Losers Read Online Free PDF

start-of-year opportunities. The entire room seemed to gravitate toward a massive central desk with a brass nameplate that said MRS. LEPORE , no title. Behind the plaque was a self-important-looking woman. I handed the note to her without a word.
    Equally without a word, she handed it back and nodded to a glass door across the hallway that said on it, simply, MAYHEW .
    I left the office. There were three chairs next to Mayhew’s door, looking both calm and sinister. Its ambiance was exactly what I remembered from the Russian airport: calm, stale, as if the very walls was saying to us, You may think you’re getting out, but we know the truth: No one ever goes anywhere. Standard classroom chairs, plastic, with desks attached. The two closest to the door were empty.
    Bates was in the third.
    I took the seat that was farthest from him. I sat down quickly, without making eye contact, without looking up at all.
    As if watching a movie, I could see myself sitting there, in third person, feet tucked under the chair, legs and shoulderspulled in tight. I was a pill bug, curling up to protect myself from danger, sheathing myself in the armor of my own skin.
    The heat levels rose at least two degrees (ten, I corrected myself—home was Celsius, school was strictly Fahrenheit land). I could feel Bates train his gaze on me.
    I heard plastic creaking. I heard the sound of a loud, sudden snap.
    I looked over.
    Bates had crossed his legs. Now he was cracking his knuckles, folding the fingers of his big, meaty paws together, resting them in his lap.
    â€œSo,” he said casually, “what are ya in for?”
    My breathing totally stopped. He wasn’t brazen enough to jump me right outside the principal’s office, was he? I contemplated my options: answer honestly ( no ), come up with something wiseass and witty and hope Bates wouldn’t pound me ( no ), jump up and run as far as I could until someone caught me, either Bates or the assistant principal ( no ). I ran over the no s in my head, trying to judge which no was the biggest. I took a chance.
    â€œDWA,” I replied. “Driving while accented.”
    To my surprise, he neither remarked on the patheticness of not even having a decent, manly reason for getting sent here (possible examples: cutting class, a fight, snorting lines of coke in the bathroom), nor did he crack on my half-assed joke.
    He just shrugged.
    â€œWhat about you?” I remembered to ask, my politeness instinct snapping in.
    Bates echoed his own shrug. “They’re keeping me down ‘cause of my religion.”
    For a second, I was sure he was going to tell me that he was caught sacrificing bunnies during lunch period and getting the blood all over the school toilets.
    Then I spotted the enormous wooden rod lying across his lap. It was at least five feet long, curled at the top like the end of a violin, with swirls and globes and curlicues carved into it.
    â€œThey won’t let me carry my staff,” he said, by way of explanation. “In my old school, they used to let me—well, not let me, but nobody asked any questions. Here, they don’t know what to make of it. I mean, it goes through the metal detector fine, but…”
    His voice got choked up at the end, and there was a note of sadness in his words—real sadness, like the feeling I got in the back of my head and the pit of my stomach when I thought about the life I could be leading in Russia with friends who’d understand me and not think I spoke like I was retarded.
    â€œDamn,” I whispered, selecting my words as carefully as a surgeon about to slice. “That must suck.”
    Bates raised his hand up till it was right in front of his head, directly in his line of view. As if in slow motion, he curled his fingers until they were fist-shaped, capped his thumb over them, and cracked it. The crackle was resounding. His mouth and eyebrows clenched, face convulsed, and I could feel him