Read Unearthly for Free Online Page A

like genuine cowboys, complete with Stetsons, pearl buttons on their western-style plaid shirts, too-tight Wranglers, and scuffed cowboy boots.
    Plus, the curriculum is fancy. Sure, you can take an art class, if you feel like learning to draw, but you can also take AP Studio Art, which prepares you to enter Jackson Hole’s lively art scene. There’s a class called Power Sports, which teaches you how to tune up your motorcycle, ATV, or snowmobile. You can learn how to start your own business, draft your dream house, develop your passion for French cuisine, or take your first steps toward becoming an engineer. Just in case you want to get your pilot’s license, the school offers a couple courses in aerodynamics. The world is your oyster at Jackson Hole High.
    It’s definitely going to take some getting used to.
    I thought the other students would be excited to see me, or curious at the very least. I’m fresh meat, after all, and from California, and maybe I have some big-city wisdom to offer the natives. Wrong again. For the most part, they completely ignore me. After I make it through three periods (trigonometry, French III, College Prep Chemistry) where nobody even bothers with a simple howdy, I’m ready to dash for my car and drive straight back to California, where I’ve known everybody for forever and they’ve known me, where right this minute my friends and I would be dishing about our holidays and comparing schedules, and I’d be pretty and popular. Where life is ordinary.
    But then I see him.
    He’s standing with his back to me near my locker. A surge of electricity zings through me as I recognize his shoulders, his hair, the shape of his head. In a flash I’m in the vision, seeing him both in the black fleece jacket among the trees and for real, just down the hall simultaneously, like the vision is a thin veil laid on top of reality.
    I take a step toward him, my mouth opening to call his name. Then I remember that I don’t know it. Like always, it’s as if he hears me anyway and starts to turn, and my heart skips a beat when I don’t wake up but see his face now, his mouth curling up in a half smile as he jokes with the guy next to him.
    He glances up and his eyes meet mine. The hallway melts away. It’s only him and me now, in the forest. The vision comes from behind him, the fire on the hillside roaring toward us, faster than it could ever possibly happen.
    I have to save him, I think.
    That’s when I faint.
    I wake to a girl with long, golden brown hair sitting on the floor next to me, her hand on my forehead, talking in a low voice like she’s trying to calm an animal.
    â€œWhat happened?” I look around for the boy, but he’s gone. Something hard pokes into my back, and I realize I’m lying on my chemistry book.
    â€œYou fell,” says the girl, as if that isn’t obvious. “Do you have epilepsy or something? It looked like you were having some kind of seizure.”
    People are staring. I feel the heat rising in my cheeks.
    â€œI’m okay,” I say, sitting up.
    â€œEasy.” The girl jumps up and reaches down to help me. I take her hand and let her haul me to my feet.
    â€œI’m kind of a klutz,” I say, like that explains it.
    â€œShe’s okay. Go to class,” the girl says to the kids who are still gawking. “Did you eat this morning?” she asks me.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œCould be a blood sugar thing.” She puts her arm around me and steers me down the hallway. “What’s your name?”
    â€œClara.”
    â€œWendy,” she says in response.
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    â€œThe nurse.”
    â€œNo,” I object, breaking free of her arm. I straighten and attempt to smile. “I’m fine, really.”
    The bell rings. Suddenly the hallway’s deserted. Then from around the corner bustles a plump, yellow-haired woman wearing blue nursing