Read You for Free Online

right.” Next day, of course, he didn’t say a thing about it.
    So you walk into the library and there’s a ninth-grade English class over by the magazines, supposedly doing research but mostly just screwing around. You do a quick check of the room. You don’t see anybody you hang with, so you head toan empty table over by the science books, a part of the library nobody is likely to visit. On the way you grab a magazine off the rack— Maclean’s —push out a chair with your foot and slump down, ready to kill forty-seven minutes.
    You’re two paragraphs into a story about the Canadian Army when you sense someone standing by the table. You look up.
    What if you hadn’t looked up? What if you’d just kept on reading, ignored him until he went away? Or what if when you saw him, you’d taken off, left him there to find someone else to kill time with? Or stood up and sucker punched him before he said a thing? All right, that wouldn’t have happened, but it all seems so random, doesn’t it?
    You look up.
    He’s about your age, maybe a bit bigger than you. He’s wearing a bright red shirt under a black sport coat—the kind your father would wear—top button open and no tie. The shirt’s tucked into a pair ofjeans that are not as baggy as the kind you wear. A dork by anybody’s standards. He looks at you for a second, then smiles this strange smile.
    â€œMy name is Zack,” he says, “and I’ll be your waiter today. Would you like to hear the specials or should I just start you off with something from the bar?”
    You look at him and you can feel yourself scowling. The last thing you need is some retarded kid hanging around. Except he doesn’t look retarded. He’s standing there, his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his jeans, shoulders relaxed, way too cool to be retarded.
    So he must be queer.
    You say as much under your breath, loud enough for him to hear, adding a few of the appropriate F-words.
    He sighs and shakes his head. “Such a predictable first guess. Sorry, wrong answer. But it’s still your turn.” He reaches over and spins a chair around andsits down at the corner of your table. “Try ‘Bizarre New Kid’ for a hundred points.”
    You ignore him and think about moving, but you were here first. You flip the page in the magazine and act as if you’re reading the ad.
    â€œLet’s see, Watson,” he says, and now he’s pretending to have a British accent. “Black T-shirt, black hooded sweatshirt, baggy black pants, fashionably unkempt hair, horned skull ring on one hand, fingernails bitten down to nubs, sullen piss-off expression…yes, quite obvious. At some schools they’re called the Freaks, at others the Burnouts, at one school in the east they’re referred to as the F-U tribe, as that is their traditional greeting.” He leans in on the table as if to get a closer look at you. “Here at venerable Midlands High, I believe the species is known as the Hoodies.”
    Head down, you look over at him. You want to reach out and smack that smug smile off his face, but if you got in a fight your first day back, yourparents would seriously kill you. You look down at the magazine and realize you were staring at an ad for Viagra. You flick the page so hard it rips.
    â€œI know, I’m amazing, but you’ll get used to it in time.” He drops the accent, pauses long enough so that he knows you’re listening, and says, “Trust me, I know you will. Mr. Kyle Chase.”
    Your head snaps up—it’s instinct—and you look at him, trying to look hard, but you can’t keep the surprise out of your eyes. He’s got your attention now and he knows it. He flashes his eyebrows up and down several times, that same stupid smile on his face.
    No, not a smile. A smirk.
    â€œYou are Kyle Chase, fifteen, of 122 Woodbine Lane, aren’t