Looking for Alaska [antikvár]

.'4 One Hundred and Thirty-six Days Before The week before I left my family and Florida and the rest of my minor life to go to boarding school in Alabama, my mother insisted on throwing me a going-away party. To say that I had low expectations would be to underestimate the matter dramatically. Although I was more or less forced to invite all my 'Ischool friends", i.e. the ragtag bunch of drama people and English geeks I sat with by social necessity in the cavernous cafeteria of my public school, I knew they wouldn't come. Still, my mother persevered, awash in the delusion that I had kept my popularity secret from her all these years. She cooked a small mountain of artichoke dip. She festooned our living room in green and yellow streamers, the colours of my new school. She bought two dozen champagne poppers and placed them around the edge of our coffee table. And when that final Friday came, when my packing was mostly done, she sat with my dad and me on the living-room couch at 4.56 p.m. and patiently awaited the arrival of the Goodbye to Miles cavalry. Said cavalry consisted of exactly two people: Marie Lawson, a tiny blonde with rectangular glasses, and her chunky (to put it charitably) boyfriend Will. "Hey, Miles," Marie said as she sat down. "Hey," I said. "How was your summer?" Will asked. "OK. Yours?" "Good. We did fesus Christ Superstar. I helped with the sets. Marie did lights," said Will.