p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1dcf26742108898bd8b9962ccb4f953b"Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6a5153777c4e5c1d5b00175da52fef7c"If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="e960e3a6a4ef3a1eadb2bbee0d0fdebd"Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="4ec1440cf8bec49b68b4a616b7266f7c"If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2eb255efb106dff5e162db6ff7ef595d"But if you recognize yourself in these pages - if you feel something stirring inside - stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1ac3ca3e2b9871de2d9122889abd8895"Don't say I didn't warn you./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a14301b8065edf728288a728cfb33e68"My name is Riley Jackson./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="9baeccf2b64789e338a19eafbe8ab218"I'm twelve years old. Until a few month, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="fe24fd8acc02a577d70428ee6f510b54"Am I a troubled child?/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="5af215ff46a86a76123f9da150bb02ef"Yeah. You could say that./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a890ba0eafbdd4125f15fae25310ed8c"I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grad class took a field trip to Manhattan - twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a08da0d7ceb8a3a1421b432c517b88f0"I know - it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="63f0cb31ec1871f5e06de8d33362b009"But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="661e396767ab88771557508efa43c3b3"Mr. Brunner was a middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair, a scruffy beard, and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this amazing collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8ff003343c10c7c866c73441e4eea236"I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="278688cffac8c20e6ca2b617d192ab48"I was so wrong./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="78837778c5453d9959ef0e73d3c3fdcc"So you see, bad things happen to me on field trips. At my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had an accident with a Revolutionary War Cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I may have hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that...well, you get the idea./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6e31a71c1081cc81be41487ef38116e5"This trip, I was determined to be good./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="dfcc28d5d1b02a0e83aeef61dd71fd34"All the way into the city, I put up with Nathan Bobofirt, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac boy, hitting my best friend Gwenyth in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1a3b729900eca65560d9b22aff628e5c"Gwen was an easy target. She was skinny. She cried when she got frustrated. She must've been held back several grades, because she was the only sixth grader with acne and the formation of curves. On top of all that, she was crippled. She had a note excusing her from PE for the rest of her life because she had some kind of muscular disease in her legs. She walked funny, like every step hurt her, but you shouldn't let that fool you. You should see her run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ad2d597d12038ca3fa6d60d46a2aa3dc"Anyway, Nathan was throwing cubes of sandwich that stuck in her curly brown hair, and he knew I couldn't do anything back to him because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8dd69c96ad6c36971d123d976737fcbf""I'm going to kill him," I mumbled./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="0ef81613d722ea81372df58c024a75df"Gwen tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="bf4923faa8e22c95fa7ba13c33f049ab"She dodged another piece of Nathan's lunch./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="72aad037a15479492825234958dd1de4""That's it." I started to get up, but Gwen pulled me back to my seat./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="080e3b83720090802d70695b428bb42d""You're already on probation," she reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="664e434027e7c3f5d5c5ae0600f6c554"Looking back on it, I wish I'd fought Nathan right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ee5cb7572b2ab5509cf039203c5dd73f"Mr. Brunner led the museum tour./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6cfad0a86d99c03de9cbd5f4da90a81e"He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="5b9d41f6fccb9a926fd440e90b1812c7"It blew my mind that these artifacts had survived for two thousand, three thousand years./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="400d79a8e96d00cec1416041ffbbc1b3"He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to be quiet, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give the evil eye./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="41cca476b8840bf4a34a2b03956ff002"Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f3237ebaa3da78fe476e991cd0d8d474"From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nathan and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," sweetly, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="0dda461bee78b6737ef8c330dd095faa"One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Gabby I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. She looked at me seriously and said, "You're absolutely right."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="349de650f882d8e446441fd93bb93ef7"Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="68f7670afce2d13d2e186c1689503f12"Finally, Nathan snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="d9a0258ebb694e3a10eda8066fb5f945"It came out louder than I meant it to./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="7bb45db553a665f9ef95de787b338192"The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8adf313d64054861eb7ae20857df1634""Miss Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8ae854a95f435fd7ede9bde8e5ea64b4"My face was completely red. I said, "No, sir."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="300142dc11f7fdedc79649abe9bb70a5"Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6f37d33516ac944e2f0a4c9bfa1a335f"I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2e497baeaf85174428306827f53f91d5""Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because..."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="e8412ebc757ef8737f67f979fe94d6ef""Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="cdce1c50d7020f48dd93467cbe236a4f""God?" Mr. Brunner asked./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="7a4478aa9d09f33169e89f9487045b41""Titan," I corrected myself. "And...he didn't trust his children, who were the gods. So, Kronos ate them? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. Later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his father, Kronos, into throwing up his brothers and sisters-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="79532636d86f4fb4d50bf549d1a32847""Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="db5c4904f11144c2c56874ee68e833c6""-and so there was a big fight between the Gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the Gods won."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="89de1a8218f3250d84a4f491f42a2cac"Some snickers came from the group./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="0b2f405e86dc9e7f63dbad26137d9735"Behind me, Nathan mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="30396275fb4bcdea2301194993ec6ed3""And why, Miss Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Mr. Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="79e0d1c549d7673cce32dd26cc562b4c""Busted," Gwen muttered./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a5aeb0d04ca00a95eb112a05ae9ce95a""Shut up," Nathan hissed, his face even brighter red than his hair./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="d34e2827e253f45ad5557f3055149032"At least Nathan got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught him saying anything wrong, like he had radar ears./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="b85c9badcc8eb3812a460c0a851edcde"I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="dafc97ef096c65b008e00b9dfffa39f3""I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Miss Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ba75d21c94ae974bc84ae5b2b60de59c"The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like complete idiots./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6c67444efbc7ba81f37bcbeca21aebb8"Gwen and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Miss Jackson."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f1de2e89e3fcdf86e151233ba9bce650"I knew that was coming./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f70dd658462a1abc311814e3c4215be4"I told Gwen to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8ddbcc7332edc1e20ef407f57d370886"Mr. Brunner had a look that wouldn't let you go - intense brown eyes that could have been a thousand years old and had seen everything./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="11dbacfc573da83149bd76987770b2a4""You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="58dd0fd0140cab4d6995b251eb52a573""About the Titans?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="3283a7307e3eea2c990d1434565b727f""About real life. And how your studies apply to it."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="92a985cdbd282fc7e2bed415d55d4935""Oh."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="d82bdef6ad2ee4c669563f7de06d2919""What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Riley Jackson."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="cbc0c4e4e29f06bb255f3d7b794c8cba"I wanted to get angry. Mr. Brunner pushed me so hard./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="0cdfb59fc436087caa4f6bcf0c467d03"I mean, it was cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I have never made above a C- in my life. No - he didn't expect me to be good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ba6c9cf39d1a30c15827d250a0d1fc5e"I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at the girl's funeral./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="df328890ff28fd8dab4693c9d4234990"He told me to go outside and eat my lunch./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1c49198defddf034e0564cf6156843eb"The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="3edbf466e0cf9dc6f6b1184fdcb0e3cd"Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if a hurricane blowing in./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="43aa88a28ff75003f39dee7d12161302"Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nathan was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and , or course Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="dc2c83c95fb1775486f14883c7068138"Gwen and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school - the school for freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="49a76e65428644ee041eaccce6dd27fd""Detention?" Gwen asked./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="795e3f7d58798efe1440d90783e8199c""No," I said. "Not from Mr. Brunner. I just wish he would lay off me sometimes. I mean - I'm not a genius."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2cf50d3e7049c1d03c02dc45165221a7"Gwen didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought she was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="9e5f85db3e72ddc7685c18aa3c9af299"I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8c014bc4bb27f5b055c45aa7b9bf9c21"I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted to jump in a taxi and head home so badly. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She would send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="78f5d668440d67d45ddea13ae3a838cd"Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="4d11f63927c450491b3d697715437466"I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nathan appeared in front of me with his just as ugly friends - I guess he'd gotten tired of stealing from tourists - and dumped his half-eaten lunch in Gwen's lap./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="31636247190ea647f522c1f8fd6b5621""Oops." He grinned at me with his crooked teeth. His freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted his face with liquid Cheetos./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2ba4e00c6fc077a913bb4e1942720da2"I tried to stay calm. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad, my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1783786d87023ee257660473a09ef58b"I don't remember touching him, but the next thing I knew, Nathan was sitting on his butt in the fountain yelling, "Riley pushed me!"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="616e151f8b7d0317ca63fbc6e3825403"Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f49e5dab54a136608fc6e973bf6beaa8"Some of the other kids were whispering: "Did you see-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="68e42af2630243ecde2d489d2067b9e3""-the water-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="7469c2d4bf369fbbee1f0de00e159079""-like it grabbed him-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1af0bda242a1e8647b1864ff4b1ac4bb"I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f10a351f123b1f41f7823ec8de3b4281"As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor Nathan was okay, promising to get him a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc, etc., she turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a17d4e3f42d4a10f5b9af1770b9e809b""I know," I muttered. "A month erasing workbooks."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="42185668db1b3a6961007b795c58e2ed"That wasn't the right thing to say./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="91bcb024aac71165a9ab873b7479f0d4""Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="c41688d3dafd277c6310afedd3507a08""Wait!" Gwen shrieked. "It was me. I pushed him."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="e8fcb473eae8d14f486af25ada157c16"I stared at her, completely stunned. I couldn't believe she was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Gwen to death./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="4cd93fb0f96e9af9899545d6d88eed25"She glared at her so hard that Gwen's chin trembled./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="b11fce48c80683c98364a3c37d4711a0""I don't think so, Miss Underwood," she said./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="55f5d8b453041ddce98aadc4356311f0""But-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1d8d5b56792c9c47776ba31c2fb1ced2""You-will-stay-here."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="51cf2d0102bb96b75b494e22fb064435"Gwen looked at me desperately./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="3f6e92dff5186dd997cab5c5783e2aba""It's okay," I told her. "Thanks for trying."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ac7ba2d746534883a415f71f147f37cc""Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6952e528f86c1d33f4a3b6833843fdb3"Nathan smirked./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2c3ccf9b5393e7285c8b825db0bea1a2"I gave him a stare that promised his upcoming death, then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="88f2dc9ecce68a52661c263b5b5faf06"How'd she get there so fast?/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2a86f1ab8cc074884a5611594cf96c41"I have moments like that frequently, when my brain falls asleep or I tune out of the world, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2df954978621c1f02e10f0587a4e0fd2"I wasn't so sure./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="341b5bdad2ac1c9d78519972b41211d1"I went after Mrs. Dodds./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="46b341a06941999ba9210e737fd0dd77"Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Gwen. She was pale, cutting her eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like she wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f25e4da51d61bc78f4b9c21b23166c2e"I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="e8fbe5d2b52e25a375af18265fce9986"Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nathan the gift shop./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="160b4c6d582d870cdcf7535945a29991"But apparently that wasn't the plan./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="87873f58708314d27858388307ec1120"I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2e7a1b84aac04cf78290ee3af0e530ae"Except for us, the gallery was empty./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f40e5285bdf286cb96c126b27b6bf873"Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making a strange noise in her throat, like growling./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="cb8fbe684c8d46a194e26e25ac5ec9f5"Even without the noise, I would have been nervous. It's weird enough being alone with a teacher, but especially with Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it.../p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="45aebf338ac44546b47c1aabbf1976c3""You've been giving us problems, honey," she said./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1a7ec39874c14f4915f5ff58511cfd74"I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="d65ec721b7d0f0d7d70779e5f370c2a5"She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="371a67878be8f1bb8b84ddeca7bc11f6"The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="adbdeab642e2eabed2597224f9191c53"She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="7570670daf2249170266069f178276ed"I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="88afe21759a5c29743c7cc52f916aaa6"Thunder shook the building./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="324ecba8bfe25c3dc737e636a875a903""We are not fools, Riley Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="93b70a7e82c394fe96f2ae898836b5e3"I didn't know what she was talking about./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="b395ffa08059ac7c0004e7bc07bff6c2"All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been hording in my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6e36033511c7dd2788c6a4f3fa6d384f""Well?" she demanded./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="0ed957ebea5bce629c4dd97952a82880""Ma'am, I don't..."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a4f698f9a1e65e23852c5c83255deed0""Your time is up," she hissed./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1313fce671bbe239f4d5f553fc967b77"Then the craziest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8d7b6b5ed4b4988aca98a8fc4e038489"Then things got even stranger./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="d5327ab8ce427c1f4242fb3ce4794bc8"Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="94224762a4634a6cb92c97748ebaa68b""What ho, Riley!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="651e8877566e33c3c21ee06b792e2e3c"Mrs. Dodds lunged at me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1f2f686884da439c2138f150567932d7"With a shriek, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I grabbed the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword - Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="81847fa68598e01903dc960a6b7936e7"Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ff93247a82040659a094fe838e343abe"My knees were jelly and my hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8137fdee3c27c914f3e882d0966feb27"She snarled, "Die, honey!" and flew straight at me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="550244dddeddd7d93d0a2cbde718548a"Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ae856eb07b4550f5572c81a34aa77e5d"The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f64b6c902ecfeec2c437f87c0d56b5fb"Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur, a dying screech, and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="fee83aa502d7720dfe459396f47154a2"I was alone./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="5d609df9f1b6fc7bb564198ee58f3df4"There was a ballpoint pen in my hand./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ce056b635b3718e069ba040e6ed15a26"Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="e33e2e58361a4a1c9267b7ac19062f21"My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something. Had I imagined the whole thing?/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="28c9225a6544e230c6ce3c5021613cfb"I went back outside./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="5fa7052cb9de396112dd859d9252d291"It had started to rain./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="eb91dab07461e31fed1cbeb2f3cf4252"Gwen was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over her head. Nathan was still standing there, soaked from his swim in the fountain, grumbling to his friends. When he saw me, he said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr made your life miserable."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="76829eb4d01cb880914e16e7cd3e2810"I said, "Who?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="3d3cc271ffd0fb5d5935b881be7c3435""Our teacher. Duh!"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6f268e1c5e088dd4f0042e035a3686f9"I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nathan what he was talking about./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="78916585b0d54c9d552f1d8f3ff8a721"He just rolled his eyes and turned away./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6e39b80bc5dcb8cef61223af00168455"I asked Gwen where Mrs. Dodds was./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ec460ff89f2f15dc3f6cb471501229fb"She said, "Who?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="9ae44369c08412f35b500ee2ef9e4edf"But she paused first, and she wouldn't look at me, so I thought she was messing with me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="3020190efd98a6b05e194dfce68df5ea""This isn't funny," I told her. "This is serious."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="53d88e6050d5322e24dd01e3c7e10b19"Thunder boomed overhead./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="c5e0b0ebb69f6606afd57876f2dc49eb"I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="4ab056283bb84cec7832ae0380bd1a65"I went over to him./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="32aa3b5307f5c5d6cc946c3bd8225821"He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Miss Jackson."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="9c0dfcde8c76ee9d060257547f2a95b5"I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="429235b743da7d702c631cb7cc227da8""Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="09022f21bd9e090a0df0c27aa8ec2a3f"He stared at me blankly. "Who?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a57b6c4d25500695f7ef0c1316d65f68""The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="56709399351903ea1c3140fefcc1e04c"He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Riley, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6a5153777c4e5c1d5b00175da52fef7c"If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="e960e3a6a4ef3a1eadb2bbee0d0fdebd"Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="4ec1440cf8bec49b68b4a616b7266f7c"If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2eb255efb106dff5e162db6ff7ef595d"But if you recognize yourself in these pages - if you feel something stirring inside - stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1ac3ca3e2b9871de2d9122889abd8895"Don't say I didn't warn you./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a14301b8065edf728288a728cfb33e68"My name is Riley Jackson./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="9baeccf2b64789e338a19eafbe8ab218"I'm twelve years old. Until a few month, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="fe24fd8acc02a577d70428ee6f510b54"Am I a troubled child?/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="5af215ff46a86a76123f9da150bb02ef"Yeah. You could say that./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a890ba0eafbdd4125f15fae25310ed8c"I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grad class took a field trip to Manhattan - twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a08da0d7ceb8a3a1421b432c517b88f0"I know - it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="63f0cb31ec1871f5e06de8d33362b009"But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="661e396767ab88771557508efa43c3b3"Mr. Brunner was a middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair, a scruffy beard, and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this amazing collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8ff003343c10c7c866c73441e4eea236"I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="278688cffac8c20e6ca2b617d192ab48"I was so wrong./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="78837778c5453d9959ef0e73d3c3fdcc"So you see, bad things happen to me on field trips. At my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had an accident with a Revolutionary War Cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I may have hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that...well, you get the idea./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6e31a71c1081cc81be41487ef38116e5"This trip, I was determined to be good./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="dfcc28d5d1b02a0e83aeef61dd71fd34"All the way into the city, I put up with Nathan Bobofirt, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac boy, hitting my best friend Gwenyth in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1a3b729900eca65560d9b22aff628e5c"Gwen was an easy target. She was skinny. She cried when she got frustrated. She must've been held back several grades, because she was the only sixth grader with acne and the formation of curves. On top of all that, she was crippled. She had a note excusing her from PE for the rest of her life because she had some kind of muscular disease in her legs. She walked funny, like every step hurt her, but you shouldn't let that fool you. You should see her run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ad2d597d12038ca3fa6d60d46a2aa3dc"Anyway, Nathan was throwing cubes of sandwich that stuck in her curly brown hair, and he knew I couldn't do anything back to him because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8dd69c96ad6c36971d123d976737fcbf""I'm going to kill him," I mumbled./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="0ef81613d722ea81372df58c024a75df"Gwen tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="bf4923faa8e22c95fa7ba13c33f049ab"She dodged another piece of Nathan's lunch./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="72aad037a15479492825234958dd1de4""That's it." I started to get up, but Gwen pulled me back to my seat./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="080e3b83720090802d70695b428bb42d""You're already on probation," she reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="664e434027e7c3f5d5c5ae0600f6c554"Looking back on it, I wish I'd fought Nathan right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ee5cb7572b2ab5509cf039203c5dd73f"Mr. Brunner led the museum tour./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6cfad0a86d99c03de9cbd5f4da90a81e"He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="5b9d41f6fccb9a926fd440e90b1812c7"It blew my mind that these artifacts had survived for two thousand, three thousand years./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="400d79a8e96d00cec1416041ffbbc1b3"He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to be quiet, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give the evil eye./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="41cca476b8840bf4a34a2b03956ff002"Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f3237ebaa3da78fe476e991cd0d8d474"From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nathan and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," sweetly, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="0dda461bee78b6737ef8c330dd095faa"One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Gabby I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. She looked at me seriously and said, "You're absolutely right."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="349de650f882d8e446441fd93bb93ef7"Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="68f7670afce2d13d2e186c1689503f12"Finally, Nathan snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="d9a0258ebb694e3a10eda8066fb5f945"It came out louder than I meant it to./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="7bb45db553a665f9ef95de787b338192"The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8adf313d64054861eb7ae20857df1634""Miss Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8ae854a95f435fd7ede9bde8e5ea64b4"My face was completely red. I said, "No, sir."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="300142dc11f7fdedc79649abe9bb70a5"Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6f37d33516ac944e2f0a4c9bfa1a335f"I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2e497baeaf85174428306827f53f91d5""Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because..."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="e8412ebc757ef8737f67f979fe94d6ef""Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="cdce1c50d7020f48dd93467cbe236a4f""God?" Mr. Brunner asked./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="7a4478aa9d09f33169e89f9487045b41""Titan," I corrected myself. "And...he didn't trust his children, who were the gods. So, Kronos ate them? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. Later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his father, Kronos, into throwing up his brothers and sisters-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="79532636d86f4fb4d50bf549d1a32847""Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="db5c4904f11144c2c56874ee68e833c6""-and so there was a big fight between the Gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the Gods won."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="89de1a8218f3250d84a4f491f42a2cac"Some snickers came from the group./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="0b2f405e86dc9e7f63dbad26137d9735"Behind me, Nathan mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="30396275fb4bcdea2301194993ec6ed3""And why, Miss Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Mr. Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="79e0d1c549d7673cce32dd26cc562b4c""Busted," Gwen muttered./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a5aeb0d04ca00a95eb112a05ae9ce95a""Shut up," Nathan hissed, his face even brighter red than his hair./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="d34e2827e253f45ad5557f3055149032"At least Nathan got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught him saying anything wrong, like he had radar ears./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="b85c9badcc8eb3812a460c0a851edcde"I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="dafc97ef096c65b008e00b9dfffa39f3""I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Miss Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ba75d21c94ae974bc84ae5b2b60de59c"The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like complete idiots./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6c67444efbc7ba81f37bcbeca21aebb8"Gwen and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Miss Jackson."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f1de2e89e3fcdf86e151233ba9bce650"I knew that was coming./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f70dd658462a1abc311814e3c4215be4"I told Gwen to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8ddbcc7332edc1e20ef407f57d370886"Mr. Brunner had a look that wouldn't let you go - intense brown eyes that could have been a thousand years old and had seen everything./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="11dbacfc573da83149bd76987770b2a4""You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="58dd0fd0140cab4d6995b251eb52a573""About the Titans?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="3283a7307e3eea2c990d1434565b727f""About real life. And how your studies apply to it."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="92a985cdbd282fc7e2bed415d55d4935""Oh."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="d82bdef6ad2ee4c669563f7de06d2919""What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Riley Jackson."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="cbc0c4e4e29f06bb255f3d7b794c8cba"I wanted to get angry. Mr. Brunner pushed me so hard./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="0cdfb59fc436087caa4f6bcf0c467d03"I mean, it was cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I have never made above a C- in my life. No - he didn't expect me to be good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ba6c9cf39d1a30c15827d250a0d1fc5e"I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at the girl's funeral./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="df328890ff28fd8dab4693c9d4234990"He told me to go outside and eat my lunch./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1c49198defddf034e0564cf6156843eb"The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="3edbf466e0cf9dc6f6b1184fdcb0e3cd"Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if a hurricane blowing in./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="43aa88a28ff75003f39dee7d12161302"Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nathan was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and , or course Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="dc2c83c95fb1775486f14883c7068138"Gwen and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school - the school for freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="49a76e65428644ee041eaccce6dd27fd""Detention?" Gwen asked./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="795e3f7d58798efe1440d90783e8199c""No," I said. "Not from Mr. Brunner. I just wish he would lay off me sometimes. I mean - I'm not a genius."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2cf50d3e7049c1d03c02dc45165221a7"Gwen didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought she was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="9e5f85db3e72ddc7685c18aa3c9af299"I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8c014bc4bb27f5b055c45aa7b9bf9c21"I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted to jump in a taxi and head home so badly. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She would send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="78f5d668440d67d45ddea13ae3a838cd"Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="4d11f63927c450491b3d697715437466"I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nathan appeared in front of me with his just as ugly friends - I guess he'd gotten tired of stealing from tourists - and dumped his half-eaten lunch in Gwen's lap./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="31636247190ea647f522c1f8fd6b5621""Oops." He grinned at me with his crooked teeth. His freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted his face with liquid Cheetos./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2ba4e00c6fc077a913bb4e1942720da2"I tried to stay calm. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad, my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1783786d87023ee257660473a09ef58b"I don't remember touching him, but the next thing I knew, Nathan was sitting on his butt in the fountain yelling, "Riley pushed me!"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="616e151f8b7d0317ca63fbc6e3825403"Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f49e5dab54a136608fc6e973bf6beaa8"Some of the other kids were whispering: "Did you see-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="68e42af2630243ecde2d489d2067b9e3""-the water-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="7469c2d4bf369fbbee1f0de00e159079""-like it grabbed him-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1af0bda242a1e8647b1864ff4b1ac4bb"I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f10a351f123b1f41f7823ec8de3b4281"As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor Nathan was okay, promising to get him a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc, etc., she turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a17d4e3f42d4a10f5b9af1770b9e809b""I know," I muttered. "A month erasing workbooks."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="42185668db1b3a6961007b795c58e2ed"That wasn't the right thing to say./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="91bcb024aac71165a9ab873b7479f0d4""Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="c41688d3dafd277c6310afedd3507a08""Wait!" Gwen shrieked. "It was me. I pushed him."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="e8fcb473eae8d14f486af25ada157c16"I stared at her, completely stunned. I couldn't believe she was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Gwen to death./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="4cd93fb0f96e9af9899545d6d88eed25"She glared at her so hard that Gwen's chin trembled./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="b11fce48c80683c98364a3c37d4711a0""I don't think so, Miss Underwood," she said./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="55f5d8b453041ddce98aadc4356311f0""But-"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1d8d5b56792c9c47776ba31c2fb1ced2""You-will-stay-here."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="51cf2d0102bb96b75b494e22fb064435"Gwen looked at me desperately./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="3f6e92dff5186dd997cab5c5783e2aba""It's okay," I told her. "Thanks for trying."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ac7ba2d746534883a415f71f147f37cc""Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6952e528f86c1d33f4a3b6833843fdb3"Nathan smirked./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2c3ccf9b5393e7285c8b825db0bea1a2"I gave him a stare that promised his upcoming death, then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="88f2dc9ecce68a52661c263b5b5faf06"How'd she get there so fast?/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2a86f1ab8cc074884a5611594cf96c41"I have moments like that frequently, when my brain falls asleep or I tune out of the world, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2df954978621c1f02e10f0587a4e0fd2"I wasn't so sure./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="341b5bdad2ac1c9d78519972b41211d1"I went after Mrs. Dodds./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="46b341a06941999ba9210e737fd0dd77"Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Gwen. She was pale, cutting her eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like she wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f25e4da51d61bc78f4b9c21b23166c2e"I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="e8fbe5d2b52e25a375af18265fce9986"Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nathan the gift shop./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="160b4c6d582d870cdcf7535945a29991"But apparently that wasn't the plan./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="87873f58708314d27858388307ec1120"I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="2e7a1b84aac04cf78290ee3af0e530ae"Except for us, the gallery was empty./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f40e5285bdf286cb96c126b27b6bf873"Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making a strange noise in her throat, like growling./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="cb8fbe684c8d46a194e26e25ac5ec9f5"Even without the noise, I would have been nervous. It's weird enough being alone with a teacher, but especially with Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it.../p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="45aebf338ac44546b47c1aabbf1976c3""You've been giving us problems, honey," she said./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1a7ec39874c14f4915f5ff58511cfd74"I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="d65ec721b7d0f0d7d70779e5f370c2a5"She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="371a67878be8f1bb8b84ddeca7bc11f6"The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="adbdeab642e2eabed2597224f9191c53"She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="7570670daf2249170266069f178276ed"I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="88afe21759a5c29743c7cc52f916aaa6"Thunder shook the building./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="324ecba8bfe25c3dc737e636a875a903""We are not fools, Riley Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="93b70a7e82c394fe96f2ae898836b5e3"I didn't know what she was talking about./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="b395ffa08059ac7c0004e7bc07bff6c2"All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been hording in my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6e36033511c7dd2788c6a4f3fa6d384f""Well?" she demanded./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="0ed957ebea5bce629c4dd97952a82880""Ma'am, I don't..."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a4f698f9a1e65e23852c5c83255deed0""Your time is up," she hissed./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1313fce671bbe239f4d5f553fc967b77"Then the craziest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8d7b6b5ed4b4988aca98a8fc4e038489"Then things got even stranger./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="d5327ab8ce427c1f4242fb3ce4794bc8"Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="94224762a4634a6cb92c97748ebaa68b""What ho, Riley!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="651e8877566e33c3c21ee06b792e2e3c"Mrs. Dodds lunged at me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="1f2f686884da439c2138f150567932d7"With a shriek, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I grabbed the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword - Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="81847fa68598e01903dc960a6b7936e7"Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ff93247a82040659a094fe838e343abe"My knees were jelly and my hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="8137fdee3c27c914f3e882d0966feb27"She snarled, "Die, honey!" and flew straight at me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="550244dddeddd7d93d0a2cbde718548a"Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ae856eb07b4550f5572c81a34aa77e5d"The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="f64b6c902ecfeec2c437f87c0d56b5fb"Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur, a dying screech, and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="fee83aa502d7720dfe459396f47154a2"I was alone./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="5d609df9f1b6fc7bb564198ee58f3df4"There was a ballpoint pen in my hand./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ce056b635b3718e069ba040e6ed15a26"Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="e33e2e58361a4a1c9267b7ac19062f21"My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something. Had I imagined the whole thing?/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="28c9225a6544e230c6ce3c5021613cfb"I went back outside./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="5fa7052cb9de396112dd859d9252d291"It had started to rain./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="eb91dab07461e31fed1cbeb2f3cf4252"Gwen was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over her head. Nathan was still standing there, soaked from his swim in the fountain, grumbling to his friends. When he saw me, he said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr made your life miserable."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="76829eb4d01cb880914e16e7cd3e2810"I said, "Who?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="3d3cc271ffd0fb5d5935b881be7c3435""Our teacher. Duh!"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6f268e1c5e088dd4f0042e035a3686f9"I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nathan what he was talking about./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="78916585b0d54c9d552f1d8f3ff8a721"He just rolled his eyes and turned away./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="6e39b80bc5dcb8cef61223af00168455"I asked Gwen where Mrs. Dodds was./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="ec460ff89f2f15dc3f6cb471501229fb"She said, "Who?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="9ae44369c08412f35b500ee2ef9e4edf"But she paused first, and she wouldn't look at me, so I thought she was messing with me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="3020190efd98a6b05e194dfce68df5ea""This isn't funny," I told her. "This is serious."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="53d88e6050d5322e24dd01e3c7e10b19"Thunder boomed overhead./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="c5e0b0ebb69f6606afd57876f2dc49eb"I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="4ab056283bb84cec7832ae0380bd1a65"I went over to him./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="32aa3b5307f5c5d6cc946c3bd8225821"He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Miss Jackson."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="9c0dfcde8c76ee9d060257547f2a95b5"I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="429235b743da7d702c631cb7cc227da8""Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="09022f21bd9e090a0df0c27aa8ec2a3f"He stared at me blankly. "Who?"/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="a57b6c4d25500695f7ef0c1316d65f68""The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."/p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; color: #555555;" data-p-id="56709399351903ea1c3140fefcc1e04c"He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Riley, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"/p