No Angel Read Online Free PDF Page A

was better than I could have dreamed. Michaela stared at me as if seeing into my very soul. She was so close now that I could feel the heat of her skin, could see her pulse leaping in the hollow of her throat—
    “So let’s hear from the male perspective. If you would tell us your thoughts, Raffi?”
    What few coherent thoughts I had at that moment were mainly about the view down Michaela’s top, but I didn’t think that was the sort of male perspective Ms. Wormwood meant. Dragging myself back into the everyday world, I tried to remember what the teacher had been wittering on about. Something about the summer reading assignment? What was the summer reading assignment? I hadn’t even read the back cover when I’d thrown it in my bag this morning. I glanced down now in search of inspiration and discovered I’d taken out my biology textbook. No help there.
    Ms. Wormwood’s look of friendly expectation was starting to slide into the wary expression of a teacher who senses imminent bullshit. “Well,” I said, stalling for time. “I thought it was very interesting.” I snuck a peek at the cover of Michaela’s book, catching a glimpse of a winged and gratuitously shirtless angel tumbling in flames out of a dark sky. No doubt it was some sort of girly romance, all forbidden love and sparkly boyfriends.
    “I found it very inspirational,” I said, deciding that I might as well go for broke. Michaela, still searching my face intently, drew in a sharp breath; encouraged, I plowed on. “I really identified with, uh, him.” I gestured at the angel guy.
    Ms. Wormwood did not look like she was buying this. “Could you be more specific?”
    Not really . “Well, his struggle totally resonated with me,” I improvised wildly. “And the way that he decided to go for what he wanted, despite everything trying to stop him.”
    Ms. Wormwood’s eyebrows shot up. “Interesting. So you would call him the hero of the piece?”
    “Absolutely,” I said, hoping I sounded confident. “That sort of tenacity is definitely heroic.”
    Ms. Wormwood beamed at me, as a little murmur ran around the classroom. “Very good, Raffi. I do like a student who rejects dogma and draws her—his—own conclusions. Why don’t you read us the famous quote summing up his argument? Lines two fifty-eight to two sixty-three.”
    I cast Michaela a sideways glance, to see if she was rapt with admiration at my sensitive nature yet—and was met with a narrow-eyed glare that suggested that if I asked to share her book I was likely to get walloped over the head with it. Recoiling, I hastily fumbled my own copy out of my bag, trying to work out what I’d done wrong. Had I come across as too nerdy? Too pretentious? What?
    Finding the right page, I squinted at the text. Oh, great. Poetry.
     
    “Here at last
    We shall be free;
    the Almighty hath not built
    Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
    Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
    To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
    Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
     
    . . . Huh?
    “Excellent, pet,” Ms. Wormwood said as I blinked at the page. “Now, who can tell me what Satan means by his speech to the fallen angels here?”
    Satan? What the hell kind of romance was this? I checked the back cover as half a dozen hands shot into the air. Paradise Lost , it said. By John Milton . Apparently, it was all about the war between God and the Devil.
    Who I’d just held up as a paragon of manly virtue.
    Whoops.
    No wonder Michaela had glared at me. She’d now let her hair swing down like a curtain between us, hiding her face. I stifled the urge to groan and thump my head on the desk. This day just kept getting worse and worse.
    Busy kicking myself, I barely noticed Michaela whisper something Italian-sounding under her breath. Then her fingers brushed my thigh.
    Ms. Wormwood broke off midsentence. “Is there something wrong, Raffi?”
    From flat on the floor, I managed to make a strangled