“HENDRICKS, THAT SKIRT VIOLATES THE DRESS CODE ON SEVERAL LEVELS.”
“But it’s the first day of school, and I didn’t know—”
“BULLSHIT.”
I stared, wide-eyed, at Mr. Gunthrie, praying nothing about him was a figment of my imagination. Either he was badass, or I was dreaming.
“GO CHANGE, NOW.”
With a huff, Celia stomped out of the room. Mr. Gunthrie sighed and returned to his list. A few more people shifted places.
“MILES RICHTER.”
Miles yawned as he dragged his tall self across the room. He fell into his new seat. There were only two people left—me and a girl who’d been talking to Clifford before class had started. Maybe, just maybe, her last name would be between Ric-and Rid-.
“ALEXANDRA RIDGEMONT.”
Damn.
Everyone turned to look at me as I sat down behind Miles. If they hadn’t noticed me before, they did now—and the hair. Oh, the hair . . .
Stop it, idiot! It’s fine, they’re not looking at you. Okay, they are looking at you. But they’re not coming after you. You’re okay. Everything’s okay.
“Alex is fine,” I said weakly.
“MARIA WOLF.”
“Ria!” the last girl said, almost skipping to her spot behind me. Her strawberry blond ponytail jumped happily as she went.
Mr. Gunthrie tossed the class list back onto his desk and stood at the front of the room, hands clasped behind his back, square jaw high.
“TODAY WE WILL HAVE PAIR DISCUSSIONS OF YOUR SUMMER READING. I WILL PICK THE PAIRS. THERE WILL BE NO SWITCHING, TRADING, OR COMPLAINING. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?”
“YES, SIR!”
“GOOD.”
As if he remembered all of our names after only seeing them once, Mr. Gunthrie pulled pairs out of thin air.
Being stuck in the seat behind Miles was my payment for getting to be partners with Tucker, I guess.
“I didn’t know you’d be in my class!” I said when I raced out of my seat and slid into the chair behind his. He was the one person in this room who didn’t give me the creeps. “And you weren’t lying about this place.”
“People around these parts don’t lie about a thing like that.” Tucker tipped an imaginary ten-gallon hat. “And you didn’t tell me you were going to be in AP English. I could’ve told you. Mr. Gunthrie teaches the only one in the school.” He held up the papers he’d scribbled on. “I already finished the discussion. He does the same first assignment every year. Hope you don’t mind.” He paused, frowning over my shoulder. “God. Hendricks is doing that thing again. I don’t even see why she likes him.”
Celia Hendricks, who’d returned wearing a baggy pair of black sweatpants, was leaning over her chair and doing some weird flips with her hair and whisper-calling Miles, who had his back to her. When he ignored her, she began launching balled-up pieces of notebook paper at his head.
“Why do you hate him so much?” I asked Tucker.
“I don’t know if ‘hate’ is the right word,” he replied. “‘Am afraid of him,’ ‘wish he’d stop staring,’ and ‘think he’s a lunatic’ are more accurate.”
“Afraid of him?”
“The whole school is.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s impossible to know what’s going on in his head.” Tucker looked back to me. “Have you ever seen a person completely change? Like, completely completely? So much that they don’t even have the same facial expressions they used to? That’s what happened to him.”
I hesitated at Tucker’s sudden seriousness. “Sounds creepy.”
“It was creepy.” Tucker concentrated on a design someone had etched into his desktop. “And then, he, you know. Had to be the best . . .”
“You . . . wait a minute . . . he’s the valedictorian?”
I knew Tucker didn’t like the valedictorian, but during his rants at work he’d never said who it was. Just that the kid didn’t deserve it.
“It’s not even that he’s beating me!” Tucker hissed, casting a quick look back at Miles. “It’s that he doesn’t try. He doesn’t even have to read the book! He just knows everything! I mean, he was sort of like that in middle school, but he was never the best. Half the time he didn’t do his work because he thought it was pointless.”
I looked back at Miles. He and Claude had apparently finished their discussion, and he’d fallen asleep on his desk. Someone had taped a paper sign to his back that said “Nazi” in black marker.
I shivered. I liked researching Nazis as much as the next war historian, but I would never use the term as a nickname. Nazis scared the daylights out of me. Either everyone at this school was an idiot, or Miles Richter really was as bad as Tucker was making him out to be.
“He has this ridiculous club, too,” Tucker said. “The East Shoal Recreational Athletics Support Club. It’s just the sort of obnoxious name he’d pick.”
I swallowed the sudden unease in my throat. I knew the club name, but I hadn’t known it was his club. The sign on Miles’s back rose and fell with his breathing.
“Um. Hey.” Tucker nudged me. “Don’t let him try to pull anything on you, okay?”
“Pull anything? Like what?”