Full Summary:
Casey meets a girl at school after pushing her down the stairs. Will the girl finally get Casey to let loose a little?
Amalia Eshelman:
I had never really liked school, but I went just so I didn't have to listen to my father yell all the time. Of course, I was the punkiest kid in school. I didn't care what people thought about me, what people said about me or what people knew about me. I had learned a long time ago that people were going to talk about you no matter who you were. I had moved up here from Florida with my father and step-mother when I was ten. People talked then, and they're still talking. But I didn't care, and I never would.
I had been going to my step-mother's work everyday after school since I could remember. Becasue my father couldn't keep a steady job, we relied on my step-mother to make the money. She worked at the local teen club and I always got in free. The DJ always put the music on for me when I got there. I had been teaching Hip-Hop classes there for almost two years. My step-mother had gotten me the gig. She had thought it would help with business and she was right. Because of her suggestion and because of the money that came pouring in from my classes, she was soon promoted to head manager and I was starting to get paid for teaching the classes. We became even closer after the accident.
The accident happened just before my ninth grade year at the high school. My father and I were on our way home from the movies when he swerved to aviod a deer and the car hit him head on. I broke my arm, but my father had died. We had moved to a one story house and sold off his clothes. The only things we kept were the things I had made for him and he had bought, like his sword & dagger collection. I also kept one of his sweatshirts & a flannel shirt that he used to wear to work all the time.
When I entered high school, it seemed that everyone knew what had happened. Derek Venturri had come up to me, trying to act all cool and everything. It didn't work. I went through half of ninth grade before Emily Davis made friends with me. When she found out that my step-mother worked at the local teen club, she and some of her friends begged me to get them in for free. I declined. But I did tell her that they could sign up for the upcoming Hip-Hop class. Emily, Derek, Sam & some of their friends joined and when they found out that I taught the class, they were a little confused. Some of them dropped out of the class & got their money back, but Emily, Derek & Sam stayed in the class. We came up with new dance moves every time we met. Within a matter of weeks, Emily & Sam worked at the club with me. Derek didn't want to work there. Then I met his two new step-sisters. Lizzie joined the class right away, but Casey decided to stay out of the class. So that's how I happened to be next to her when she pushed me down the stairs.
Casey didn't see me that day. She had been too busy trying to get to her class before the bell rang that she didn't see who she was walking into. She only knew that she was going to be late for class. It was true what people said about her. She was a grade grubber. But I didn't care because I really didn't care what people thought about me or other people. Somehow she and I got to the stairs at the same time and we both hit the ground at the same time.
