying girl who thought she was a genius.
In case it's not obvious, Carolina isn't my favorite person.
When I didn't respond, she sighed, “Sam, you know what? You're just gonna have to wait for everyone else to catch up, since you've already read everything.”
I gaped at her. “Why? Can't we just skip over some books and go to the next ones?”
“Absolutely not. We have a schedule, thank you very much. And anyway, this club doesn't revolve around you!”
It doesn't revolve around you, either, Carolina.
She didn't wait for my argument, which was going to be something about how I was the only one in that room who actually wanted to be there. Instead, Carolina turned to the nearest shelf, pulled out a random paperback, and hurled it across the table at my face. It hit me, too, because my reflexes weren't sharp enough to catch it.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower. That was the title. I'd heard of it, back when the movie came out, but I didn't know what it was about.
I eyeballed Carolina. “What do you want me to do?”
“Go sit somewhere else,” she said, “and read it. We have a book to discuss.”
I shrugged, because I knew they wouldn't get any discussing done, not when no one else cared. But Queen Carolina was (unofficially) in charge. And I really didn't mind leaving, really, because in all honestly I really did like it better when it was a one person book club, before the librarian saw me eating alone and thought I needed friends.
I found a place as far away from them as possible, sat down, and cracked open the book. I didn't know what to expect, but whatever I found was brilliant. You once described this feeling to me, how sometimes you skim through a page and it's like you're opening a chest of buried treasure. That's what I felt from the moment I read the first line: it was golden. Two pages in, and I'd already decided that it was my new favorite.
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A/N: Eh. Filler chapter.
