The Fog by Caroline B. Cooney

Author:Caroline B. Cooney
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781453264225
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 2012-07-13T02:17:00+00:00

I wouldn’t have to stick around.

if people argued — I would fly off, swerve, wheel, dip, scream.

a thousand wings of company if I have friends

two strong wings of my own

if I don’t.

Jonah Bergeron clapped.

Robbie clapped with him.

The rest waited to see how Mrs. Shevvington reacted. The teacher said nothing about the poem. Instead she walked up to Christina, pushing against her, the cranberry red of her suit shouting as loud as a mouth.

“Why, Christina, you didn’t do any homework last night. I myself forbade it. You wrote this poem last year, for some island school assignment. You’re handing it in now, pretending you wrote it last night.”

“I wrote it under the covers,” said Christina, burning. “With my flashlight.”

Mrs. Shevvington snorted. “I will give you a zero, Christina Romney. Cheating and lying may be acceptable on your island but they will not do here.”

I could push her down Breakneck Hill, thought Christina, and applaud when she got killed.

Gretch and Vicki giggled. She knew they were giggling at her. At her poem. At her zero. At her shame.

After class three things happened.

Mrs. Shevvington said, “You will give me your flashlight at dinner, Christina.”

“If you believe I have a flashlight,” said Christina, “you believe I wrote that poem using it last night.”

Mrs. Shevvington smiled. This time her teeth did not show. It was more a thinning-out of her lips: a challenge. “The flashlight,” she said, “is to be given to me.”

Why? thought Christina. To cripple me in the dark?

Who is this woman, that she wants to get me? Who am I to her?

“Christina?” said a soft voice.

Christina jumped as if ghost fingers were touching her spine. Then she flushed scarlet. “Hullo, Miss Schuyler,” she mumbled.

“Are you all right, Christina?” said Miss Schuyler. Her fat braids lay like a thick honey pillow on the back of her neck. How cozy it must be, to live beneath that hair, thought Christina.

She thought of telling Miss Schuyler about what it was like to live with the Shevvingtons. But she could not do that. Teachers stuck together. Teachers had coffee together and meetings together, and if she told Miss Schuyler, Miss Schuyler would tell Mrs. Shevvington, and somehow Mrs. Shevvington would have more power. “I’m fine, thank you,” said Christina, and she skirted around her math teacher and plowed on down the hall, alone.

Power, thought Christina dimly. What is power?

She thought of power plants, and electricity. She thought of nations and wars. Mrs. Shevvington has more power than I do, thought Christina. But what is the power for? Where are we going with it?

Robbie caught up to her, drawing her out of the hall traffic. “Christina? Is that your name?”

She was uncertain of them all now. “Uh-huh,” she said cautiously.

How thin Robbie was. How powerless. “I don’t want you to get in trouble with Mrs. Shevvington,” said Robbie quickly, looking around to be sure nobody heard. “You’re new here, Christina. You don’t know. Don’t speak up again like that.”

“But you’re new, too,” protested Christina. “We’re all new. We just started junior high.

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