First Chapter ~ First Paragraph (December 20)

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

My opener this week comes from What Remains of Me by A L Gaylin which was published on 1 December 2016 by Random House UK

Blurb

People don’t need to know you’re a murderer.
They just have to think you could be…
June 1980: 17-year-old Kelly Lund is jailed for killing Hollywood film director, John McFadden
Thirty years later, Kelly is a free woman. Yet speculation still swirls over what really happened that night.
And when her father-in law, and close friend of McFadden is found dead – shot through the head at point-blank range – there can only be one suspect.
But this time Kelly has some high-profile friends who believe she’s innocent of both crimes.
But is she?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Intro

Chapter 1
FEBRUARY 11, 1980

It was when Kelly Lund’s science teacher, Mr. Hanen, asked her the third question in a row that she wasn’t able to answer the one about mitochondria – that Bellamy Marshall passed her a note. Kelly said “um” and swallowed hard to get her dry mouth working when she felt the balled-up paper hit her in the leg. She didn’t think note at first though. She thought spitball.

Kelly got spitballed a lot. So often, in fact, that she’d once told her mom about it. “They throw spitballs at me,” she’d said. “They laugh at my clothes because they are so cheap.”
“Cheap?” Mom had said. “Your clothes cover you where you should be covered, which is more than I can say about those other girls you go to school with. If you want to talk about cheap, Kelly. Those girls are what I call cheap.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

How many times did you have some similar rejoinder from your mother to some complaint? My favourite was always when I said ‘everyone was doing…’ If I heard ‘If everyone was jumping off a cliff would you do that too?’ once – I heard it a thousand times!

So… would you keep reading? Please leave your thoughts in the comments box below.