Davidson, Mary Janice - Adventures of the Teen Furies_v4

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Adventures of the Teen Furies

by MaryJanice Davidson

Hard Shell Word Factory - Young Adult

Hard Shell Word Factory

www.hardshell.com

First published by Hard Shell Word Factory, 2001

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the purchaser. Making copies of

this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit

email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of

International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.

Dedication

For the Crazed Loonies, the finest and most interesting (take that however you like) friends I'll

ever have.

Acknowledgements:

Thank you's aren't necessary—I did it all myself. Okay, that's a huge lie. While I did the actual

writing unaided, this book wouldn't have been possible without the encouragement and support of

my friends and family. Thus, I'd like to thank my family for always backing me up, particularly

my husband, Anthony, who willingly read and edited everything I wrote. Special thanks to

Barbara Carlson Musch, who gave excellent constructive criticism after reading a mediocre first

draft (and who was the impetus for a much better title), and Jessica Lorentz Growette, who thinks

everything I write is wonderful-two extremes which made this book better. I'd also like to thank

the best teacher on the planet, John Fogarty, for insisting I had a brain, even when I pretended I

didn't. He was one of the first to encourage my writing, so the critics now know whom to blame.

Finally, I'd like to thank Barb, Curt, Jessica, Joe, Marnie, and Todd. They aren't the Furies, but

they did inspire them. You guys are the greatest. And I'm not just saying that because I know

you'll be reading this.

Chapter 1

MR. LEARY LOOKED up from his clipboard. “Red light coming up,” he said, voice trembling

slightly.

I wasn't impressed. Cannon Falls only had one light, first of all; second, I'd been driving since I

was eight. So I just kept cruising. Leary, that wimp, wouldn't let me turn on the radio so I

hummed under my breath.

“Red light coming up.”

“It's seven blocks away,” I said patiently. “On the down side of this hill. I can't even see it yet.”

“That's why I was—watch out!”

Four blocks ahead, a Ford escort had pulled into traffic. I sighed; from the back seat I heard

Trisha smother a giggle.

“It's all right, Mr. Leary.” Soothe, soothe. “I see it. And the high school is only a couple miles

from here. We'll be back soon.” You'll be safe again, was the unspoken end to that statement.

We crested the hill and I could see the lone stoplight. Sure enough, it was red. Of course, by the

time I got there, it would be green. Not that—

“Red light, red light!”

—Mr. Leary would take that into consideration.

“Do you want to get in the back seat and stretch out? Maybe pop a couple Valium?” I asked

sweetly, holding on to my temper with a mighty effort. “You're awfully pale—get your foot off

the brake!”

Leery had been riding the passenger side brake, though we were blocks and blocks from an

intersection and I was creeping along at a bare twenty-five miles per hour. Nothing took years off

a car's brakes like keeping a constant foot on the pedal, and my father had broken me of that habit

when he first started teaching me to drive. Consequently, I had no tolerance for it.

“Miss Grouper,” Leery said stiffly, after he had hastily complied, “I will not tolerate that tone

from any student.”

“You've got something against women drivers, doncha, Leary? We make you nervous, right?”

“Certainly not and you will refer to me as Mister Leary.”

“How ‘bout I refer to you as—”

“Andrea...” Trisha said warningly from the back.

“Mr. Leary,” I finished wearily, slouching low in the seat. I had whizzed through the green light

by now and the high school was in sight. Leary visibly relaxed, though his foot was inching

toward the brake again. “I'll call you Mr. Leary, okay, Mr. Leary?”

“That will be fine, young lady.”

Oh, I hated young lady! How'd he like to be called middle-aged man? But I kept my lip zipped

and a smile on my face as I executed a flawless parallel park. Trish clapped from the back seat

while Leary scribbled on his clipboard. I moodily unbuckled my seat belt and got out of the car;

Trish and Leary clambered out behind me.

“Hmm, now, let's see, I'll see you again Wednesday night, Andrea.”

Oboy.

“Excellent work, Patricia, but you might work a bit on your parallel parking; you could pick up

some pointers from Andrea and reread that section in your driver's manual.”

I smiled sweetly; Trisha made a face. She liked being called Patricia about as much as I liked

‘young lady'. “Thanks, Mr. Leary,” she said dutifully.

“Yeah, thanks tons, Mr. Leary.”

“Very well, then, I'll see you both Wednesday.”

“‘Bye,” we chorused, watching him stride away. He had perked up considerably once escaping

the confines of the car. Poor slob. The teachers had a lottery every autumn to see who'd get stuck

teaching the sophomores how to drive. Some took it better than others.

“Well, Patricia, we'd best get inside.”

“Knock it off, Andy. And please, please be nicer to Mr. Leary. If you lose your temper one more

time he'll refuse to teach you, which means I, your luckless partner, will be screwed out of my

driver's license.”

“I hate wimps,” I muttered.

“You'll hate being chauffeured to prom by your father even more.”

“Yuck, good point.”

“Now come on,” she said, softening her rebuke by smiling the smile that melted males from the

age of six to fifty-seven. “Speech practice will be over by the time we get in there.” She took off

in the direction of Mr. Berman's room. I was female and immune to her grin, but followed

anyway.

Once inside we were greeted by the usual din. Bermie—Mr. Berman, the speech coach—claimed

no one could work in perfect silence, that in the real world people had precious few opportunities

to concentrate in utter quiet and the sooner we got used to working amid chaos the better. Myself,

I figured the constant racket was because he simply let everyone do as they pleased. It was one of

the reasons most of us adored him.

He was part teacher, part mother, part nag. In particular, he nagged me, but I kind of liked it. He

had this nutty idea that I was smarter than I let on—worse, he was trying to convince my parents

of the same thing. Luckily, they still saw me as an amiable idiot, but Bermie didn't. He even went

so far as to get me enrolled in Critical Thinking—Smart Kids Class, as we dummies called it.

That was a laugh, because while I was Critical, I didn't spend a lot of time applying it to my

Thinking. A less determined individual would have seen that I wasn't cut out to hang with the

brainiacs, but Bermie was stubborn.

He also persuaded me to join the speech team last fall, and to my surprise I turned out to be pretty

good at standing before a group of strangers and making a fool of myself. Unfortunately, I

applied the same energy to speech that I did to my studies—the least amount of work to get the

job done, that was my goal. It drove Bermie nuts that I could be a straight A student if I wasn't so

lazy. Likewise, he was tormented by the fact that he could have had another State-quality speaker

... if I wasn't so lazy.

It was a constant battle of wills, and we were pretty evenly matched. He was an intelligent adult

with the full resources of the Cannon Falls Junior-Senior High School behind him. I was an

adolescent who cherished her spare time, who had unlimited resources for avoiding work.

Luckily, he had dozens of other students to worry about, whereas he was my only real nemesis.

That's what he called me once—his “blonde nemesis". I looked up the word—it meant

formidable opponent. I liked that, even if I didn't dare tell him he'd inadvertently made me learn

something. Oh, he was a tricky one.

While I was pondering Bermie's sneaky way of making me learn stuff, Meredith Devonshire, my

best friend and worst enemy, was on stage performing. She was gesturing dramatically and the

other speech team members were watching her every move. The ignorant observer might assume

she held them in thrall because her speech was very topical and moving. In truth, everyone was

staring at her because she was dressed in one of her bizarre ensembles. Today it was a black

leotard, orange running shorts, red tights, green tennis shoes, and her straw-colored hair was

caught back in a severe bun. Electric blue eyeglass frames completed the picture. Her dark green

eyes blazed out at the audience as she made another imperious gesture.

I used to think I'd go blind if I looked at Meredith too long. The truth is, you don't go blind, but

you develop a pretty amazing tolerance for unusual color combinations.

“New glasses,” Trisha muttered, sliding into a seat.

“And new hair.” It had been jet black last month. She must have dyed it back to the original

color—a sort of browny-honey blonde—then bleached it. Business as usual with Meredith, which

was great. Better than great, because—

“Capitalist dog-pigs!” she spat. “They should crawl in filth! They should spawn more maggots to

feed the machine which grinds up our young!”

—well, because Meredith had been having a rough time lately.

There was dazed applause from the audience; Meredith shook her fist and then bowed.

Straightening, she looked toward Trisha and me and practically skipped over.

“Nice outfit,” I said.

“Nice speech,” Trisha said.

“Thanks, you big liars,” she retorted. “A, my outfit is far beyond the grasp of your puny artistic

capabilities and B, neither of you have the vaguest clue what my speech was about, coming in on

the last thirty seconds like you did.”

“Probably the usual theme,” I said, bored. “Oppression, repression, and angst. Yawn.”

In reply Meredith asked sweetly, “How did the driving lesson go? Have you driven Mr. Leary to

suicide yet?”

“Don't say that name to me,” I grumped. “I can't believe they won't let me test for my license

until I've completed this damned course. I've been—”

“—driving since you were eight,” Meredith and Trisha said.

“Well, I have.”

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AdventuresoftheTeenFuriesbyMaryJaniceDavidsonHardShellWordFactory-YoungAdultHardShellWordFactorywww.hardshell.comCopyright(C)1999byMaryJaniceDavidsonFirstpublishedbyHardShellWordFactory,2001NOTICE:Thisworkiscopyrighted.Itislicensedonlyforusebythepurchaser.Makingcopiesofthisworkordistributingittoanyu...

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