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exhaustion barrier and now everything had become funny.
    Hergie wrote them hall passes, so the two friends took their time getting to their first classes. Having a hall pass from Mr. Hergeshimer was like getting one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets—a student could go anywhere and do anything for a full period and not one teacher would put up a stink.
    In the cafeteria they got oranges for Helen’s low blood sugar, and while they were at it they split a chocolate chip muffin. Helen choked it down and miraculously started to feel better. Then they went and stood in front of the six-foot-tall fan in the auditorium to cool down, taking turns singing into the whirling blades and listening to each other’s voices get chopped into a hundred pieces until they were both laughing their faces off.
    Helen felt so giddy after playing hooky on a Hergie hall pass and eating raw sugar on an empty stomach that she couldn’t even remember what class she was supposed to be going to. She and Claire were casually strolling down the wrong hallway at the wrong time when the bell signaling the end of first period rang. They looked at each other and shrugged as if to say, “Oh well, what can you do?” and burst out laughing. Then Helen saw Lucas for the first time.
    The sky outside finally exhaled all of the wind that it had been holding for two days. Gusts of stale, hot air pushed through every open window into the sweltering school. It caught loose sheets of paper, skirt hems, unbound hair, stray wrappers, and other odds and ends, and tossed them all toward the ceiling like hats on graduation day. For a moment it seemed to Helen that everything stayed up there, frozen at the top of the arc, as weightless as space.
    Lucas was standing in front of his locker about twenty feet away, staring back at Helen while the world waited for gravity to switch back on. He was tall, over six feet at least, and powerfully built, although his muscles were long and lean instead of bulky. He had short, black hair and a dark end-of-summer tan that brought out his white smile and his swimming-pool blue eyes.
    Meeting his eyes was an awakening. For the first time in Helen’s life she knew what pure, heart-poisoning hatred was.
    She was not aware of the fact that she was running toward him, but she could hear the voices of the three sobbing sisters rise into a keening wail, could see them standing behind the tall, dark boy she knew was Lucas, and the smaller, brown-haired boy next to him. The sisters were tearing at their hair until it came out of their scalps in bloody hanks. They pointed accusing fingers at the two boys while they screeched a series of names—the names of people murdered long ago. Helen suddenly understood what she had to do.
    In the split second it took for her to close the gap between them, Helen saw the other boy lunge at her, but he was stopped by Lucas, who threw out an arm and sent him flying back into the lockers behind them. Then her whole body stopped and strained.
    “Cassandra! Stay where you are,” Lucas called over Helen’s shoulder, his face no more than an inch away from hers. “She’s very strong.”
    Helen’s arms burned and the little bones in her wrists felt like they were grinding together. Lucas was holding her by the wrists to keep her hands away from his neck, she realized. They were locked in a stalemate, and if she could get her fingers half an inch closer, she could reach his throat.
    And then what? a little voice in her head asked. Choke the life out of him! answered another.
    Lucas’s achingly blue eyes widened in surprise. Helen was winning. One of her long nails grazed the pulsing skin covering the fat artery she itched to slit. Then, before she could process what was happening, Lucas spun her around and clamped her to his chest, restraining her arms against her breast and standing between her legs. The position he’d forced her into kept her off balance and unable to bring her heel down on his instep. She