All-American Girl by Meg Cabot Page B

do in PE next week—but it still really, really hurt.
c) people were yelling but you couldn’t hear so well on account of Mr. Uptown Girl’s gun having gone off very close to your ear, probably causing hearing damage that for all you know might be permanent.
d) you had found yourself looking down the mouths of twenty or so guns. Or even one gun, for that matter. And
e) it was starting to seem pretty likely that your parents were totally going to find out about your skipping your drawing lesson.
    I mean, any one of those things would have been upsetting. But I had all five .
    Then this older agent came up to me. He looked a little less scary than the other agents, maybe because he stooped down until his face was level with mine, which was thoughtful of him.
    He went, very seriously, “You’re going to have to come with us, miss. We need to ask you some questions about your friend over there.”
    That was when it really hit me:
    They thought Mr. Uptown Girl and I were buddies! They thought we’d been trying to kill the president together!
    â€œHe’s not my friend!” I wailed. I wasn’t almost crying anymore. I was bawling my head off, and I didn’t even care. It was raining, I was wet all over, my arm was killing me, my ears were ringing, and the United States Secret Service thought I was some kind of international terrorist assassin, or something.
    Heck, yeah, I was crying.
    â€œI’ve never even seen him before today!” I hiccupped. “He pulled out that gun, and he was going to shoot the president, and so Ijumped on him, and he fell on my arm, and now it really hurts, and I just want to go ho-o-ome!”
    It was really embarrassing. I was crying like a baby. Worse than a baby. I was crying the way Lucy cried the day her orthodontist told her she was going to have to keep her braces on for another six weeks.
    Then a very surprising thing happened. The older Secret Service agent put his arm around me. He said something to the other Secret Service agents, then walked me away from them, toward one of the ambulances. Some paramedic types were standing there, waiting. They opened the doors to the back of the ambulance, and the Secret Service agent and I climbed in.
    It was nice inside the ambulance. I got to sit on a little gurney, out of the rain and cold. You could barely hear the sirens and stuff inside there. The paramedics were very nice, too. They gave me a dry blanket to wrap around me in place of my Gore-Tex parka. They were so jokey and nice, I stopped crying.
    Really, I told myself. This wasn’t so bad. Everything was going to be okay.
    Well, except when my parents found out about how I’d skipped drawing class. That part was not going to be okay.
    But maybe they wouldn’t have to find out. Maybe the Secret Service agents would check me out and realize that I am not a member of any terrorist group determined to draw attention to its cause, and let me go. Theresa was probably still stuck in all that traffic. By the time she pulled up, the whole thing might be over and I could just get into the car, and when she asked “What did you do today in class?” I could be like, “Oh, nothing.” Which would not even be a lie.
    The paramedics asked me where I was injured. And even though I felt dumb being such a baby about my arm, consideringhow serious everything was with, you know, an attempt on the life of the president and all, I showed them my wrist. I was somewhat gratified to see that it had already swelled to about twice its usual size. I was glad I hadn’t been crying over nothing.
    While the paramedics were examining my arm, I looked over at the Secret Service agent, who was busy filling out a report of some kind that included my name, which he had got off my school ID, which had been inside my wallet in my backpack. I didn’t want to disturb him or anything, but I really needed to know how long this was all going to take. So I