Read Crossing for Free Online Page B

“I guarantee you. You watch.”
    No matter how late it was, we ended the lessons in the same way. He would sigh, glance my way, and say, “You know you’re not going to get the role, Kris. It’s beyond my power. The decision’s not mine to make.” I would nod at that, but I wonder if he ever sensed the quickening beat of my heart, the thinning of my lips. For I had my own plan. I would become so spectacular, prove myself to be such a prodigy, that my singing would expose Anthony Hasbourd for the charlatan he was. Then they would simply have to replace him with me. Then they would want to. The thought made me giddy, drunk with excitement: that I would one day supplant him by “popular demand.” Popular. Demand. These two words were alien and foreign and had never applied to me, but they were words that thrilled me, nonetheless, to death.

OCTOBER 22
     
    W inston Barnes was the next student murdered. I didn’t really know him even though he’d sat next to me for weeks now. He was a shy boy, kept mostly to himself. During class he usually sat hunched over his desk, rarely looking up from his books. But he was always listening, his skinny elbows jutting outwards like white ears. He still let his mom cut his hair, and it showed. But he was a smart kid. Some said that come graduation in three years, he’d be giving Naomi a run for her money for class valedictorian. I didn’t think so. She was Harvard quality, and he was merely a Cornell or Columbia. They got along well enough with each other, and I’d catch them in conversation every so often, discussing homework and whatnot. When he was with Naomi, he was like a different person. Positively chatty, as a matter of fact. Once, he bumped into us in the food court at the mall. I had to go somewhere, but when I returned half an hour later, he was still there talking to Naomi. Jeez.
    I saw arrogance in him once, though. He was ribbing the new girl, Jan Blair, about a D-she’d received on a test, waving his A+ in her face. It seemed so out of character. Other than that, he was the kind of guy whose niceness made you want to throw up in your mouth a little.
    Which was why his behavior that Wednesday afternoon was so inexplicable.
    It was during yet another interminable, mind-numbingly boring class with Miss Winters, and half the class was drifting to sleep.
    I was the first to notice. It started with my desk vibrating, humming ever so slightly. I glanced over at Winston; he was bobbing his leg up and down in agitation.
    I grabbed the corners of my desk, steadying it, and turned to look at Winston again. His kneecap jerked against the desk harder, faster; an eraser fell off his desk, jostled by the constant shaking. He turned his head towards the window, but it was a slow, laborious act as if a giant elastic band restricted his movement. Something outside must have caught his attention; even from behind, I could see his body stiffen suddenly. I craned my neck past him and scanned the scenery outside. There was nothing but the wide-open spaces of the snow-laden baseball diamond. A few branches swayed ever so slightly. The sun shone unabashedly. The school flag lay limp against the pole, lifeless.
    He began to tremble now, his arms gripping the top of his desk as if he were capsizing. The whites of his knuckles blended with the glare of snow outside. A whimper escaped his mouth.
    The room seemed to turn prickly with anticipation, as if an electric charge were building. The colors of the room drained to gray; the contours of the furniture around me tightened. It was as if—
    “Miss Winters!” shouted Winston. His voice exploded out like a cannon, startling the class. “Miss Winters!”
    “Winston?” Miss Winters asked, jolted pale. She glanced outside the window. “What is it?”
    “Miss Winters! Miss Winters!”
    “What? Whatever is the matter, Winston?” There was genuine panic in her voice; her right hand dabbed her O-shaped mouth as with a napkin.
    He stood up at