A Hideous Beauty Read Online Free PDF

call at the earliest opportunity.”
    Straining to keep the frustration from my voice I left another message. “Christina . . . Grant. What’s going on? I can’t stress how urgent it is I talk to you. This isn’t a personal call. Call me back . . . please.”
    A motorcycle blasted past me with an earsplitting roar, drowning out the last of my message. I repeated it.
    As the sun broke over the mountains, I squinted against its glare. The flow of arriving students was increasing. I watched as broods of them—looking like Eloi marching blandly to their doom—filtered between rows of cars heading for their homerooms. That is, if they still had homerooms like we did in my day.
    A breeze swept through the car. It didn’t stink. I was acclimating to the odor of this world. In exchange, the memory of my brush with glory was dimming.
    What hadn’t dimmed yet was the terror I felt when I was curled up on the floor.
    I am Semyaza. Tremble before me.
    Reaching for the door latch, I got out of the car. Like it or not, I had to face the fear. I had to go back to that classroom. I had to know if what I’d experienced was real.

    I waited ten minutes after the buzzer for the hallways to clear, wanting to avoid the stir of odors of so many bodies, some of them pungent under normal circumstances. The reason for my delay was more than just personal comfort. I didn’t want to riskretching in front of the entire student body. The run-in with the pole yesterday was enough embarrassment for one visit.
    Passing open classroom doors, I heard the familiar sounds of another school day—attendance-taking, calls for reports and homework assignments to be passed to the front of the room, chatter across the aisles.
    The door to Myles Shepherd’s classroom was closed. I risked peeking inside the window.
    At the front of the class a middle-aged woman with premature streaks of gray clutched her hands and attempted to get the students’ attention. She looked like someone’s mother. “Class? Class?” Her voice had a cartoon quality to it, not quite Marge Simpson, but similar. It was obvious she didn’t make her living teaching high school students.
    â€œClass? If I could have your attention, please . . . please, your attention . . . your teacher, Mr. Shepherd, has been delayed. Due to an accident on the freeway, traffic is backed up. Many teachers have called in. They’ll get here as soon as they can. In the meantime, I’ve been instructed to tell you that you are to read the next chapter in your . . .”
    None of the students was listening to her. As soon as they heard Shepherd was delayed, the room exploded with conversation.
    High school classrooms are jungles. Survival depends on strength, cunning, speed, and wit. This poor woman had none of these qualities. They were eating her alive.
    Leaving her to her fate, I made my way toward the administration building. The backed-up line out the door resembled a morning commute. Most of the kids clutched blue slips of paper, but not all of them.
    â€œYou don’t have a blue slip?” I heard one of them say as I passed. “You have to have a blue slip to get back into class, dude. They won’t let you back into class without a blue slip.”
    Cutting through the line, I stepped inside.
    A squat man in gray slacks, a white short-sleeved shirt, and with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair spied an unauthorized movement out of the corner of his eye. His head snapped up to challenge me.
    I remembered him from yesterday. Vice Principal Benton, or Benson. It took him a moment to recognize me. When he did, his scowl transformed into a public relations grin. “Austin! Didn’t expect to see you again so soon! To what do we owe the honor of this encore appearance?”
    â€œActually, I was just in Myles Shepherd’s room and—”
    â€œAh yes! Come in! Come