Furious - By Jill Wolfson Page 0,8

of his obnoxious surf crew joins right in.

Knock it off, Pox. I think. Someone should tie you down and experiment on you.

“Knock it off, Pox! Someone should experiment on you.”

I start at hearing my own thoughts expressed aloud. The voice is coming from the back of the room, and I’m not a ventriloquist. “Let her finish, asshole.”

All heads now turn to Alix Wolfe, serious surfer and the toughest girl with the worst temper at Hunter High. I get a gag reflex just thinking about getting in her way. It’s not like she’s Stephanie’s best friend or anything like that. I doubt that she has any particular love for monkeys or the environment or Stephanie. It’s that Alix can’t stand Pox and the feeling is mutual. Everyone knows that. Nobody knows exactly what started the feud, but I think that maybe it’s because Pox can’t stand that a girl is as aggressive and competitive, in and out of the water, as he is. Other girls who surf, even the really good ones, also flirt shamelessly. Around guys, they pretend to be weaker and less skilled than they are. Not Alix. She shows off at every opportunity. She torments Pox and vice versa. Raymond says it’s been this way forever, both of them always ready to get into it with each other.

Their hostility charges the room. Pox, pumped up, swings around in his seat. “Who you calling an asshole, asshole?”

“Shut up, Pox,” Alix comes back.

“No, you shut up!”

“Wrong! You!”

Ms. Pallas tries to intervene. She really tries. Her eyes flash with a threat. In a tone low and intimidating, she orders Alix and Pox to stop it now. But things are moving too fast.

That’s when the air in the classroom does something strange. Strange as in the same strange as yesterday. I hear a rush, like all the air is being sucked out of the room, and into the void comes static, and in the static I hear that music again. Faint notes repeating themselves, vibrating not in my ear but in some place deeper. I try to hum along. I let the notes pull me in their direction.

From the back of the room, a mass streaks past me. I see an arm lunging and pulling its body behind it. It’s Alix, like a deadly Pox-seeking missile. She’s on him, her right fist connecting with his left ear. The room explodes into total chaos. Ms. Pallas waving her ruler, pounding her hand on a desk. The Double Ds shrieking with excitement. Books fall to the floor. Ms. Pallas rushes across the room. Chair legs squeal. Stephanie is taking large, loud gulps like she’s hyperventilating. There’s a rumble and then a clap of thunder from outside. Real thunder. But the sky is totally clear. The overhead light flickers on and off a dozen times. Ms. Pallas, arms stretched high, ruler held high, orders in a voice that can’t be ignored this time: “Stop! I demand it!”

It takes two of Pox’s surfing buddies—short, wiry Gnat and him, Brendon—to pull Alix off of him. They have her between them, one on each arm, her feet off the ground, her short, powerful legs pedaling hard like a cartoon roadrunner.

“Put her down!” Ms. Pallas orders. “Immediately!”

Alix’s feet hit the ground, her knees buckling slightly. She spins to Ms. Pallas and holds up her palms in surrender. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Your classroom is a hate-free zone. No-tolerance policy. Principal’s office. Suspended.”

But when she’s halfway to the door, she freezes, seems to have a second thought, and whips back around. Pox holds up his fists in defense. Ms. Pallas positions her ruler against her chest like a ninja warrior. Alix stabs her finger in my direction. “Hey you.”

I actually do that lame thing where I look behind me and turn back around when I realize she’s talking to me. I point to my own chest, mouth the word Me?

“Yeah, you. I hate everyone, too.”

The room shakes as she slams the door behind her.

No one moves. Not Ms. Pallas, whose jaw is clenched, or Pox, who is holding his ear in either real or fake pain, or Stephanie slumped against the chalkboard, or Gnat or Brendon, or the Danish foreign exchange student, who looks like he might cry, or the Double Ds, or Raymond. And not me. I definitely stay put, even when the bell rings for the end of class.

The only one to rise is Ambrosia. I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned her yet, because it’s a rare Hunter