Nightwitch Read Online Free PDF Page A

with her mother. Because she knew if she let him get away with it once, it would never end.
    “ I didn’t do so good.” She showed him her paper with the red check mark next to every answer. She bit her lower lip, feeling bad about failing the test, but secretly satisfied that Brad had.
    “ You are one stupid girl. I should have known better than to copy from you. Shit.” He turned away as the class was passing the papers forward to be collected by Miss Sadler. She watched the back of his head till the shade of his ears turned from red back to pale white. He was used to failing tests, but still he had been one mad, mad bully.
    For the next half hour Miss Sadler talked about the animals that lived on the African plain. She had been raised in Kenya and she loved talking about it, but Carolina was only half listening. She bit her lip more and fought back tears. She wasn’t going to Disneyland with her mother. Now they would never get to talk things out. They would never be like they were. They would grow farther apart, instead of closer. And it was all Brad Peters’ fault. She hated him as much as she hated her mother’s boyfriends.
    The bell sounded and the first recess came and it went. Then more talk of elephants and zebras. The lunch bell. She ate by herself in the cafeteria. Then more of Miss Sadler, this time math. The bell again and second recess came and was gone. Only an hour to go and Miss Sadler was droning on about family values. Carolina listened, with only half attention, until the final bell.
    She opened her desk, dropped her book, pencil and papers into to it, closed it, sighed, stuck her lower lip out, blew the hair out of her eyes and looked at the clock. Three-ten, she stood up, stretched, and with a delicate move, reached out for the backpack she had so carefully draped over the back of her chair. Then she started for the door.
    “ Carolina,” Miss Sadler called.
    “ Yes, ma’am.”
    “ I want you to stay after for a few minutes.”
    Oh no, she thought. She’d looked at the tests. I’m in trouble now. But when she looked in the teacher’s eyes she didn’t see the fire she knew Miss Sadler was capable of. “I didn’t so well, did I?” she said.
    “ Are you asking me or telling me?” Was she hearing right. Were those lips curving up into a smile.
    “ Ta, telling I guess,” Carolina stammered.
    “ I saw you showing the answers to Mr. Peters.” She always called you by your last name when she caught you doing something wrong, like passing notes, or talking when her back was turned, or not doing your homework. The fact that she called Brad by his last name and herself by her first, gave Carolina hope.
    “ I, I—” she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to lie and she didn’t want to tell. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    “ What’s the capital of Nevada?” Miss Sadler shot out.
    “ Carson City,” Carolina answered without thinking.
    “ Florida?”
    “ Tallahassee.”
    “ New York?”
    “ Albany.”
    “ Just as I thought. You wrote the wrong answers on purpose. Don’t answer, I won’t make you tell.” As a teacher, she was the best Carolina had ever had. She had always been fair. She never made anyone stay after unless they really deserved it, never gave too much homework and never, ever raised her voice, even when she was mad, but it didn’t make any difference now. She’d failed the test. She wasn’t going to Disneyland. Her mother was going to be so disappointed.
    “ I’m sorry,” Carolina said. “I don’t have any excuse for what I did.”
    “ Oh, yes you do. I’m guessing that Brad made you show him the answers. I don’t know how he did it. You had to show him the answers, but you didn’t have to show him the right ones, did you?”
    “ No.” Miss Sadler was so smart.
    “ I’m also guessing he won’t ever ask to copy off of you again. That was your plan, wasn’t it?”
    “ Yes,” Carolina whispered.
    “ You get an A. Brad gets an