Run and Hide Read Free Page B

finish attendance.” Four or five heads went down, and two or three conversations started as Mrs. Daniels went to gather her attendance forms. To these people, twenty-minute homeroom meant twenty-minute naptime.
    The classroom was pretty small compared to the ones in the school I went to back in Georgia. The walls were just as dull and prison-like, though. But this place was okay, not horrifying.
    To the right of me, T. Strickland talked to another guy about the adventures he partook in throughout the summer. I presumed him to be one of those high-school-is-the-prime-of-my-life-so-I-will-get-high-and-get-wasted-and-pop-pills-as-much-as-I-can-now-because-it’s-all-downhill-from-here-anyways types of guys. He obviously liked to party. Behind me Z. Tyler sat motionless, meditating to screamo-rap he decided the whole class should hear through his cheap headphones. He was obviously hard of hearing. K. Roberts, the girl to my left, sat informing some other girl of her and her boyfriend’s “rocky” summer together in which he cheated on her twice and she hooked up with three of his best friends within two nights. She had obviously had a bad childhood. I realized, though that maybe I should stop saying that—these days, guess whose life was the most screwed-up of them all?
    “Ana Smith?”
    “Here.”
    “Where?”
    “Here,” I spoke louder and raised my hand.
    Mrs. Daniels nodded. “Trey Strickland?”
    I laid my head down and listened to the screamo-music blasting behind me. Not so bad. Refreshing even. Fifteen minutes later a bell rang again, and everyone rushed to leave homeroom.
    I took a left, a right, following numbers and arrows posted on the walls, went downstairs, took another left, and arrived at room 119: American Literature. A man named Mr. Douglas taught this class, and seventeen students were there when I showed up. Mr. Douglas seemed stern and unpleasant, and so the whole class felt unpleasant. Unpleasant for everyone in the room except for the couple in the corner, that was. Those two couldn’t have been discouraged if a terrorist was threatening to stab them to death while the world was falling into a fiery pit of lava, as long as they didn’t have to let go of each other. They whispered and giggled the entire class, and by the end they’d smiled so much they had to massage each other’s cheeks. Doubtlessly insane.
    Second period was okay, but it let me know that this class would be my toughest math yet; gifted Pre-Calc equals no joke. Third period was similar: Physics. I had feared Physics since freshman year and it already seemed as scary as I’d predicted. As expected, the stare-at-the-new-girl thing went on in every classroom, too. I guessed some things were the same wherever you went.
    Next was American History with Mr. Kyle, and I walked in last. Unfortunately I’d taken a “shortcut” that wasn’t a shortcut at all; in fact it was the longest route I could’ve possibly taken, since I hadn’t accounted for concentrated groups of freshmen congregating in the middle of hallways. Every one of the eighteen other students were already comfortably seated, and the only desirable seat left was in the back right corner, near the bookshelf, next to a guy in a hooded sweatshirt.
    The hood lay atop his head, his head atop his crossed arms and facedown above his desk. The kid didn’t move or flinch once in the first few minutes of class. In fact, until Mr. Kyle called, “Eric Brantley,” he didn’t move at all. When he heard his name, he lifted his hand, robotically, and laid it back down precisely identical to how it had been before. A few girls chuckled at his lack of enthusiasm, and I wondered if when I moved robotically, mechanically, I did it as gracefully as he had, or even close.
    “Ana Smith.”
    My eyes shot to the front of the classroom. “Here.”
    Through class, I kept glancing over my left shoulder to see if this Eric Brantley kid might lift his head. He didn’t. Mr. Kyle handed