“Oh.”
“You new?”
“Is it that obvious?” Quinn asked, smiling.
Unlike the woman in the front office, Ginger gave no up-and-down, didn’t seem interested in Quinn at all, merely looked Quinn in the eyes and offered: “It’s a small town.”
Okay. A little rude, Quinn thought. But Ginger had helped Quinn open her locker, which had been a nice gesture. In a hallway where the kids were dressed well enough to look like an ad for American Eagle, Ginger presented an intriguing alternative. At the very least she looked like she came from an ad for a different store at the mall.
But before Quinn could think of something else to say, the doors down the hall slammed open.
All heads turned as two boys entered the hallway.
The boy in front, while on the short and stringier side, held himself with confidence that made him seem somehow bigger than the meathead marching in lockstep behind him.
Everyone in the hallway was watching the two boys—even the students who’d turned to face their lockers and friends, the kids trying to look like they weren’t looking.
No. Not the pair. They were just watching the boy out front. The other guy, big as he was, a neck so thick that it wasn’t a neck at all, just an extension of the guy’s head, that guy was simply set dressing.
“Cole . . . ,” someone whispered. That must have been his name. No last name yet, just Cole. Or maybe that was a last name.
Halfway down the hall, Cole looked to Quinn, effortlessly finding her in the crowd, his glare lingering. He had a button nose, a puckish grin, and perfectly tousled dark hair. There were circles under his eyes that could have been from partying or lack of sleep or both, but he wore the fatigue like makeup. His shirt was unbuttoned enough for Quinn to glimpse the edge of his undershirt, a white V-neck. As he passed, she took note of his jeans, distressed around the knees, near the pockets, and fitting like jeans should.
Standing in Cole’s wake, Quinn heard someone whisper: “My mom says she can’t believe he’s not dead.”
And someone else added, “My uncle says he ought to be.”
The Neanderthal trailing behind Cole seemed to overhear that last comment. The big guy sneered in that direction, his job to squash all Cole criticism. He wore a rumpled football jersey with a picture of a mean-looking, steroidal goat on it. It must’ve been the Kettle Springs High logo, blue and gold the KSH colors.
Quinn watched the pair of them go. Cole bounded up the stairs at the far end of the hallway. His bodyguard-friend was slower, using the handrail like he was too big to win the fight against gravity without it.
“Wow. Who was that?” Quinn asked, trying to get Ginger to look up from working on her own lock.
“Cole Hill. We used to be friends. Back when my hair was lighter,” Ginger said, then tossed an eye to the side and smirked. “And, yeah, he’s pretty cute,” she said, pausing before adding: “for an arsonist.”
Three
Quinn was late to her first class. Not a good start, but how the hell was room 207 located on the first floor?
Her schedule listed the class as “Science.” Quinn had no idea what kind of science she was about to walk into. She took a deep breath outside the closed door for room 207, grabbed the knob, and . . .
Inside, the lights were off and a diagram of a plant cell was being projected onto a pull-down screen at the front of the room. She’d taken bio twice now, both in middle school and high school. The transparency looked like it dated to before she was born, so she doubted Kettle Springs High was offering some kind of super-duper AP upgrade.
In the darkness, faces turned to Quinn. Her plan for today had been to keep a low profile, and then repeat that for around two hundred more school days, until she was packing for college. It was only day one, and she was already doing a shitty job.
“Close the door,” someone yelled, light from the hallway streaming in behind her.
“As I was saying,” her new science teacher said, glowering at her. He didn’t ask for a late pass, didn’t ask for her name, so Quinn stumbled her way to the only open seat: the front row, next to the dusty hot vent of the projector bulb.
“Just because it’s Founder’s Day Weekend doesn’t mean there won’t be a test on Monday,” the teacher said, crossing thin arms across his chest.
The classroom around Quinn groaned as one. “But Mr. Vern . . . ,” someone muttered.
“Stop it. Stop that,” Mr. Vern said, stepping into the spotlight of the projector, his mustached upper lip quivering. Mr. Vern wasn’t wearing a sweater vest, but Quinn felt sure that the man owned more than a few. He uncrossed his arms. “We’re a month into the school year. Exams happen. Time for all you juniors and seniors to grow up and deal with it.” Juniors and seniors? Wait, was this a mixed class? Were some of the kids around Quinn in the darkness juniors?
The class groaned again. Someone in the back, hidden in the dark, let slip more loudly than he probably meant to, “What a dick . . .”
“Okay,” Mr. Vern was quick to snap, leaning forward. “If that’s going to be your attitude, clear your desks and we’ll have the test today instead.”
Sighs and scoffs surrounded her.
“Mr. Vern?” a voice asked above the murmurs. Quinn turned to see a hand raised, phosphorescent pink nail polish glinting as Quinn’s eyes adjusted to the dim room.
“Yes, Janet,” Mr. Vern said, exasperated. Quinn couldn’t see much, but from the outline of her profile Janet had smooth skin and glistening lips. A valley girl who’d found herself in the wrong valley?
“Well, I’ve been looking over the syllabus,” Janet began, pausing dramatically to flip open the large, organized three-ring binder in front of her. The binder was as well put together as its owner, a reflection of exactitude. “And it says that the first exam will cover nutrition and, uh, we haven’t even touched on that yet. Nutrition is chapter 12 in the textbook. Were we expected to be reading out of order?”
“That, that—” Mr. Vern started, his hands flailing as if trying to grab the answer out of the air just in front of him. “That must be a misprint. Must be from an old syllabus.”
“Oh, I figured that. Just wanted to double-check,” Janet said, a smile in her voice like she’d just won the argument. No further questions, Your Honor. Quinn suspected the point wasn’t to be right so much as it was to fluster the teacher.
“So, wait,” another voice cut in, this one behind Quinn’s left shoulder. She turned in her seat and saw the meathead guy who was walking behind Cole earlier. He somehow looked even bigger in the harsh shadows cast by the projector lamp. It was like he and his desk had fused together in the dark and become one big inky blot. “Mr. Vern. You mean to say that we aren’t going to be tested on nutrition?”
“No,” the teacher said with a sigh. “No, Tucker, you aren’t.”
“That’s not fair! I’ve been studying the wrong thing, then.”
“You haven’t been studying anything!” Mr. Vern shot back. With a few stomps, the teacher crossed the room and flicked on the overhead lights. There was a smile on his lips as the class grumbled against the sudden burst of the fluorescent bulbs. Quinn thought he meant the lights to seem defiant, but really, to her, it felt like an admission of defeat, the house lights brightening when the show was over.