Harrison Squared Read Free Page B

a thick-necked woman with horsey teeth, held out her ladle. When she moved I caught a glimpse of the kitchen behind her. A woman who could have been her older sister stood at a metal table wearing a bloody smock. She held a huge silver fish, perhaps three feet long, by its tail. The creature twitched weakly in her grasp. Suddenly she plunged a knife into the belly of the fish and ripped down.
    I dropped my bowl.
    The serving lady, still holding her ladle aloft, scowled at me over glasses that perched at the end of her long nose.
    I raised my hands. “That’s it. I’m done.”
    Lydia frowned at me.
    I turned toward the door. Lydia said, “Where are you going?”
    â€œHome,” I said.
    She followed me for a moment, then grabbed my arm. Her eyes were sea green.
    â€œTruancy is a crime,” she said.
    â€œThen I guess I’m a criminal. Besides, who uses the word ‘truancy’?”
    Something changed in her face. I’d just become marginally more interesting to her.
    â€œSee you around, Lydia. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

2
    Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—
    Lydia didn’t try to stop me again. I walked fast for the door, feeling the eyes of the students on my back, but I didn’t care. I was going home. Not to the rental house down the street—all the way back to California, to my friends. My real school. In San Diego, the school hallways were outdoors . The sun shined all the time. In class you learned how to do normal things like write essays and speak Spanish—you didn’t perform slave labor.
    Did I say I’d learned to keep my anger under control? I may have been exaggerating.
    I left the cafeteria and marched down the hallway. The corridor turned, turned again—and then dead-ended at a stone wall. I thought I’d been heading toward the front entrance, but somehow I’d taken a wrong turn.
    I retraced my steps until I found a hallway that led off to my left. The yellow globes hanging from the ceiling looked familiar, and I hustled toward them. But when I reached the lights I wasn’t in the atrium, or anywhere else I remembered.
    From somewhere came a moan. A voice pleading. My right leg burned like it was in ice water, but I ignored it.
    I slowly walked forward until I came to a set of double doors that hung slightly ajar. The light beyond seemed marginally brighter than that of the hallway. I pushed through.
    It was a library. The bookshelves were a dozen feet tall, much taller than seemed practical for a high school. The books, too, were larger and more massive than the books in my old library in California, as if each were an unabridged dictionary. The voice came from somewhere in the stacks.
    I edged around the corner of a row. A white-haired man in a gray cardigan sweater stood in front of the shelves, waving his fingers in the air. Though he wore thick glasses, he blinked furiously as if he couldn’t get his eyes to focus. “No no no,” the man said to himself. “It’s got to be here; it must be.…”
    â€œCan I help you?” I asked.
    The man spun to face me, shocked. Then he glanced behind him and said, “Are you speaking to me?”
    â€œI’m sorry, I just thought—”
    â€œWhat did you mean, help me?”
    I wasn’t sure how I could help, just that he sounded so desperate. Maybe he was so old his vision was failing? I said, “Have you lost a book?”
    â€œWhat book? Why do you think I’m looking for a book?”
    â€œIt’s a library?” I said.
    â€œThere are many types of items in a library. Maps. Periodicals. Artifacts and artwork…” He strode away from me. The floors here were the same dark stone as the hallway. The shelves themselves were thick as ship’s timbers.
    â€œYou can’t possibly be of use,” the man said. “I’ve been combing this library for … quite a while. You’re a child and