Lemonade Mouth

CHAPTER 1 Misbehavior is a key attribute of true genius. Phineas Fletcher WEN: The Yungas Would Have to Wait dIt all started when Sydney climbed out of the truck. Somehow, even though I didn't know it yet, what happened that autumn morning is what set everything else in motion. The second the passenger door banged shut, I turned to my dad. "So tell me, is she living with us now or what?" My dad kept us idling at the curb while she promenaded all the way to the bus stop, finally turning to blow him a kiss. "No, not at all," he said, snapping out of his trance. "She's just going through some roommate problems. It's not permanent." Until August or so, my little brother George and I had hardly ever run into Sydney, my dad's girlfriend, even though they'd been seeing each other since the spring. Unfortunately, over the last month we'd started seeing a lot more of her. Which, for me, was a real problem. As we pulled away from the curb I snuck one last look in her direction. I tried to will myself not to, but I couldn't help it. Today, an early October morning as warm and humid as summer, she was wearing a revealing halter top and a pair of tight cutoff jeans that accentuated her butt perfectly. My God. Dad was obviously going through some kind of midlife crisis. At twenty-six, Sydney was sixteen years younger than he was. I sometimes caught myself fantasizing about her shiny black hair or her cartoon breasts. I felt terrible about it, horrible. After all, this was my dad's girlfriend. I hated myself. Still, my eyes couldn't help following her across the window until, mercifully, she slipped out of sight. "You could've fooled me. She spends more time at our place than I do." I immediately regretted saying it. My dad wasn't about to let a comment like that go, and I had other worries at that moment. Not only had we wasted time dropping off Sydney, but before that we'd taken too long getting George to school, and before that we'd left our house late because Sydney took forever in the bathroom. So now I'd already missed homeroom and would probably arrive late for my social studies presentation. I was first on today's list. "That's not true and you know it," Dad said, racing us through a yellow light. I didn't answer. When he glanced over at me, I couldn't help thinking about how everybody was always saying how much we looked alike. And it was true that we had similar faces, both of us blond with glasses. My hair fell almost to my eyes, though, while his was cropped short and starting to go gray over the ears. Our glasses were very different too. I wore black rectangular frames while he'd recently bought round wire-rims like John Lennon. Sydney's idea. "Come on," he said. "Out with it." I fiddled with the latch on my trumpet case. That afternoon I had freshman tryouts for Marching Band. "Well, for starters," I said, "she's a mooch. Practically every day I come home and she's on our sofa watching our TV. Either that or she's helping herself to our food while she sits at our kitchen table doing her little drawings." Sydney was studying part-time to be a graphic artist. "She pulls her weight," he said, as if that had anything to do with it. "She cooks sometimes, and picks up around the house. Unlike somebody else I could name." Right. She was like having our own nanny, the Sex Nanny Sent By Satan. We shot past the line of orange cones in frHughes, Mark Peter is the author of 'Lemonade Mouth ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780385733922 and ISBN 0385733925.