Night School by Caroline B. Cooney

Author:Caroline B. Cooney [Cooney, Caroline B.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781453264263
Publisher: Open Road Media Teen & Tween
Published: 2012-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

“BEVIN?” CALLED MARIAH.

Every single light in the house was on.

She began turning them off. Her parents were also big on saving electricity and would not care for this waste of bulb and wattage. “Bevin?”

She felt wonderful. Andrew had driven behind her to be sure she was never alone on the way home. How fascinating it was, the division between daydream Andrew and the real Andrew. Real Andrew was less sure of himself. Less predictable. She lost him to his thoughts throughout the evening, and he had a habit of rubbing his jaw that she had never noticed in school, or had him do in her secret life with him. He ate pizza much more voraciously than she’d expected, wolfing down half a wedge in a single mouthful and laughing through cheese and tomato.

She had a nice warm sense of being able to shelve the pretend Andrew. Setting that Andrew aside, and moving on in the world to real Andrews, real dates, real kisses. He had not kissed her. But he had waved good-bye when she got out of her car, and waited patiently for her to unlock her own front door, and get in, and wave back that she was safe.

Mariah turned off living room lights, dining room lights, kitchen lights. “Bevin, where are you?”

How loud her footsteps seemed, suddenly, in the empty dark.

How vacant her voice.

Bevin? she said, but her throat constricted, and nothing came out: Only the word hung there, as their words in Night Class had hung.

Where was Bevin?

When she found him, what would she find?

Screaming, she ran through the rest of the house, pounding up the stairs, flinging open the doors. “Bevin! Where are you?”

He was in the upstairs TV room, the little cozy game room that brother and sister shared. He was wrapped in blankets, staring at the screen. The television was off.

The lights were on.

The room was an incredible mess, as if an earthquake had struck, with the epicenter beneath the coffee table. Books and papers and magazines and objects and pillows and even the shelves themselves were flung on the floor.

Bevin’s eyes were open but saw nothing. His skin was faintly green, as if he were one enormous advancing bruise. “Don’t be dead, Bevin,” she whispered. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong? Wake up, Bevin. Bevin!”

He was alive.

A little color came back into his face, but he just looked more bruised. He did not make a sound.

“What happened, Bevin?” She was screaming now.

He shook his head and said nothing.

“Who made this mess?”

The scream vanished into a whisper. She knew who had made this mess. Mariah, still gripping his shoulder with tight fingers, sank away from him. Another Night Class had been here. An ETS if there ever was one. She had trusted the instructor to keep his word—but—but, wait. He had made no promises. He only asked if she wanted Bevin to be an SC. He had never said that Bevin wouldn’t be.

Slowly, dazedly, Bevin shook his head in the direction of his sister.

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