Mr. Walden threw a piece of chalk in Group Seven's direction. It hit their chart with a loud noise, and bounced off. This was not unusual behavior on Mr. Walden's part. He frequently threw chalk when he felt we were not paying proper attention, particularly after lunch when we were all somewhat dazed from having ingested too many corn dogs.

What was not usual, however, was Mike Meducci's reaction when the chalk hit the poster board he was holding. He let go of the chart with a yell, and ducked - actually ducked, with his hands up over his face - as if a Chinese tank was rolling toward him.

Mr. Walden did not notice this. He was still too enraged.

"Your assignment," he bellowed at Kelly, "was to make a persuasive argument. Demanding to know whether detractors of your position are on crack is not arguing persuasively."

"But seriously, Mr. Walden," Kelly said, "if they would just look at the chart, they'd see that the Chinese have way more tanks than we do, and all the education in the world isn't going to change that - "

It was at this point that Mr. Walden noticed Mike coming out of his defensive hunch.

"Meducci," he said flatly. "What's with you?"

Mr. Walden, I realized, did not know how Mike had spent his weekend. Maybe he didn't know about the comatose sister, either. How Cee Cee had managed to find out these things that even our teachers did not know was always a mystery to me.

"N-nothing," Mike stammered, looking pastier than ever. There was something weird about his expression, too. I couldn't put my finger on what, exactly, was wrong with it, but something more than just typical geek embarrassment. "S-sorry, Mr. W-Walden."

Scott Turner, one of Dopey's friends, seated a few desks away from me, muttered, "S-sorry, Mr. W-Walden," in a whispered falsetto, but still audibly enough for him to be heard by everyone in the room - especially by Michael, whose pale face actually got a little bit of color into it as the snickers reached him.

As vice president of the sophomore class, it is my duty to instill discipline in my fellow classmates during student council meetings. But I take my executive responsibilities quite seriously, and tend to correct the behavior of my more rambunctious peers whenever I feel it necessary to do so, not just during assemblies of the student council.

So I leaned over and hissed, "Hey, Scott."

Scott, still laughing at his own joke, looked over at me. And stopped laughing abruptly.

I'm not exactly sure what I was going to say - it was going to have something to do with Scott's last date with Kelly Prescott and a pair of tweezers - but Mr. Walden unfortunately beat me to it.

"Turner," he bellowed. "I want a thousand-word essay on the battle at Gettysburg on my desk in the morning. Group Eight, be prepared to give your report tomorrow. Class dismissed."

There is no bell system at the Mission Academy. We change classes on the hour, and are supposed to do so quietly. All of the classroom doors at the Mission Academy open into arched breeze-ways that look out into a beautiful courtyard containing all these really tall palm trees and this fountain and a statue of the Mission's founder, Junipero Serra. The Mission, being something like three hundred years old, attracts a lot of tourists, and the courtyard is the highlight of their tour, after the basilica.

The courtyard is actually one of my favorite places to sit and meditate about stuff like … oh, I don't know: how I've had the misfortune to be born a mediator, and not a normal girl, and why I can't seem to get Jesse to like me, you know, in that special way. The sound of the bubbling fountain, the chirping of the sparrows in the rafters of the breezeway, the buzz of hummingbird wings around the plate-sized hibiscus blossoms, the hushed chatter of the tourists - who feel the grandeur of the place, and lower their voices accordingly - all made the Mission courtyard a restful place to sit and ponder one's destiny.

It was also, however, a favorite place for novices to stand and wait for innocent students to slip up by talking too loudly between classes.

No novice has ever been created that could keep Gina quiet, however.

"Dude, that was so bogus," she complained loudly as we walked toward my locker. "What kind of conclusion was that? I am so sure the Chinese are going to come rolling over here in tanks and attack us. How are they going to get here, anyway? By way of Canada?"

I tried not to laugh, but it was hard. Gina was outraged.

"I know that girl is your class president," she went on, "but talk about dumb blondes...."

Cee Cee, who'd been walking beside us, growled, "Watch it." Not, as I'd thought, because, being an albino, Cee Cee is the blondest of blondes, but because a novice was staring daggers at us from the courtyard.

"Oh, good, it's you," Gina said when she noticed Cee Cee, completely missing her warning glance at the novice, and not lowering her voice a bit. "Simon, Cee Cee here says she's going to the mall after school."

"My mom's birthday," Cee Cee explained apologetically. She knows how I feel about malls. Gina, who'd always had something of a selective memory, had apparently forgotten. "Gotta get her some perfume or a book or something."

"What do you say?" Gina asked me. "You want to go with her? I've never been to a real California mall. I want to check it out."

"You know," I said as I worked the combination to my locker door, "the Gap sells the same old stuff all over the country."

"Hello," Gina said. "Who cares about the Gap? I'm talking about hotties."

"Oh." I got rid of my world civ book, and fished out my bio, which I had next. "Sorry. I forgot."

"That's the problem with you, Simon," Gina said, leaning against the locker next to mine. "You don't think enough about guys."

I slammed my locker door closed. "I think a lot about guys."

"No, you don't." Gina looked at Cee Cee. "Has she even been out with one since she got here?"

"Sure, she has," Cee Cee said. "Bryce Martinson."

"No," I said.

Cee Cee looked up at me. She was a little shorter than me. "What do you mean, no?"

"Bryce and I never actually went out," I explained, a little uncomfortably. "You remember, he broke his collar bone - "

"Oh, yeah," Cee Cee said. "In that freak accident with the crucifix. And then he transferred to another school."

Yeah, because that freak accident hadn't been an accident at all: the ghost of his dead girlfriend had dropped that crucifix on him, in a totally unfair effort to keep me from going out with him.

Which unfortunately had worked.

Then Cee Cee said, brightly, "But you definitely went out with Tad Beaumont. I saw you two together at the Coffee Clutch."

Gina, excited, asked, "Really? Simon went out with a guy? Describe."

Cee Cee frowned. "Gee," she said. "It didn't end up lasting very long, did it, Suze? There was some accident with his uncle, or something, and Tad had to go live with relatives in San Francisco."

Translation: After I'd stopped Tad's uncle, a psychotic serial killer, from murdering us both, Tad moved away with his father.

That's gratitude for you, huh?

"Gosh," Cee Cee said, thoughtfully. "Bad things seem to happen to the guys you go out with, huh, Suze?"

Suddenly feeling a little depressed, I said, "Not all of them," thinking of Jesse. Then I remembered that Jesse:

(a) was dead, so only I could see him - hardly good boyfriend material - and

(b) had never actually asked me out, so you couldn't exactly say we were dating.

It was right about then that something whizzed by us so fast, it was only a khaki blur, followed by the faintest trace of slightly familiar-smelling men's cologne. I looked around and saw that the blur had been Dopey. He was holding Michael Meducci in a headlock while Scott Turner shoved a finger in his face and snarled, "You’re writing that essay for me, Meducci. Got that? A thousand words on Gettysburg by tomorrow morning. And don't forget to doublespace it."

I don't know what came over me. Sometimes I am simply seized by impulses over which I have not the slightest control.

But suddenly I'd shoved my books at Gina and stalked over to where my stepbrother stood. A second later I held a pinchful of the short hairs at the back of his neck.

"Let him go," I said, twisting the tiny hairs hard. This method of torture, I'd discovered recently, was much more effective than my former technique of punching Dopey in the gut. He had, over the past few weeks, greatly built up the muscles in his abdominal wall, undoubtedly as a defense against just this sort of occasion.

The only way he could keep me from grabbing him by the short hairs, however, was to shave his head, and this had apparently not occurred to him.

Dopey, opening his mouth to let out a wail, released Michael right away. Michael staggered away, scurrying to pick up the books he'd dropped.

"Suze," Dopey cried, "let go of me!"

"Yeah," Scott said. "This doesn't concern you, Simon."

"Oh, yes, it does," I said. "Everything that happens at this school concerns me. Want to know why?"

Dopey already knew the answer. I had drilled it into him on several previous occasions.

"Because you're the vice president," he said.

"Now let me freakin' go, or I swear I'll tell Dad - "

I let him go, but only because Sister Ernestine showed up. The novice had apparently run for her. It's become official Mission Academy policy to send for backup whenever fights break out between Dopey and me.

"Is there a problem, Miss Simon?"

Sister Ernestine, the vice principal, is a very large woman, who wears an enormous cross between her equally sizeable breasts. She has an uncanny ability to evoke terror wherever she goes, merely by frowning. It is a talent I admire and hope to emulate someday.

"No, Sister," I said.

Sister Ernestine turned her attention toward Dopey. "Mr. Ackerman? Problem?"

Sullenly, Dopey massaged the back of his neck. "No, Sister," he said.

"Good," Sister Ernestine said. "I'm glad the two of you are finally getting along so nicely. Such sibling affection is an inspiration to us all. Now hurry along to class, please."

I turned and joined Cee Cee and Gina, who'd stood watching the whole thing.

"Jesus, Simon," Gina said with disgust as we headed into the bio lab. "No wonder the guys around here don't like you."

CHAPTER 5

"Girl," Gina said. "That is so you."

Cee Cee looked down at the outfit Gina had talked her into purchasing, then had goaded Cee Cee into putting on for our inspection.

"I don't know," she said, dubiously.

"It's you," Gina said, again. "I'm telling you. It's so you. Tell her, Suze."

"It's pretty flicking," I said truthfully. Gina had the touch. She had turned Cee Cee from fashion challenged to fashion plate.

"But you won't be able to wear it to school," I couldn't help pointing out. "It's too short." I'd learned the hard way that the Mission Academy's dress code, while fairly lenient, did not condone miniskirts under any circumstances. And I highly doubted Sister Ernestine would approve of Cee Cee's new, navel-revealing faux-fur-trimmed sweater, either.

"Where am I going to wear it, then?" Cee Cee wanted to know.

"Church," I answered with a shrug.

Cee Cee gave me a very sarcastic look. I said, "Oh, all right. Well, you can definitely wear it to the Coffee Clutch. And to parties."

Cee Cee's gaze, behind the violet lenses of her glasses, was tolerant. "I don't get invited to parties, Suze," she reminded me.

"You can always wear it to my house," Adam offered helpfully. The startled look Cee Cee threw him pretty much assured me that however much she'd spent on the outfit - and it had to have cost several months' allowance, at least - it had been worth it: Cee Cee had had a secret crush on Adam McTavish for as long as I'd known her, and probably much longer than that.

"All right, Simon," Gina said, lowering herself into one of the hard plastic chairs that littered the food court. "What were you up to while I was coordinating Ms. Webb's spring wardrobe?"

I held up my bag from Music Town. "I bought a CD," I said lamely.

Gina, appalled, echoed, "A what?"

"A CD." I hadn't even wanted to buy one, but sent out into the wilds of the mall with instructions to return with a new purchase, I had panicked, and headed into the first store I saw.

"You know malls give me sensory overload," I said, by way of explanation.