All-American Girl by Meg Cabot Page A

be the last time Lucy and I wrestled over possession of the remote control.
    And obviously I am not much for confrontations. I mean, yeah, I was striking a blow for the creative spirit by boycotting Susan Boone’s and all. But really, I was just too embarrassed to go back in there after my humiliation the last time.
    But whatever. What I did next was so atypical of me that it was like someone else took over my body for a minute, or something. All I know is, one second I was standing there, watching Mr. Uptown Girl raise his gun to fire at the president as he exited Capitol Cookies…
    â€¦and the next, I had jumped him.

6
    It turns out if you jump onto the back of a would-be assassin, and he isn’t expecting you to or anything, you can really throw off his aim. So the bullet Mr. Uptown Girl had meant to send speeding into the president’s head went speeding harmlessly off into the stratosphere instead.
    Something else happens when you jump onto the back of a guy with a gun, though. He tends to be very surprised, and loses his balance, and falls over backward on top of you, so that you get all the wind knocked out of you and your Gore-Tex parka rides up and rainwater soaks through the seat of your pants and you get all wet.
    Plus, the guy lands on your right arm, and you hear a crunching sound, and it really, really hurts, and you can’t help wondering, Was that what I think it was?
    But you don’t really get a chance to mull it over for very long because you are too busy trying to keep the guy from getting off another shot, which you do by yelling, “Gun! Gun! He’s got a gun!”
    And even though by now everyone already knows this—that the guy has a gun, since they heard the stupid thing go off the first time—this seems to do the trick, since all of a sudden about twenty Secret Service agents crowd around you with their guns pulled out and pointed right into your face, all of them yelling, “Freeze!”
    Believe me, I froze.
    And then the next thing I knew, Mr. Uptown Girl was lifted off me—much to my relief; that dude was heavy—and then people started pulling on me, too. Somebody pulled on the arm that theguy with the gun had landed on, and I yelled “Ow!” really loud, but nobody seemed to hear me. They were all busy speaking into their walkie-talkies, saying things like “Eagle is secure. Repeat, Eagle is secure.”
    Meanwhile, sirens started to wail. People came running out from the wrap places and burrito bars to watch.
    And suddenly, all these cop cars and ambulances showed up from out of nowhere, practically, brakes squealing and rainwater getting sprayed all over the place.
    It was just like something out of a Bruce Willis movie, only without the sound track.
    And then one of the Secret Service agents started going through my backpack, while another stooped to pat down my ankles—like I might have a bowie knife or something strapped down there—while a third was digging around the pockets of my Gore-Tex parka without even asking my permission (and ended up getting a handful of Capitol Cookie crumbs for his efforts).
    He also jostled my right arm some more. I yelled “Ow” again, only even louder than before.
    Then the agent who was going through my pockets went, “This one seems to be unarmed.”
    â€œOf course I’m unarmed,” I yelled. “I’m only in the tenth grade!”
    Which is a totally lame thing to have said, because of course there are tenth graders who have guns. They just don’t happen to go to Adams Prep. Only I wasn’t really thinking straight. In fact, I was almost crying. Well, you would have almost been crying, too, if
a) you were wet all over.
b) your arm was most likely broken—which actually wasn’t so bad, really, because it wasn’t my drawing arm or anything, and now I had a built-in excuse not to take partin volleyball, which Coach Donnelly is making everyone