Ferocity Summer Read Free Page A

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oil-rig workers or something who had invented it, stirring their drinks not with traditional stirrers but with screwdrivers. That’s history for you, and how much of that is bullshit I don’t know, and besides, what the hell does that have to do with two high school girls drinking the legendary concoction at seven thirty on a Wednesday morning in the middle of May?
    â€œLet me piss first, then we’ll go,” Willow said.
    It was a long piss, and I understood that that’s not what it was at all. There were some regular bathroom sounds thrown in for good measure—toilet flushing, sink running—but I knew that Willow’s true mission was the imbibing of some narcotic substance slightly more potent than the orange juice and vodka concoction. Well, whatever it takes , I thought, but didn’t quite feel. It wasn’t even eight o’clock in the morning, for chrissakes.
    Willow came out of the bathroom with a flushed face and damp skin. She looked like shit, but who was I to say? This was, after all, high school, and who was there to impress?
    Willow didn’t so much drive to school as slightly guide the car on a route more or less destined to get us to school, or at least, school’s general vicinity. She swerved back and forth on the road, and came close to hitting too many stationary objects to count. I felt a little woozy myself and was in no shape to complain.
    I was thinking about the subject of our toast, of summer. As a kid I had always looked forward to summer—and the temporary escape from the hell that was the education system—with unmitigated joy. Times had changed. Now, the very thought of summer made my stomach knot. Okay, maybe the liquid breakfast was partly responsible for that. But there were plenty of other reasons for my stomach and my entire body to be completely uncomfortable that morning. My best friend was having a love affair with mind-altering substances, my future looked bleaker than bleak, and, oh yeah, there was August—when the fates of the universe disguised as a jury of my peers (a completely misinterpreted law, by the way) was set to decide my future in the world. Amen. Hallelujah.
    Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.

    The principal of my school was not a witch but she played one on TV. At least she looked the part, with her pale, pockmarked skin and her jet black hair with its white streak down the middle. In heels, she was over six feet tall. She could glare down at you with eyes that seemed to have been borrowed from the devil himself.
    We showed up fifteen minutes into first period and had to go to the office for our late pass. It was just our luck that Dr. Smarelli was talking with the secretary when we walked in.
    â€œWillow Jenkins, Priscilla Davis,” she said. “Let me guess, you’re here for another late pass. I believe you’ve hit your limit this month. You can join your old pals in detention tomorrow afternoon. You know, girls, it’s way too early in your academic careers to be so apathetic.”
    â€œIt’s way too early to be awake,” Willow said. “And at school.”
    When she talked, I flinched. Maybe witch Smarelli noticed this, or maybe she just noticed Willow’s somewhat slurred speech. She came up to the desk to write out our passes herself. Willow, never one for inhibitions, was even further loosened up by her morning indulgences. She leaned across the desk and whispered loudly in Smarelli’s ear.
    â€œLet’s the three of us go into your office right now. We’ll munch your rug for the courtesy of a suspended sentence.”
    The secretary turned ghostly pale and knocked over a mug of coffee. I watched the brown stain engulf a stack of attendance sheets while the knot in my stomach got tighter. Smarelli sniffed at the air like the world’s ugliest bloodhound.
    â€œYou’ve been drinking! It’s not even nine in the morning, and you’ve