Goodhart rolled his eyes, but Coach Albright actually looked as if he might drop dead of a coronary right there in the guidance office. This apparently wasn't what either Coach Albright or Mr. 'Jessica,' he said, 'we've talked about this.'

I said, 'I meant to get him in the face, but he ducked.' He went, 'Girl here punched my star tackle in the neck just now.' Goodhart had mega-sized his meal.Ĭoach Albright didn't take any. He looked up and smiled when Coach Albright said, 'Goodhart,' in this scary voice. He says he is fortunate in that his metabolism is naturally very high. Goodhart, in the two years that I've been coming to his office, has never seemed to worry a bit about his saturated-fat intake. You could smell the fries all the way down the hall. Before you get to feeling sorry for him, though, that brown paper bag had golden arches on it. Goodhart, was at his desk, eating out of a brown paper bag. And he steered me out of the cafeteria and upstairs, to the counselors' offices. 'Let's go, little lady,' Coach Albright said. Just the part where I punched his star tackle in the neck. Only not the part about Jeff telling Ruth she was going to have to be buried in a piano case. It turned out he was behind me and Ruth in the burger line, buying a plate of curly fries. He saw my fist coming, and at the last minute he ducked, so instead of punching him in the nose, like I intended, I ended up punching him in the neck.īut don't you know, a second later this big, meaty paw lands on my shoulder, and Coach Albright swings me around to face him.

Okay, yeah, he staggered back and fell into the condiments. The guy is an asshole.Īnd it's not even like I really hurt him. It isn't like Jeff Day doesn't deserve to get slugged, and on a daily basis. So I did what any best friend would do under the same circumstances. I'm sure Priscilla Presley could have afforded a better casket for the King than a piano case.Īnd secondly, where does Jeff Day get off, saying this kind of thing to somebody, especially to my best friend? I don't care how fat he was when he died. Which is totally stupid, since - to the best of my knowledge - Elvis was not buried in a piano case. It all started that afternoon in the burger line in the cafeteria, when Jeff Day told Ruth that she was so fat, they were going to have to bury her in a piano case, just like Elvis. You want my statement? Okay, here's my statement: This is just further proof that everything you see on TV is a lie. All I've got is a bunch of paper and this leaky pen. Plus they get coffee and doughnuts and stuff. On TV, when people have to give a statement, there's usually someone sitting there who writes it down for them while they talk, and then all they have to do is just sign it after it's read back to them.

When Lightning Strikes by Meg Cabot