After a few origami-challenged minutes, another plane landed on her desk. She glanced back at Arriane, who shook her head and gave her a you-have-so-much-to-learn roll of the eyes.
Luce shrugged an apology and swiveled back around to open the second note:
Oh, and until you’re confident about your aim, you might not want to fly any Daniel-related messages my way. Dude behind you is famous on the football field for his interceptions.
Good to know. She hadn’t even seen Daniel’s friend Roland come in behind her. Now she turned very slightly in her seat until she glimpsed his dreadlocks out of the corner of her eye. She dared a glance down at the open notebook on his desk and caught his full name. Roland Sparks.
“No note-passing,” Mr. Cole said sternly, causing Luce to whip her head back to attention. “No plagiarizing, and no looking at one another’s papers. I didn’t put myself through graduate school only to receive your divided attention.”
Luce nodded in unison with the other dazed kids just as a third paper plane glided to a stop in the middle of her desk.
Only 172 minutes to go!
A hundred and seventy-three torturous minutes later, Arriane was leading Luce to the cafeteria. “What’d ya think?” she asked.
“You were right,” Luce said numbly, still recovering from how painfully bleak her first three hours of class had been. “Why would anyone teach such a depressing subject?”
“Aw, Cole’ll ease up soon. He puts on his no-guff face every time there’s a new student. Anyway,” Arriane said, poking Luce, “it could be worse. You could have gotten stuck with Ms. Tross.”
Luce glanced down at her schedule. “I have her for biology in the afternoon block,” she said with a sinking feeling in her gut.
As Arriane sputtered out a laugh, Luce felt a bump on her shoulder. It was Cam, passing them in the hall on his way to lunch. Luce would have gone sprawling if not for his hand reaching back to steady her.
“Easy there.” He shot her a quick smile, and she wondered if he had bumped her intentionally. But he didn’t seem that juvenile. Luce glanced at Arriane to see whether she’d noticed anything. Arriane raised her eyebrows, almost inviting Luce to speak, but neither one of them said a thing.
When they crossed the dusty interior windows separating bleak hall from bleaker cafeteria, Arriane took hold of Luce’s elbow.
“Avoid the chicken-fried steak at all costs,” she coached as they followed the crowd into the din of the lunchroom. “The pizza’s fine, the chili’s okay, and actually the borscht ain’t bad. Do you like meat loaf?”
“I’m a vegetarian,” Luce said. She was glancing around the tables, looking for two people in particular. Daniel and Cam. She’d just feel more at ease if she knew where they were so she could go about having her lunch pretending that she didn’t see either one of them. But so far, no sightings …
“Vegetarian, huh?” Arriane pursed her lips. “Hippie parents or your own meager attempt at rebellion?”
“Uh, neither, I just don’t—”
“Like meat?” Arriane steered Luce’s shoulders ninety degrees so that she was looking directly at Daniel, sitting at a table across the room. Luce let out a long exhale. There he was. “Now, does that go for all meat?” Arriane sang loudly. “Like you wouldn’t sink your teeth into him?”
Luce slugged Arriane and dragged her toward the lunch line. Arriane was cracking up, but Luce knew she was blushing badly, which would be excruciatingly obvious in this fluorescent lighting.
“Shut up, he totally heard you,” she whispered.
Part of Luce felt glad to be joking about boys with a friend. Assuming Arriane was her friend.
She still felt unglued by what had happened this morning when she’d seen Daniel. That pull toward him—she still didn’t understand where it came from, and yet here it was again. She made herself tear her eyes away from his blond hair, from the smooth line of his jaw. She refused to be caught staring. She did not want to give him any reason to flip her off a second time.
“Whatever,” Arriane scoffed. “He’s so focused on that hamburger, he wouldn’t hear the call of Satan.” She gestured at Daniel, who did look intensely focused on chewing his burger. Scratch that, he looked like someone pretending to be intensely focused on chewing his hamburger.
Luce glanced across the table at Daniel’s friend Roland. He was looking straight at her. When he caught her eye, he waggled his eyebrows in a way that Luce couldn’t make sense of but that still creeped her out a little.
Luce turned back to Arriane. “Why is everyone at this school so weird?”
“I’m going to choose not to take offense at that,” Arriane said, picking up a plastic tray and handing one to Luce. “And I’m going to move on to explaining the fine art of selecting a cafeteria seat. You see, you never want to sit anywhere near the—Luce, look out!”
All Luce did was take one step backward, but as soon as she did, she felt the rough shove of two hands on her shoulders. Immediately, she knew she was going down. She reached out in front of her for support, but all her hands found was someone else’s full lunch tray. The whole thing tumbled down right along with her. She landed with a thud on the cafeteria floor, a full cup of borscht in her face.
When she’d wiped enough mushy beets out of her eyes to see, Luce looked up. The angriest pixie she’d ever seen was standing over her. The girl had spiky bleached hair, at least ten piercings on her face, and a death glare. She bared her teeth at Luce and hissed, “If the sight of you hadn’t just ruined my appetite, I’d make you buy me another lunch.”
Luce stammered an apology. She tried to get up, but the girl clamped the heel of her black stiletto boot down on Luce’s foot. Pain shot up her leg, and she had to bite her lip so she wouldn’t cry out.
“Why don’t I just take a rain check,” the girl said.
“That’s enough, Molly,” Arriane said coolly. She reached down to help Luce to her feet.
Luce winced. The stiletto was definitely going to leave a bruise.
Molly squared her hips to face Arriane, and Luce got the feeling this was not the first time they’d locked horns.
“Fast friends with the newbie, I see,” Molly growled. “This is very bad behavior, A. Aren’t you supposed to be on probation?”
Luce swallowed. Arriane hadn’t mentioned anything about probation, and it didn’t make sense that that would prohibit her from making new friends. But the word was enough to make Arriane clench her fist and throw a fat punch that landed on Molly’s right eye.
Molly reeled backward, but it was Arriane who caught Luce’s attention. She’d begun convulsing, her arms thrown up and jerking in the air.
It was the wristband, Luce realized with horror. It was sending some sort of shock through Arriane’s body. Unbelievable. This was cruel and unusual punishment, for sure. Luce’s stomach churned as she watched her friend’s entire body quake. She reached out to catch Arriane just as she sank to the floor.
“Arriane,” Luce whispered. “Are you okay?”
“Terrific.” Arriane’s dark eyes flickered open, then shut.