Whisper Read Free Page A

light hurt my eyes (which it did) and also as if I was totally confused as to why three girls were fanned around my bedside wearing expectant grins and gazing back at me.
    And clicking their cell-phone cams in my direction.
    When really I was thinking, So far, so good.
    They’d totally bought my surprise. I’d been worrying on some level that it wouldn’t be, you know, satisfying.Trying to surprise someone unsurpriseable…but I’d fooled them. It was almost too easy. Then again, when you’re a Hearer you get pretty good at feigning surprise, kind of like how most people get good at pretending they love a lame gift. Just another harmless little white lie, right? I hammed it up.
    “Oh my gawd !” Ham, ham, ham. “What the hell are you guys doing in my room?”
    That made them laugh. They laughed like evil masterminds on cartoons. Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Because even though my friends didn’t know about my Hearing—no one did—they knew that any Lincoln High School student would know what they were up to by that stage.
    Kidnapping was an ancient tradition at Lincoln. The concept was simple, and sort of stupid too if you thought about it too long. Ambush your best friend on her birthday; force her into a bizarre, idiotic costume; then march her off to school where everyone makes fun of her for looking bizarre and idiotic. The custom was established hundreds of years ago, or at least kids were already doing it back in the eighties when Dad was QB for the Lincoln Cougars and Mom was head of the spirit squad (still called the Cougarettes, before it got changed for being “sexist language”). Mom had been kidnapped her senior year, and she said it was one of her favorite memories from high school.
    My sister called it a barbaric ritual of humiliation and said she’d never let anyone do that to her in a million years.
    The really sad thing was, no one would ever want to dothat to her in a million years.
    For better or for worse, one’s chances of being strapped down and forced into an embarrassing getup were directly related to one’s level of popularity. Thus, kidnapping was practically mandatory among varsity cheerleaders, soccer studs, model types, and student body presidents, but among the terminally friendless it was as rare as being fried by lightning. To be honest, as a freshman who didn’t stand out in any way (except maybe my height), I’d figured I was pretty safe too.
    That illusion shattered Monday at lunch, when I was nearly blinded by the sight of Gina Belle, our student body president, cruising by our group’s quad bench in a lime green gaucho suit, pink cowboy boots, and rainbow clown wig. Gina was acting totally normal, though, smiling and holding her head high, and I was staring after her, trying to figure out how any human could be such a good sport, when beside me I Heard Parker Whisper: Hey, I want to do that to Joy this Friday.
    My heart dropped right down to the wooden bench. I knew it would happen too. Parker was just one of those people; her wishes were commands. She would plan and she would execute, just like she did in her successful campaign for frosh class president. So it was settled, then. I had eighty-nine hours to look forward in dread.
    It wasn’t that I hated attention, exactly. I’d just rather give it than receive it, which I tried to explain to Parker once, but she just kept screwing up her forehead into tighterand tighter furrows of confusion, so I finally changed the subject. This was after we all took this stupid Cosmo Girl quiz “What Kind of Friend Are You?” and everyone else got Lovin’ the Limelight while I got Groovin’ Behind the Scenes. No one was really surprised. (Is anyone ever surprised by quiz results?)
    My friends were like most people. They wanted to be special, to stand out as being the best. And I wanted that too…for them. As for me, though, helping people was what I did best, and between cookie baking for Parker’s campaign, helping Mom with chores, and