Page 19 of The Intruder

BEFORE

ELLA

I hate science class.

I get okay grades because I study (even though my desk is still occupied by the fish tank), but it’s my least favorite class out of everything. And earth science, which is what we’re taking right now, is especially bad because it’s so boring. We are learning about rocks. Seriously, rocks.

Mrs. Bush, whose name everyone in the class finds hilarious, is talking about some project we are supposed to work on involving rock classification. I’m only half listening, because it already sounds super boring. It involves comparing two kinds of rocks. I’m not even kidding.

Then she says that this is a group project. Because comparing rocks is obviously something you can’t do all by yourself. “I’m going to assign you partners to work on this together,” she tells us, and the class collectively groans.

Still, getting assigned partners is better than picking our partners.

Whenever that happens, I always end up not getting one, and then the teacher has to assign me anyway, and it’s embarrassing.

So I’m glad when she decides to assign partners alphabetically.

She gets about a fifth of the way into the assignments when she gets to me.

“Ella,” she says, “you’re going to be with Brittany.”

I sigh with relief. I’m happy about this.

Being partnered up with the most popular girl in the grade is a good thing, especially since Brittany always gets top grades.

She gets an A in every class. Probably because she can actually study since she doesn’t have garbage taking up all the space on her desk at home, and also, she doesn’t spend her evenings locked in a closet.

Funny how that makes homework kind of tough.

But Brittany does not look happy about this turn of events. She crinkles up her pert little nose, like she got paired with one of the worms climbing through the peaches that are still in our closet, and then her hand shoots up in the air.

“Mrs. Bush,” she says. “Crystal and I need to work together because we carpool after school.”

That is such a bullshit excuse. It’s so obvious.

If it were anyone else in the class who said that, Mrs. Bush would have for sure said no way.

But all the teachers love Brittany, so Mrs. Bush looks down at the paper in her hand with all the assignments and gets out her red pen.

“All right then. Ella, you can be with the student I had assigned to Crystal. That’s Anton. ”

Being paired with Anton Peterson is, like, orders of magnitude worse than being with Brittany.

First, he hates me and calls me Smella. Second, he is the worst student in the class and won’t do any of the work on this assignment.

And when I look at him at the other end of the room, he doesn’t look any happier than I do.

Like Brittany, his hand shoots up in the air.

But unlike Brittany, he doesn’t wait for Mrs. Bush to call on him.

“Mrs. Bush,” he says. “I can’t be partners with her either.”

Our teacher peers at him over the upper rim of her reading glasses. “Why not?”

Anton’s brown eyes are wide and sincere as he answers, “Because I can smell her from here, and it makes me want to throw up.”

A few people giggle at that, but it doesn’t make Mrs. Bush change her mind. Even though I really wish she would, because we clearly don’t want to work together.

As soon as the bell rings for class to end, I walk over to Anton’s desk.

He is slowly packing up his stuff, like he has all the time in the world to get to his next class, but really he just doesn’t care about being late.

The green he sprayed in his hair looks brighter today, like he sprayed on another layer.

I can’t even remember his real hair color.

“Hey,” I say. “When do you want to meet to work on this project?”

Anton throws his binder into his backpack. There’s a hole at the bottom right corner, and the lower edge of his binder juts through. “How about never?”

I grit my teeth. “I don’t want to fail this class because you’re lazy.”

“Fine. Then do the stupid rock project by yourself.”

I start to protest, but Anton has already thrown his backpack over his shoulder, and he’s walking out of the classroom. I guess I’m working alone, which is better than spending time with stupid Anton. Good thing I’m used to it.