Cheating for the Chicken Man by Priscilla Cummings Page A

shirt.
    â€œSomeone tossed a milk carton!” Jess exclaimed.
    â€œWhere?” Kate asked, scraping back her chair as she stood to look.
    â€œOver there!” Jess stood up and pointed. “It’s Curtis Jenkins!”
    Kate saw how Curtis and two other boys were whooping it up with laughter. Kate recognized one of the others as a boy named Hooper.
    She felt her heart drop. It was happening, she thought. It was happening all over again.
    Grabbing her backpack, Kate started pushing between the chairs to get to J.T., but then the buzzer rang and everyone else got up to go, trapping her.
    â€œKate!” Jess called from across the table to her.
    She needed to get to her brother right away.
    â€œKate, wait!” Jess called again.
    â€œWhat’s happening?” Olivia asked. “What’s with her brother?”
    But Kate shoved her way through the crowd and didn’t stick around to hear how Jess would explain it all to her new friend.

~6~
    NO BIG DEAL
    A re you okay?” Kate asked breathlessly. She used a Kleenex to dab at some of the milk on her brother’s shirt.
    J.T. brushed her hand away. “Yeah, yeah. I’m okay. Just go on to class, Kate. It’s not your problem.”
    â€œIt is my problem. You’re my brother!”
    â€œYeah, well, if I were you, right now I’d pretend we weren’t related.”
    â€œStop it!”
    â€œI’m
serious
. Just go!” J.T. said, wiping his pants with an already saturated napkin.
    Kate glanced around, incredulous, as kids rushed past right and left to get to class. Like nothing had happened! Why wasn’t a teacher coming to help? Didn’t anybody see what had just happened?
    â€œAre you going to the office?” Kate asked.
    â€œWhat for?” J.T. snapped the question as he threw the wadded napkin on the table.
    â€œWhat for? What do you mean
what for
? To report those guys! You know who threw it, don’t you?”
    J.T. glared at her. “No. Who was it?”
    â€œCurtis!” Kate exclaimed. “Jess and I saw him laughing. Curtis and that boy who hung out with him in middle school.”
    â€œHooper Delaney?”
    Kate nodded.
    â€œDid you actually
see
one of them throw it?”
    Kate still held the soggy tissue. “No.”
    â€œThen how are you going to prove it?”
    â€œTons of people saw!” Kate said. “Jess was sitting across from me. She saw the whole thing!”
    J.T. shook his head as he lifted his backpack.
    â€œWhat are you going to do?” Kate pressed.
    â€œI’m going to the bathroom to clean up.” J.T. paused and looked his sister in the eye. “Kate, please, just leave it, okay? It’s
my
business, not yours.”
    Kate felt sick to her stomach as she watched J.T. walk away. She looked to see if Jess had waited for her, but her friend was nowhere to be seen. The cafeteria was practically empty. The buzzer rang again. She would be late for a class on the first day of school.
    *
    Fortunately, Kate’s next class wasn’t too far down the hall from the cafeteria. And, as it turned out, her teacher was late, too. Kate took the first open seat she found, at the front of the room, before Mr. Ellison walked in. After pulling a pen from her purse, she sat back in the chair, still trying to catch her breath.
    When Mr. Ellison closed the door, chitchat in the room stopped. He was incredibly tall. Young, too, and good-looking, Kate thought. Wow. Her most anticipated class was about to begin with a really cool teacher, and she felt like crying because of her brother. Quickly, she glanced around the room, knowing that she would see a mix of upperclassmen. She was one of two freshmen taking Creative Writing. Another syllabus wasdropped on her desk. As Mr. Ellison discussed what they would cover—essays, profiles, scene writing—Kate began to relax a little and tune in.
    â€œLater on, we’re going to try some vignettes that