A Fate Totally Worse Than Death Read Free Page A

the word ‘hopefully’ an adverb?”
    Jonathan feared to hazard an answer.
    â€œDoesn’t it mean ‘full of hope?’” she continued, genuinely seeking his help.
    Jonathan nodded quickly, hoping to put the topic behind them.
    â€œSo what you have said is ‘I will visit Yellowstone Park full of hope.’” She gave a little laugh. “Or is that perhaps what you meant to say?”
    Jonathan searched for safe ground but could find none. “I guess, like, it’s an adverb,” he said vaguely.
    â€œAnd please, what does ‘like’ mean when it’s used as you did?”
    Jonathan swallowed.
    â€œâ€˜I guess,
like
, it’s an adverb,’” Helga refreshed his memory.
    â€œIt’s like….” Jonathan spoke the words with an amnesiac’s uncertainty. “It’s sort of….” He sighed. “Actually…it doesn’t mean anything,” he blurted out with sudden comprehension.
    Helga’s perfect teeth shone in a smile of revelation. “Thank you, Jonathan. I
now
understand.”
    He exhaled. His harrowing journey through his own country’s language and geography had ended. Stopping before locker 1228, he consulted his card and unlocked it.
    â€œTop row. Only five years old. Pristine condition. Unused all last year.” Due to declining enrollment, the school boasted numerous unused lockers, their locations and combinations known, it seemed, to no one but Jonathan. With the help of a locksmithing book, he’d learned to change their combinations, which he did with each new tenant in order to protect his monopoly of access. The rent he charged—ten cents a day—to those who wanted two lockers or who wished to trade for a better locale added up when multiplied by the many properties he managed.
    â€œIt will be quite nice, I’m certain,” said Helga. “Thank you very much, Jonathan.”
    He gave her a slip with the combination. He’d decided not to charge her and wondered if telling her this would increase her gratitude or bring on a troubling inquiry into his locker empire. “I think you’ll be happy here,” he said instead. “Mine’s just over there.”
    â€œHow convenient.”
    The voice wasn’t Helga’s. Jonathan turned around and found Tiffany planted behind him.
    â€œHi, Tiff,” he stammered.
    â€œHi,
Turdface
,” she shot back.
    Jonathan alertly discerned her mood. He prayed that Helga wouldn’t ask to have the epithet explained.
    â€œLet’s show our foreign guest our excellent manners,” he muttered under his breath to Tiffany. Staging an instructive, formal introduction, he pointed a hand at each of the girls. “Tiffany, this is Helga Sandstad. Helga is an exchange student.”
    Smiling nervously, Helga held out her hand.
    Tiffany ignored it. “And
this,”
she sneered, “is Jonathan Rice.” She backed him into the lockers, bringing her head an inch closer to his with each word. “Jonathan is a lying, despicable, wheeling-dealing, womanizing, swamp-breathed, big-mouthed, small-brained worm! Who I’ve now broken up with for the eighty-eighth
and last
time and never want to see
again!
” She spit in his face by way of punctuation, spun around, stormed down the hall, then turned and aimed a finger at Helga. “But
you
stay away from him anyway!”

CHAPTER 4
    â€¦â€¦â€¦Danielle glanced at her tiny gold watch. “An entire
hour
of this?” she moaned. These Tuesday afternoons were worse than orthodontist visits. She gazed at the sleeping Mrs. Witt, then grabbed the television’s remote control and tried it for the fourteenth time. The screen remained blank. She flung the remote on the bed, striking one of Mrs. Witt’s popsicle-stick legs with a loud clack. The woman shifted in her sleep. Danielle looked disgustedly at the wall opposite the empty bed, where the