Rules Of Attraction (8 page)

stuttering. Relax. Think about the words. Don’t forget to breathe.

“I th-th-think . . .” I stare down at my paper. I can feel all eyes on

me. Some are probably giving me the pity stare. Others, like Madison

and Lacey, probably look amused. “I th-ththink that p-p-people on r-r-

reality shows . . .”

A burst of laughter erupts from one girl. I know who it is before I

look up.

“Madison, I don’t find this funny. Be respectful to your classmate,”

Mr. Furie says, then adds, “That’s not a request. That’s an order.”

Madison puts her hand over her mouth. “I’m good,” she says

through her fingers.

“You’d better be,” Mr. Furie says in his stern voice. “Go ahead,

Kiara. Continue.”

Okay. I can do this. If I can talk to Tuck and not stutter, maybe I

should just pretend I’m talking to Tuck. I look up at my best friend. He

gives me a small wave of encouragement from his seat in the back of

the room.

“. . . people on reality shows are celebrities . . .” I pause and take a

deep breath, then continue. I can do this. I can do this. “. . . because we

let the m-m-media—”

Another burst of laughter echoes in the room, this time from both

Lacey and Madison.

“Miss Stone and Miss Goebbert!” Mr. Furie points toward the door.

“Out of my class.”

“You’re not serious,” Madison argues.

“I’ve never been more serious. And I’m also giving you and Miss

Goebbert three days of after-school detention starting today.”

“Don’t do that,” I whisper to Mr. Furie, hoping no one else can hear

me. “Please don’t do that.”

Madison gets a shocked look on her face. “You’re giving us

detentions for laughing? Come on, Mr. Furie. That’s not fair.”

“Tell it to Principal House if you have a problem with my

punishment.” Mr. Furie opens the top drawer of his desk and pulls out

two blue detention slips. He fills out both and motions for Madison and

Lacey to come get them.

Both girls shoot me a furious look. Oh, no, this is not good. Now I’m

on Madison’s radar, and I don’t know if there’s any way I can get off it.

When he hands them the blue slips, Madison shoves hers in her

purse. “I can’t have detention after school. I have to work at my mom’s

boutique.”

“You should have thought about that before you disrupted my class.

Now, both of you, apologize to Kiara,” our teacher orders.

“That’s okay,” I mumble. “You d-d-don’t have to.”

“Oh, I insist. We’re s-s-s-s-sorry,” Madison says, and suddenly

Madison and Lacey start giggling again. Even after they hurry out the

door, I can hear their laughter echoing as they walk down the hall.

“I apologize on their behalf for their inappropriate behavior,

Kiara,” Mr. Furie says. “Would you still like to share your paper?”

I shake my head and he sighs, but he doesn’t argue when I return

to my desk. I wish the bell would ring so I could go to the girls’

bathroom and hide. I’m so mad at myself for letting them affect me.

For the next twenty-five minutes, Mr. Furie calls on other students

to read their persuasion papers. I keep looking up at the clock, praying

for the minutes to go by faster. It’s hard holding back tears that are

threatening to pour out any minute. As soon as the bell rings, I grab my

books and practically sprint out of class. Mr. Furie calls my name, but I

pretend not to hear him.

“Kiara!” Tuck says, grabbing my elbow and spinning me around.

A stupid tear falls down my face. “I want to be alone,” I choke out,

then run down the hall. At the end of the corridor, there are stairs

that lead to a vacant locker room rival teams use during tournaments.

Nobody uses it during the day, and just the thought of being alone

where I don’t have to put on a fake smile sounds like heaven right now.

I’m aware I’ll be late for study hall, but Mrs. Hadden doesn’t usually

take attendance and even if she does, I don’t care. I don’t want

everyone to see me an emotional mess.

I push open the locker room door and sink onto one of the benches.

All the energy I used during the last half of English class to stop

myself from losing it rushes out of me. I wish I could be stronger and

not care what people think, but I do. I’m not strong like Tuck. I’m not

strong like Madison.

I wish I was content just being me, Kiara Westford, speech issues

and all. Fifteen minutes pass before I walk to the sink and look at my

reflection in the mirror. I look like I’ve been crying. That, or I have a

very bad cold. I wet paper towels and dab them on my eyes, attempting

to erase the puffiness. After a few minutes, I think I look halfway

decent. Nobody will know I’ve just been crying. I hope.

The door to the locker room opens, startling me.

“Anybody here?” one of the janitors yells out.

“Yeah.”

“You’d better get to class because the police are here. They’re

doing a drug search.”

ELEVEN :
Carlos

In bio, Shevelenko finishes a lecture on dominant and recessive

genes. She has us draw square boxes and tells us to write different

scenarios about eye-color traits in the offspring of humans.

“I’m havin’ a couple guys over tonight,” Ram says as we work. “You

wanna come?”

Even though Ram is a rich kid, he’s pretty cool. The past week he’s

given me notes from the first two weeks of school, and his stories

about going skiing last winter are hilarious.

“¿A qué hora?” I ask him.

“Around six or so.” He rips out a piece of paper from his notebook

and starts writing on it.

“Here’s my address.”

“I don’t have a car. Is it far?”

He turns the paper over and hands me his pen. “No problem, I’ll

just pick you up. Where do you live?”

As I write down Alex’s address, Shevelenko walks over to our table.

“Carlos, did you get all the notes from Ramiro?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, because there’s a test next week.” She’s handing out

worksheets when five beeps echo over the loudspeaker.

The entire room seems to gasp at once.

“What’s that?” I question.

Ram looks shocked. “Holy shit, man. We’re in lockdown.”

“What’s ‘lockdown’?”

“If it’s some psycho with a gun, I’m jumping out the window,”

another student named John says. “You guys with me?”

Ram rolls his eyes. “It’s not someone with a gun, dude. That would

be three long beeps instead of five short ones. This is a drug lockdown.

It must not be routine, ’cause I haven’t heard anything about it.”

John seems amused. “Call your mom, Ram. Ask if she knows what’s

up.”

Drug lockdown? I sure hope Nick Glass doesn’t bring his pu-pu

platter of drugs to school with him. I look over at Madison, who came

late to class. She pulls her phone from her purse and starts texting

someone underneath the lab table.

“Everyone calm down,” Shevelenko says. “Most of you have been

through this before. In case you haven’t guessed it, we’re in lockdown.

No student can leave the building.”

Madison raises her hand. “Can I go to the bathroom?”

“Sorry, Madison.”

“But I really have to go! I promise I’ll be quick.”

“Lockdown rules state no wandering in the halls.” Shevelenko

glances at her computer. “Take this time to study for the test next

wednesday.”

Fifteen minutes later a cop knocks on Shevelenko’s door.

“Who do you think got busted?” a guy named Frank whispers as our

teacher meets the officer outside the room.

Ram holds his hands up. “Don’t look at me, man. I’m not risking

getting kicked off the soccer team. Besides, my mom would have me

arrested herself if she found out I was doing illegal shit.”

Shevelenko walks back in the room. “Carlos Fuentes,” she says loud

and clear.

¡Carajo! She called my name. “Yeah?”

“Come here.”

“Dude, you are so busted,” Frank says.

I walk up to Shevelenko, and all I can focus on is her mustache

hairs moving up and down as she says, “There are some people who want

to talk to you. Follow me.”

I know everyone in my bio class knows why I’ve been called out.

Thing is, I don’t have any drugs in my pockets or in my locker. Maybe

they found out I came from Mexico and want to deport me, although I

was born in Illinois and am an American citizen. In the hallway two cops

step toward me. “Are you Carlos Fuentes?” one of them asks.

“Yeah.”

“Can you show us where your locker is?”

My locker? I shrug. “Sure.”

I walk to my locker, the policía following so close I can feel their

breath on the back of my neck. I turn the corner down J Hall and see a

K9 police dog barking at my locker. What the hell?

The dog is ordered to sit by its handler.

Mr. House is standing next to my locker.

“Carlos, is this your assigned locker?” he asks me.

“Yeah.”

He makes a dramatic pause before saying, “I’ll only ask this once.

Do you have drugs in your locker?”

“No.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind opening it, would you?”

“Nope.” I enter the combination and open the door.

“What are those things?” one of the cops asks as he points to

Kiara’s cookie magnets. He steps forward to take a closer look and the

K9 dog goes nuts. He pokes one. “They’re cookies,” he says dumbly.

“I think your dog is hungry,” I tell him.

The second cop gives me a level stare. “You, be quiet. They’re

probably laced with drugs and you’re selling them.”

Laced cookies? Is he kiddin’ me? They’re fucking stale cookie

magnets. I start to laugh.

“You think this is funny, punk?”

I clear my throat and try to keep a straight face. “No, sir.”

“Did you make those cookies?”

“Yes, sir,” I lie, because it’s none of their business who made them.

“But you should probably not pull ’em off.”

“Why not? Scared we’ll find out what’s in them?”

I shake my head. “No. Trust me, they’re not laced.”

“Nice try,” the cop says.

Ignoring me, the principal tries to pick off one of the cookie

magnets. The cookie breaks in his hand. I cough again, trying to cover

up another laugh, as he holds the crumbled brown pieces in his hand and

sniffs them. I wonder what Kiara would think if she knew her cookies

were under investigation.

One of the cops crumbles another cookie off and takes a small bite

to see if he can taste traces of illegal substances. He shrugs. “I don’t

taste anything.” He holds the rest of the cookie under the K9’s nose.

The dog goes still. “The cookies are clean,” he says. “But there’s

something else in the locker. Take everything out,” he orders, then

crosses his arms on his chest. From the top shelf, I take out a couple

of books and place them on the floor. I take more books out from the

bottom. When I pull down my backpack, the dog starts freakin’ out

again. That dog is certifiably nuts. If we watch it long enough, I’m sure

its head will turn around and its eyes will roll to the back of its head.

“Take everything out of your backpack and place the items on the

floor in front of you,” House says.

“Look,” I tell House. “I have no clue why that dog is about to attack

my backpack. I don’t have drugs in there. Maybe the dog’s got a

disorder.”

“The dog isn’t the problem, son,” the K9 officer barks out.

My pulse races when the guy calls me ‘son.’ I want to lash out at

him, but he’s got a psycho dog he can sic on me. While I think I’m a

hard-ass, I definitely know a trained psycho K9 can kick my ass.

One by one I pull out each thing from my backpack. I lay them out

in a straight line. One pencil. Two pens. One notebook. One Spanish

book. One can of Coke.

The dog starts barking again. Wait, I didn’t put a can of Coke in

there. The principal picks up the can, starts unscrewing the top and . . .

oh, shit. It’s not a can of Coke. It’s a fake one with . . .

One bag of weed. A big bag. And . . .

One bag with a bunch of white and blue pills inside.

“That’s not mine,” I tell them.

“Whose is it, then?” the principal asks. “Give us names.”

I’m pretty sure it’s Nick’s, but I’m not about to rat on him. If

there’s one thing I’ve learned in Mexico, it’s that you don’t open your

mouth. Ever. Even if I don’t give a shit about Nick, I’m about to take

the fall whether I like it or not. “I don’t have any names. I’ve only lived

here a week, give me a break.”

“We don’t give breaks. Not on school property, which makes this a

felony,” one of the officers says, eyeing my tattoos. He takes the bags

from the principal, then opens the one with the pills. “This is Oxy-

Contin. And this,” he says, opening the bag with the weed, “is enough

marijuana for us to know you’re not just smoking it, you’re selling it.”

“Do you understand what this means, Carlos?” the principal asks.

Yeah, I know what it means. It means Alex is gonna kill me.

TWELVE :
Kiara

When I found out Carlos got arrested, I immediately had the

instinct to call my dad. He said he’d call Alex and find out what was

happening and where Carlos was taken. At home, my mom greets me at

the door. “Your father said he’ll be home soon with some news about