Page 28

CHAPTER 27

“WHEN ARE YOU going to go to the class you’re supposed to be in?” I ask my brother as he follows me into Ms. Tillman’s room.

“Never,” he says. He waves to Ms. Tillman, snatches a book from her desk, and wanders over to the corner beanbag.

“Remember to cite textual evidence, people,” Ms. Tillman calls to the rest of us. “Don’t tell me that Hamlet can’t make up his mind without quoting his famous ‘To be or not to be’ speech. Although I hope your essay topics will be slightly less obvious than that.”

I sink down into my desk. I’ve never written an essay before, and I don’t really want to start now.

Outside I can hear two ravens calling to each other. The thing about a raven’s call is that it can sound like a kid screaming.

I feel like screaming. What am I doing here? I should be in the woods, watching spring explode all around me.

“You have forty-five minutes,” Ms. Tillman says. “Drafts will be graded.”

I look around at the other students. How many of them could cache rainwater, start a fire with a handmade bow drill, or skin a big buck?

None , that’s how many. They’re helpless and lazy, and they can’t peel their eyeballs away from their phones long enough to spot prey, let alone hunt it.

Maybe Julissa had the right idea. Not by going out with Carl, obviously, but by refusing to regularly attend Kokanee Creek High School.

“ Arghhhhhhhh! ” the raven screams. “ Oarghhhhhhhh! ” calls his friend.

I want to be outside. I want the sky as my roof.

“Focus, Kai,” Mrs. Tillman says.

I sigh and pick up my pen. Instead of writing, I draw a pair of eyes at the top corner of my paper. Then a long dark snout. Fangs.

“That doesn’t look like textual evidence,” Waylon whispers.

He’s taken the desk next to mine, and I’ve been trying to ignore him. I was doing pretty well for a while.

I cover my paper with my forearm. “No looking.”

He raises one dark eyebrow. Smirks a little. “Are you afraid I’m going to copy your answers?”

“Very funny.”

“I thought so, too.”

When he gives me a full-on smile, my stomach jumps like a fish. I angle away from him. Still blocking my paper from his view, I draw a furry body. A wagging tail. Pricked, eager ears.

“What do you think about ol’ Hamlet?” Waylon asks.

“I don’t think about him at all.”

“Personally, I think if you put him in a forest,” Waylon says, “he’d debate about whether or not to kill a rabbit until he starved to death.”

“Then he’s an idiot.”

“Waylon,” Ms. Tillman calls, “are you distracting your neighbor?”

“Define ‘distract,’” he says sweetly.

Ms. Tillman rolls her eyes. “Cease and desist, Mr. Meloy,” she says.

“Sure, no problem,” he says. He’s quiet for no more than fifteen seconds before he turns to me and whispers, “‘Why, what an ass am I!’” He taps the cover of his Shakespeare book. “That’s a Hamlet line, you know.”

“Waylon,” Ms. Tillman warns.

“Sorry.”

We work quietly for the rest of the class. Well, Waylon does; I keep listening to the ravens and drawing. I’m going to fail this class. But I’m not going to pretend that I care. I know how to survive —what class can teach me anything more important than that?

“You’re a good artist,” Waylon whispers.

He’s leaning close, and I can smell him. Soap and toothpaste and warm, human skin. His attention makes me jittery. I feel vulnerable—and that’s not something an animal ever wants to feel.

I bare my teeth at him and growl.