RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,12

record, or I don’t perform as well as Colonel Stillwater expects me to, then I’ll be left to eke out a very depressing existence on next to nothing.

I haven’t explored the food situation around these parts yet, but I’m assuming there’s a diner or maybe even a café. A restaurant if I’m lucky. It’d be nice to dine on edible food every once in a while, and not have to boil up water and choke down Top Ramen for breakfast, lunch and dinner, s’all I’m saying. An A right out of the gate? That’d make it much harder for Colonel Stillwater to garnish my allowance.

“Ookaaaay.” I despise having to think of clever, interesting topics of conversation on the spot. If I’d known this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have bothered going to sleep last night. I would have stayed up, scrolling for something awesome to hit these guys with in class. Regrettably, the only thing I can come up with is, “The English language is dying. Modern slang and text-speak are choking the history and the life out of an artform so rapidly that it will soon have evolved entirely. Discuss.”

Doctor Fitzpatrick leaps to his feet, clapping his hands together as he bolts back toward the white board. “I love it. You miscreants are destroying my language with your text messages and your disgusting Neanderthal-esque slang. Someone say something! You can sit down, Ms. Stillwater.” He nudges me with his elbow, and I dash back to the safety of the sofa, my eyes glued to the ground. Thank fuck he didn’t hate the topic. Thank fuck my voice didn’t crack, and I didn’t stumble all over my words. Thank fuck no one laughed.

From the safety of the couch, I survey the room, waiting…no, dreading the moment when Doctor Fitzpatrick realizes no one’s going to participate in my debate topic. A book snaps closed on the other side of the room. Someone coughs.

And then…

A guy with black hair, wearing a ratty sweater, sitting by the fire says, “All language is constantly evolving. To claim the English language is dead because it’s changing and growing in a certain direction is like saying man became extinct when Homo Sapiens evolved from monkeys.”

“Well.” Doctor Fitzpatrick clicks the cap back onto his red marker. There’s a huge, shit-eating grin on his face. “Anyone have anything to say to that?”

Damiana pipes up. “You’re such a fucking moron, Andrew. Man isn’t extinct because Homo Sapiens evolved. We became something new. A different species or strain of hominid. The species that we evolved from became extinct when we changed. What you said doesn’t make any sense.”

“So, you think the English language doesn’t evolve?” Doctor Fitzpatrick asks her.

“Of course it does. Usually, when something evolves, it does so for the better, though. Our brains became larger and more complex because we learned how to speak and communicate using language. That was an improvement on the simpler, primitive versions of our minds. Text speak and slang isn’t a positive improvement on our language. It’s a lazy bastardization.”

Doctor Fitzpatrick rubs his hands together. “This is getting good, guys. Anyone have anything to say to Damiana’s statement?”

Wren slouches back into the leather sofa, spinning around so that his back is leaning against the arm. He kicks up his feet, lacing his fingers together and resting them on his chest. “Climb down from that high horse, Dami. You use text speak all the time. You’re far from a purist.”

“I do not!”

“Lol. Lmfao. Btw. NP. You text that shit to me all the time.”

Ha. Why am I not surprised that Damiana and Wren are on texting terms? They’re both as vile as one another. They’re probably best fucking friends.

“That’s not proper text-speak,” Damiana argues. “Those are just abbreviations.”

Oh my god. She didn’t just say that. Seriously? I hide my smile behind my notepad, trapping my laughter behind my teeth and two hundred pages of blank ruled paper.

“You look like you disagree, Elodie,” Doctor Fitzpatrick says.

Oh, come on.

His gaze is locked onto me, his eyes dancing with amusement. I might have refrained from snickering at Damiana’s comment, but I forgot about the parts of my face I didn’t cover; Levi always said I smiled with my eyes more than my mouth. Swiveling around in her chair, Damiana glares at me hatefully.

“Come on, then, Stillwater. Out with it, if you think you’re so fucking smart.”

All high schools are the same. Even the insanely expensive private boarding school kind. Regardless of wealth, parenting styles, opportunity or