All Unquiet Things Read Online Free PDF Page A

shady place underneath the bleachers to read and wait out first period. “Hey, where were you this morning? Phyllis assigned lab partners.”
    “Oh yeah? Who’d you get?” I didn’t want to tell him about the article.
    “You, you moron. She almost didn’t let me because you were missing, but I turned on the charm and she was conquered. Although,” he continued, “she advised me to inform my partner that AP does not stand for ‘absences permitted.’ So, in other words, show your ass up from now on.”
    “Will do. Any homework?”
    Harvey scoffed. “Please, dude, this is Phyllis . We’re supposed to split the atom before Thursday.”
    “Copy the syllabus for me during your office hour?”
    “Fine. Are you coming to our next class, or you planning on spending the whole day wandering campus? Because if that’s your intention, I would suggest going home.”
    “Thinking about it,” I said, squinting into the sun.
    The newspaper article was in my back pocket. I don’t know why I didn’t just throw it in the trash. I had considered who might have been behind the little gift. At first I wondered about Audrey, but chucked that idea almost immediately; we weren’t on the friendliest terms, especially considering howcold I’d been to her that morning in the library, but she wasn’t the type to put energy into unnecessary malice. Finally I figured it must have been someone from Audrey and Carly’s old group of friends, specifically BMOC Adam Murray. He disliked me on principle, considering me one of the eggheads he was, by virtue of his popularity, bound by duty to hassle whenever it was convenient. But he had another big reason to give me a hard time: He was Carly’s boyfriend right before she died. He was the guy she dumped me for.
    Ever since Carly’s murder, rumors had run rampant about me. Even though someone else had been tried and found guilty, there were always whispers: How is it that he was the one who found her? What was he doing there? Didn’t they used to go out? What if he killed her? There was no doubt in my mind that Adam and the rest of Carly’s old friends—if you could call them that—were the ones who started people talking. I would’ve been more upset, but the unintended effect of the rumors was that they gave me what I wanted—my privacy—because very few people wanted to hang out with or talk to me after that. Except for Harvey. His willful ignorance of any and all school gossip was a fireproof blanket wrapped around my shoulders, one that I accepted with no hesitation whatsoever. It was worth coming to school to be reminded of that.
    “What’s up, man? You’re clearly not on today. Somebody forget to flip your switch this morning?” Harvey asked.
    I shook my head. “No sleep.”
    “Video games?” Harvey said, nodding his head in a show of sympathy.
    “Yep,” I lied.
    “Same here. But I got a latte before school, so I’m alert. You should look into large doses of caffeine, my man, if you’regoing to maintain the virtual lifestyle. I do a run every morning if you ever want me to pick you up something.” He gave me a soft punch in the shoulder. “I’m going to catch up with Jules on the quad before nap time. Save me a seat in the back.”
    We had AP English next (nap time for Harvey, who favored the hard sciences), so I headed over to the humanities building, hoping that they’d fixed the Coke machine over the summer. They hadn’t. I was early for class; even Carmen, our teacher, wasn’t there yet. I took a seat near the door, as far from the blackboard as possible, and put my bag on the one next to it.
    Carmen came in first, her arms full of books, several of which toppled to the floor as she crossed the threshold. I picked them up for her and placed them on her desk, where she dumped her own armload. Wheezing from the effort, Carmen smiled her thanks at me and I headed back to my seat.
    “Wait, Neily!” she called. I turned.
    “Take one,” she said. I took a