Unhinged Read Online Free PDF Page B

as friends; all I see are walking time bombs
of secrets.
    “If we run, we can make it,” I suggest,
trying to gauge whether or not Dejana is mad that I am avoiding,
once again, the talk of making friends. Why can’t she just leave
well enough alone?
    “Well, then lose the hunk and let’s go,” she
yells as she starts off at a jog towards the four outer doors that
lead to the school.
    I turn and say goodbye to Logan quickly
before taking off after Dejana.
    The halls are filled with kids rushing to get
to class, and considering our school contains about 3,500 students,
that’s saying something. We meander our way through the crowds and
upstairs to Mrs. Primm’s French class. No one ever wants to be late
for Primm’s class; she is a no-nonsense teacher when it comes to
rules. For her, discipline is an art form and she is an artist. The
class begins immediately at the bell and no one moves an inch or
interrupts her until we hear that bell again 52 minutes later.
She’s an awesome teacher and so much fun, but you don’t want to
cross her or you’ll feel the wrath of the whole French nation come
down upon you.
    We reach the door just as the tardy bell
rings and fly through the portal and into our seats at the front of
the class, hoping Primm won’t notice. What first hits us is the
strange atmosphere of the class: everywhere kids are in groups
chatting about what happened with the kid in the cafeteria
yesterday, and even more remarkable, no one is in their seat. I
look around just to make sure we dove into the right room. I see
the usual French grammar posters adorning the walls, the oversized
model of the Eiffel tower still sits awkwardly in the corner, and
the board up front shows that our French test is tomorrow.
Everything is in its place, but something isn’t right. And then, it
dawns on me what’s missing: the French icon herself.
    “Dejana, where’s Madame Primm?” I ask,
trepidation practically dripping from my voice. Madame is never
late, never absent, and always smiling at us ready to say ‘Bonjour
Classe’ when that bell rings. She would never just not show
up to class. It isn’t in her nature to deviate from the rules. She
is a dedicated teacher with no children. I see from Dejana’s
enlightened look that she just caught onto what is happening.
    “I don’t know. This is so strange,” she
agrees. “There isn’t even a substitute teacher here,” she points
out.
    It’s on the tip of my tongue to see if anyone
has gone to look for her when a stout, short boy named Adam comes
running into the room short of breath. He stops so quickly that his
glasses almost fall off his round face.
    “I found her!” he screams to the class
through his quick puffs of breaths. “She’s in the bathroom crying
and screaming over and over again, ‘ It wasn’t me! I’m
innocent!’ ”
    After a moment of shock, the buzzing of
voices in the class instantly becomes a loud roar. Everyone is
postulating what could have made Madame Primm abandon her class to
cry in the bathroom, and more importantly, who should go and rescue
her from her makeshift, and not so sanitary, panic room. Dejana
gets up to go and speak with a group of the louder boys and give
her opinion as to what we should do, while I stay behind (as usual)
and contemplate my thoughts alone. Maybe Madame has had a
breakdown? Or perhaps the guy she's been seeing broke up with her
and she kind of just lost it? More importantly, what did she do
that was so bad that she feels she needs to repeat over and over
that she’s innocent of doing it? None of this makes sense. Granted,
few things ever have made much sense to me.
    Then, like a bolt of lightning, an idea hits
me. Primm was saying something over and over again as if she was
out of her mind. It sounds an awful lot like the episode with the
boy in the cafeteria. What if whatever happened to him has also
happened to Ms. Primm? Could they have each drank or eaten
something that made them sick?
    I’m knee