Furious - By Jill Wolfson Page 0,4

real and I’m not sure that anyone should know this about me, not even my best friend who knows just about everything else.

“The truth? It’s kind of ugly.”

He puts his fingertips on his wrist, mock checks his pulse. “I took my vitamins today. I can handle it.”

“Before. When I shouted ‘I hate everyone.’ It was fun—the best feeling I ever had in my life.”

He looks puzzled. “You mean, letting it all out and saying what you felt? I get it. That can feel good.”

“Yes! No! It was more than that. A power! The way it took over and took me away. I wanted to stay there.”

He’s still confused. “What took you over? Stay where?”

“There!”

I realize how whacked that must sound. I don’t have a clue about where there is or what I’m really trying to say, so I give a nervous giggle and pretend to make light of it. “So what do you think? Am I a complete raging psycho?”

Instead of answering with one of his wisecracks, Raymond lets his eyes go vacant and his jaw drop open. I hear him breathing through his mouth. The first time I saw him get this look, it freaked me out. I worried that he was having a seizure that knocked out fifty IQ points. But with Raymond, the more stupid he looks, the harder you know he’s thinking. Right now he looks really dumb, so I assume his synapses are working overtime. He murmurs a few random words and half phrases. I know to keep my mouth shut until he’s ready.

He drapes his arm around my shoulder again. He’s a toucher, another thing that annoys most people. I scoot closer to him on the step. I like feeling Raymond’s weight on my shoulder, knowing that he’s on my side.

3

When I wake the next morning, the sunlight is streaming in the window. It’s so toasty in bed I don’t want to move. I study the dust particles in the slant of light, watch them twirl. My eyes move around my small bedroom and admire how I’ve perked it up with some of the personal things I cart from foster home to foster home. On the dresser there’s a ceramic frog planter that I named Francine. My comforter has a bright sunflower pattern. I stretch and yawn, feel myself crackle to life, then spring out of bed feeling light and optimistic. I even think I smell fresh-squeezed orange juice.

That’s the truly messed-up thing about sunshine. All that bright, glittery yellowness blinds you. It takes about two more seconds to register: I am screwed. This day is going to totally suck. No amount of sunshine can undo that.

By now, word of my freaky outburst is sure to have made the rounds of all the Hunter High cabals—especially the merciless group of smug, too-tanned surfer royalty that rules my bus ride every morning. Those dudes will be my first hurdle of the day. I am going to be bombarded—zombie imitations on the bus, zombie imitations in first-period physics, in second-period English, in Western Civ of course, and on and on. And each and every one of my pop-eyed, twisted-mouthed tormentors will think his particular imitation is the funniest, most original thing ever.

I hate everyone, I say to myself. I really do.

I brush my teeth, spit a big gob of white foam into the sink. How will I get through this day? I have no idea how I’m going to survive. Where will I look? What will I do with my hands?

I try to conjure up some of the power I felt yesterday, but thinking about it only makes my stomach hurt.

I dab on a little face powder, smear rouge on my cheeks. I clip and then unclip my hair, feeling it spring into its usual uncontrollable state. If every teenage girl in the world of every ethnicity started complaining about the problems with her hair—too frizzy, too limp, too wiry, too big, too kinky, too flyaway, too flat on top, not brown or blond or red enough, just a blah, watered-down nothing color—I could join in the conversation at any point. I run my fingers through the maze of knots, tuck what I can behind my ears, and feel the rest of it frizzing out.

My stomach still hurts. What if I have the flu? That would be a good thing. I could stay home all week, and by that time I would be old, tired news.

I pray for food poisoning.

I open my closet. How does one