Halo Read Online Free PDF Page B

and realized that the jumble of numbers and letters may as well have been written in a foreign language for all the sense they made to me. V. CHES11 —how on earth was I supposed to decipher that? I even considered ducking through the crowd and making my way back to Byron Street.
    “Excuse me.” I caught the attention of a girl with a tumble of titian curls who was striding past. She stopped and surveyed me with interest. “I’m new,” I explained helplessly, holding out my schedule. “Can you tell me what this means?”
    “It means you have chemistry with Mr. Velt in room S-eleven,” she said. “It’s just down the hall. I’ll take you if you like—we’re in the same class.”
    “Thanks,” I said with obvious relief.
    “Do you have a spare after chem? If you do I can show you around.”
    “A what?” I asked, my confusion growing.
    “A spare—as in a free period?” The girl gave me a funny look. “What did you call them at your old school?” Her face changed as she considered a more disturbing possibility. “Or didn’t you have any?”
    “No,” I replied with a nervous laugh. “We didn’t.”
    “That must’ve sucked. I’m Molly, by the way.”
    The girl was beautiful with glowing skin, rounded features, and bright eyes. Her rosiness reminded me of a girl in a painting I’d seen, a shepherdess in a bucolic setting.
    “Bethany,” I said with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”
    Molly waited patiently at my locker while I rummaged through my bag for the relevant textbook, a spiral notebook, and a handful of pens. Part of me wanted to call Gabriel back and ask him to take me home. I could almost feel his strong arms encircling me, hiding me from everything, and steering me back to Byron. Gabriel had a way of making me feel safe, no matter what the circumstances were. But I didn’t know how to find him in this vast school; he could have been behind any of the numberless doors in any one of the identical corridors; I had no idea how to find the music wing. I silently reproved myself for my dependence on Gabriel. I needed to survive here on a daily basis without his protection, and I was determined to show him that I could. Molly opened the classroom door and we walked in. Of course, we were late.
    Mr. Velt was a short, bald man with a shiny forehead. He was wearing a sweater patterned with geometric shapes that looked like it had faded from overwashing. When Molly and I came in, he was in the middle of trying to explain a formula scrawled on the whiteboard to a bunch of students, whose vacant faces indicated they wished they were anywhere but in his classroom.
    “Glad you could join us, Miss Harrison,” he said to Molly, who slunk quickly to the back of the room. Having already checked the roll he seemed to know who I was.
    “Late on your first day, Miss Church,” he said, clicking his tongue and raising an eyebrow in reprimand. “Not exactly off to a good start. Hurry up and sit down.”
    Suddenly he remembered he had forgotten to introduce me. He stopped writing long enough to make a perfunctory introduction. “Everyone, this is Bethany Church. She’s new to Bryce Hamilton, so please do your utmost to make her feel welcome.”
    Almost every pair of eyes in the room followed me as I took the last seat available. It was at the back next to Molly, and when Mr. Velt stopped talking and told us to work through the next set of questions, I was able to study her more closely. I saw now that she wore the top button of her school dress undone and large silver hoops in her ears. She had drawn an emery board from her pocket and was filing her nails under the desk, blatantly ignoring our teacher’s instructions.
    “Don’t worry about Velt,” she whispered, seeing my look of surprise. “He’s a total stiff, bitter and twisted after his wife served the divorce papers. The only thing that gets him going these days is his new convertible, which he looks like a loser driving.” She grinned,