Supervision. Alison Stine

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СКАЧАТЬ to fight to get out into the aisle; kids kept pushing past me, and the driver almost closed the door.

      I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to check in, but I waited around the office for what seemed like forever, until after the first warning bell had sounded and the office cleared. Then I followed the late kids out into the hall. No one asked if they could help me or what I was doing. I didn’t bother finding my locker. I pulled the print-out of my schedule from my pocket, and was searching for room numbers when the tardy bell rang.

      Someone sprinted around a corner and plowed into me.

      I was knocked to my knees. My bag shot off my back and onto the floor, the zipper splitting open. The boy who had knocked me down pushed himself up with a squeal of his sneakers and took off. “Hey,” I said. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

      He dashed around the next corner and was gone.

      “Jerk,” I said.

      In the empty hallway, I stood and gathered my stuff. I collected the loose papers that had fallen from the folder that was supposed to travel with me to the office: my permanent record from New York. Words leapt out at me from the file: distracted … disrespectful … loner … antisocial … underachiever … daydreamer … lives in a fantasy world …

      The words began to blur. No, I would not cry. Not on the first day of school. I shoved the pages back into the folder. Somehow, I found my classroom. A science lab. Students perched at tables, looking bored. There was one empty stool so I took it.

      “All right,” the teacher said. She looked up. She was going to make some sort of announcement, introduce me, something embarrassing.

      I tensed, waiting for it.

      The door shot open and a boy came in, looking flustered. He headed straight for me.

      He ran up to me. Then he sat on me—or tried to, sat right on my stool, on my lap. I pushed him as hard as I could, and he tumbled off the stool onto the ground. He looked up, his face blanching.

      The class laughed, everyone at once. The teacher rolled her eyes and told them to be nice, told the boy to be more careful. He stood and reached for my stool again, and I backed up, scooting the stool with me.

      “Sit in the back, Ron,” the teacher said. “I don’t think that chair likes you.”

      “The chair?” I said. “Hello? I have a name.”

      But Ron moved away, and no one asked me what my name was. The teacher didn’t do an announcement, or give me a book. She didn’t even take roll. She started the class like nothing was different. “So,” she said. “Today we’re going to talk about something that actually matters to us, matters to our history here in Wellstone.”

      “History matters?” some boy said.

      “The locomotive,” the teacher said. “You might be surprised to learn the steam locomotive has something in common with an aircraft carrier. Anyone know what?”

      I looked around. No one knew my name here yet. No one knew my nickname—Miss Wrong—or had given it to me, thinking they were being smart, thinking they were being new. Slowly I raised my hand.

      “The steam locomotive and an aircraft carrier. What do they have in common?”

      I pumped my hand. I waved it.

      “Anyone?” the teacher said.

      “Excuse me?” I said. “They both convert heat into motion.”

      The teacher sighed. “They both convert heat into motion.”

      I lowered my hand.

      “Take out your books,” the teacher said. “I know we’ve all got senioritis here, but there are three weeks left of school and we’re going to make them count. Read chapter twelve to yourselves, please, then we’ll do the questions together.”

      Everyone fumbled with their books. Everyone but me.

      I waited for the teacher to notice. I waited for her to give me a book, to ask my name, to see me. But she never did.

       CHAPTER 3:

       Six Feet

      I raised my hand once in my next class, English, and in the next, Geometry. And then I gave up. I sat out on the bleachers during gym, and no one said anything. At lunch, I sat alone at a table near the back until it was swarmed with cheerleaders in pleated skirts and ponytails, chattering around me.

      At home, I was mocked. I was made fun of. But here, I was ignored. I was invisible.

      This was worse.

      No one spoke to me the whole day until, on the bus ride home, a girl sat down in the seat in front of me. I was watching the window, the gray sameness of the landscape, when her head popped up above the seat. “You must be completely new,” she said.

      I glanced up. Was she actually speaking to me? The girl had long blond hair in waves, and severe features. Her eyebrows were black, a shocking contrast to her hair. She was not smiling.

      I cleared my throat. “I got here yesterday.”

      “I figured. Completely green. So, why are you here?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “What happened to get you sent here? What did you do?”

      I studied the girl. “What did you do?”

      She smiled. “My mother was otherwise occupied. She was working, couldn’t be bothered. And then, well, I went somewhere I wasn’t supposed to go, didn’t I.”

      I smiled. “Me too. Something like that, anyway. I’m Esmé Wong.”

      “Strange name,” the girl said.

      “What’s yours?”

      “Clara Blue.”

      That name wasn’t exactly normal, I thought.

      All around us on the bus, kids laughed and messed around, trying to shove each other off the seats. But Clara Blue studied me, serious and calm. The bus plowed over a bump in the road, and she barely moved. “Well, you’re obvious, Esmé Wong,” she said. “You need to work on that. I’ll help you, don’t worry.” Then she turned back around.

      I couldn’t stop smiling. I had made a friend, one friend. My stop was next and when I passed Clara’s seat, I paused to say goodbye to the girl, but her seat was empty. The bus driver was about to close the doors so I hurried down the aisle and exited. With a jerk, the bus pulled away. Something made me turn to look at it.

      Clara’s face peered at me from the window, round as the moon.

      It got hot in СКАЧАТЬ