Read Autumn Falls for Free Online

leaning back as hard as I can. If it does open, I’m going to go sprawling. I feel the prickle of flop sweat under my arms.
    “You guys, I can’t get this open.”
    “Did you dial the combination right?” Jack asks.
    “Oh, right, I should have thought of that,” I say sarcastically. “I dialed it right
six times
. It won’t open.”
    “Let me try,” J.J. offers. I let him take my place, then read him off the numbers. He dials them slowly, and then, in a sudden burst, he yanks down hard on the combination lock.
    “Ow! I think I sprained my shoulder!”
    Jack and I laugh while J.J. bounces back, shaking out his arm.
    “Seriously?” he says to me. “I was doing that for you!”
    “I know. I’m sorry,” I say, trying to compose myself. “You were just so cool about the whole thing, and then—”
    “Hey!” Amalita marches down the hall in a bright purple stretchy dress and turquoise chandelier earrings. “Where have you people been? I’ve been out on the lawn by myself.”
    “Autumn broke her lock,” Jack says.
    “I didn’t break it, it won’t open,” I say.
    “Leave it,” she says. “We’ve got to get to class.”
    Sure enough, the halls are emptying around us. I’m starting to sweat again. “I can’t. My French textbook is in there. This is the only time I can get it between now and second period.”
    “It’s okay,” J.J. says. “We’ll cut off the lock.”
    I have no idea how he intends to do that, but he stays with me while Amalita and Jack head off to homeroom. Inthe end, J.J. doesn’t actually cut the lock, but he does find the janitor. The man is watching TV in the custodial lounge and takes his own sweet time meandering down the hall, dragging a massive pair of bolt-cutters. The actual snipping takes about a second, after which I grab my books, say good-bye to J.J., and race down the hall to homeroom.
    Late again, and this time a sweaty mess. Naturally, Sean is one of the many people who wheel around to get a good look.
    “Autumn Falls … short of the mark again?” Ms. Knowles reads off the attendance sheet as I slip into the one open seat. It’s in the back row, but as everyone laughs at the oh-so-clever quip, Reenzie Tresca spins around in her seat.
    And winks.
    And I get it.
    “She changed my lock,” I tell Amalita, J.J., and Jack at lunch. I take an angry bite of my cheese sandwich.
    “I told you, you’re on her list,” Amalita says, shrugging.
    “It’s possible,” J.J. says between bites of his pork roll. “She’d have had to come to school late yesterday or early today, snip off your lock, and put on a new one.”
    “Usually they dumb-lock people. It gets old,” Jack says as he scrolls through Instagram photos.
    “But I didn’t do anything. How come you’re not on her list?” I ask Amalita. “You’re in her face all the time.”
    “She stole my best friend,” Amalita says vehemently. “
She’s
on
my
list.”

    “What is it with these people and lists?” Jenna asks me later when I call her. School’s over and I’m on the bus that will take me to Eddy’s place. I considered blowing it off, but I promised, so I’ll go. Briefly.
    “I don’t know,” I say as the bus passes a cherry-red Porsche with a Maltese hanging out the window. “You and I never had lists. No one we knew had lists. Now it’s like
Scarface
. They’re very vengeful here.”
    “Must be the humidity,” Jenna says. We talk for a few minutes and then I realize I’m at my stop and we say good-bye.
    The bus lets me out right in front of Century Acres. Despite its name, the place doesn’t sprawl over acres of land. It’s big, but it’s a single building, with high ceilings and three floors of apartments that branch off from the main lobby in two long wings.
    When I walk inside, I’m assaulted by piano music. The lobby opens up to a spacious lounge, with couches plus rows of folding chairs. Every seat is filled, and elderly men and women smile and clap in time to the