Read Top Ten Clues You’re Clueless for Free Online

long sweep of bangs, and her hair never gets long enough to cover her ears.
    2. She laughs a lot, but always in these sharp heh s that remind me of a car that won’t start.
    3. The only person I see her talk to regularly at work is Gabe, which is weird because
     I can’t figure out what they could possibly have in common.
    4. The first time I met her, I thought she was a boy until she started talking.
    5. She scares me a little. It has nothing to do with mistaking her for a boy. There’s
     just something about her. Like maybe she can’t stand me.
     
    Yet here we are, jogging across the tarmac of a gas station to the convenience store.
     Sammi pushes the door open and we walk inside. She takes a deep breath and exhales
     with a grin. “Don’t you love the smell of overcooked hot dogs in the morning?”
    I look at her, trying to decide if she’s joking. I think she is. “I prefer congealed
     nacho-cheese scent, myself.”
    She lets out one of those trademark heh! laughs and heads for the front of the store. The clerk finishes with his current
     customer, then whirls around to silence an alarm coming from a display behind him.
     The gesture looks practiced and unconcerned. I squint at the display, and realize
     it’s the control panel for the gas pumps. I hope that wasn’t the bad kind of alarm.
    “Any gas?” he asks Sammi when she leans on the counter.
    “Nope. American Spirit, organic mellow,” she says. “It’s the orange pack.”
    “I know which pack it is,” he snaps, reaching up to the hidden rack of cigarettes
     over the glass partition.
    My body tenses, waiting for him to card her. I don’t think Sammi is eighteen yet,
     though that’s just another factoid I could add to a long list of things I don’t know
     about her.
    Sammi digs a small collection of wadded bills out of her pocket. The clerk gives us
     the eye as he straightens out the bills, but the money’s all there and he never asks
     for ID.
    “You need anything?” she asks me, tipping her head toward the counter.
    “I don’t smoke,” I say.
    One of her dark eyebrows lifts. “They do sell other things, you know.”
    “I’m fine,” I say.
    “Done freaking out?”
    “Um . . .” This is a good question. At the moment, I’m so distracted by leaving work
     without notice and standing around all awkward while Sammi buys cigarettes illegally,
     that I’ve kind of forgotten about the cart incident. Which I suppose was her point.
    Suddenly, Sammi’s already-pale face goes a shade whiter and her permasmirk drops.
     “Oh shit!” she whispers, looking over my shoulder.
    “What?”
    Without explaining, she grabs a fistful of my coat and drags me away from the counter.
     I stumble behind her past the rolling hot-dog cooker, the congealing vat of nacho
     cheese, and the soda machine. She hauls me all the way to the end of the first aisle
     and around the corner, then drops to a crouch between a display of motor oil and the
     cold-drink cases. I nearly fall on top of her, and gasp when my knee smacks the ground.
    “Sammi! What the hell?”
    “Shh!” She gives me a stern look and whips her hand up to make the shushing gesture.
     “Kris is here,” she says in a voice so quiet, it’s barely more than a breath with
     shape.
    My eyes nearly fall out of my head. Does he know about the car in the parking lot?
     Oh God, I’m going to be arrested on Christmas Eve!
    Sammi’s got her head tilted up and I follow her gaze to find one of those huge convex
     mirrors that shows the clerk a warped view of the entire store. Near the register,
     I can make out a person with dark hair, like Kris, but I can’t be sure that it’s him
     with the fun-house effect of the mirror. At the bottom of the curve, there are two
     humanish blobs. The only clue as to who we are is Sammi’s platinum-blond hair. It’s
     like a beacon of light against the dark display of car products behind us. My own
     hair—normally a standout being red—is so darkened by the