[转载搬运] Flipped 怦然心动(英文版） 作者:Wendelin Van Draanen [已完结 93页][百度盘]

wc1220

Diving Under
All I've ever wanted is for Juli Baker to leave me alone. For her to back off — you know, just
give me some space.
It all started the summer before second grade when our moving van pulled into her
neighborhood. And since we're now about done with the
eighth grade, that, my friend, makes more than half a decade of strategic avoidance and
social discomfort.
She didn't just barge into my life. She barged and shoved and wedged her way into my life.
Did we invite her to get into our moving van and start
climbing all over boxes? No! But that's exactly what she did, taking over and showing off like
only Juli Baker can.
My dad tried to stop her. “Hey!” he says as she's catapulting herself on board. “What are you
doing? You're getting mud everywhere!” So true,
too. Her shoes were, like, caked with the stuff.
She didn't hop out, though. Instead, she planted her rear end on the floor and started
pushing a big box with her feet. “Don't you want some help?”
She glanced my way. “It sure looks like you need it.”
I didn't like the implication. And even though my dad had been tossing me the same sort of
look all week, I could tell — he didn't like this girl
either. “Hey! Don't do that,” he warned her. “There are some really valuable things in that
box.”
“Oh. Well, how about this one?” She scoots over to a box labeled LENOX and looks my way
again. “We should push it together!”
“No, no, no!” my dad says, then pulls her up by the arm. “Why don't you run along home?
Your mother's probably wondering where you are.”
This was the beginning of my soon-to-become-acute awareness that the girl cannot take a
hint. Of any kind. Does she zip on home like a kid
should when they've been invited to leave? No. She says, “Oh, my mom knows where I am.
She said it was fine.” Then she points across the street
and says, “We just live right over there.”
My father looks to where she's pointing and mutters, “Oh boy.” Then he looks at me and
winks as he says, “Bryce, isn't it time for you to go inside
and help your mother?”
I knew right off that this was a ditch play. And I didn't think about it until later, but ditch wasn't
a play I'd run with my dad before. Face it, pulling a
ditch is not something discussed with dads. It's like, against parental law to tell your kid it's
okay to ditch someone, no matter how annoying or
muddy they might be.
But there he was, putting the play in motion, and man, he didn't have to wink twice. I smiled
and said, “Sure thing!” then jumped off the liftgate and
headed for my new front door.
I heard her coming after me but I couldn't believe it. Maybe it just sounded like she was
chasing me; maybe she was really going the other way.
But before I got up the nerve to look, she blasted right past me, grabbing my arm and
yanking me along.
This was too much. I planted myself and was about to tell her to get lost when the weirdest
thing happened. I was making this big windmill motion
to break away from her, but somehow on the downswing my hand wound up tangling into
hers. I couldn't believe it. There I was, holding the mud
monkey's hand!
I tried to shake her off, but she just clamped on tight and yanked me along, saying, “C'mon!”
My mom came out of the house and immediately got the world's sappiest look on her face.
“Well, hello,” she says to Juli.
“Hi!”