Brigid Kemmerer: Spark

It was the longest thirty minutes of his life. He didn’t even get to the last three.

“Okay, I think that’s enough time,” said Ms. Anderson.

Thank god. He didn’t feel this worn out after long runs around the soccer field.

“Now exchange papers with the person beside you for grading.”

He snapped his head up.

The sophomore was already holding out her paper, not even looking at him. He took it but didn’t relinquish his own. The tests sat side by side, one neat and perfectly ordered, one a complete fucking mess.

Brainiac sighed and reached out to grab his test, snatching it back to her desk.

Gabriel chewed on the end of the pencil nub. It hurt his lip. He could pick a fight. Get sent to the office. Alan Hulster sat to his left, and that guy was a tool. Gabriel wouldn’t even mind laying into him.

“Hey.”

He glanced to his right. That sophomore was staring at him, her brow furrowed. She licked her lips. “These are all wrong,” she whispered.

Like he needed her to tell him that. He looked back at her test. Ms. Anderson was reading off the answers, one by one, and of course Brainiac had gotten every one right.

Her name was written in perfect script at the top. Layne Forrest.

Why the hell couldn’t he remember a name like Layne Forrest?

He should punch Hulster now, before papers were handed forward.

“Hey,” Layne whispered again.

He glanced over. “What?”

She flinched a little, then whispered, “You got a ninety-two on the test last week. I saw.”

Of course he had. He would have gotten a perfect score, but Nick usually answered some wrong on purpose.

He glared at her, hoping it would make her back down. “Yeah? And?”

It worked. She recoiled and looked back at his paper.

But then he saw her slowly turn her pencil around and start erasing.

She did it subtly, artfully, so her pencil was barely moving, and her eyes were intent on the front of the room.

And then she was writing.

What was she doing?

He couldn’t figure it out. Then Ms. Anderson was calling for the papers to be passed forward and telling them to use the rest of the time as a free period while she reviewed them.

“Hey,” he whispered.

Layne didn’t turn her head, just pulled a slim paperback out of her book bag and started reading.

He flicked a broken piece of pencil her way. It hit her on the arm.

She sighed and looked over. “Seriously?”

“What did you do?”

Her cheeks turned pink again. She looked back at the book. Her voice was so small he almost didn’t hear her.

“You got an eighty.”

She’d fixed his test?

Gabriel couldn’t decide whether he was furious or giddy with relief. “Why?” he snapped. “Why would you do that?”

The substitute cleared her throat near the front of the room. “Is there a problem?”

“No.” Damn, his voice was breaking. He coughed. “Sorry.”

When the bell rang, Layne bolted.

Gabriel wasn’t on four sports teams for nothing. He blocked her in the hall, cornering her against the lockers. She was a tiny thing, at least ten inches shorter than he was.

“Why did you do that?” he said.

She looked up at him, her binder clutched protectively against her chest. Her voice was still soft, quiet, somehow carrying over the students in the between-class rush. “Your brother took your test for you, didn’t he?”

Gabriel felt hot, flushed, even though it was the truth. For some reason it was humiliating to have her figure it out.

He put a hand against the locker beside her head and leaned in. “Are you going to tell anyone?”

She swallowed. “You bully everyone who helps you?”

He snatched his hand away. Was that what he looked like?

“Hey, man.” A voice spoke at his shoulder. “You all right?”

Gabriel jerked back. He’d been so close to her.

Hunter stood there, a navy backpack slung over his shoulder. That white streak interrupted his sandy blond hair and hung across one eye, leaving the other wide and full of scrutiny.

Hunter’s father had been a Guide, too, until he’d been killed by a rock slide. Hunter had come to town to kill the Merricks, in retaliation. He’d thought they were responsible for his father’s death—until Becca had convinced him otherwise. For the last few days, they’d shared a kind of awkward truce.

“Yeah,” said Gabriel. “I’m all right.”

Hunter glanced at Layne. “Are you all—”

“Fine,” she said. Then she turned and dashed into the crowd of students.

Hunter stared after her. “What just happened?”

Gabriel didn’t hate this dude the way Chris did, but some sense of brotherly loyalty insisted he feel irritation at his presence. “None of your business, Mom.” He started walking.

Hunter followed him. “All right, then what happened in second period?”

“I slept through English. You?”

“I don’t think that was sleeping.” Hunter gave a pointed look up, at the lights embedded in the ceiling.

Gabriel sighed and kept walking. Could everyone see through him today?

“You know I’m a Fifth,” Hunter pressed. “I can sense all the elements. The others might not have noticed, but I did.”

“Good for you.”

“Does this have something to do with why Becca wants to meet at lunch?”

Gabriel stopped. “She talked to you?”

“She dropped a note on my desk in History. What’s going on?”

“We have a dinner date.”

“We do?”

“Yeah.” Gabriel started walking again. “And you might want to bring your gun.”

Layne sat on her bedspread and watched her best friend paint her nails an unflattering shade of purple. Sunset had come and gone, and darkness cloaked her bedroom window.

She couldn’t stop thinking of that quiz, the way she’d changed Gabriel Merrick’s answers.

God, she could have been caught. What had she been thinking?

As if her life weren’t already held together by a fraying thread.

“Your hands look like they belong on a corpse,” she said.

Kara frowned and waved her hand in the air. “I like it. Are you sure your mom won’t care that I’m using it?”

Layne shrugged and looked out the window. Her dad would be home soon, so she should start dinner before too long. Otherwise, her little brother would be raiding the kitchen for Pop-Tarts and potato chips.

“She won’t even know,” she said.

“You know, this is like, the good stuff. They don’t even carry this at the salon where my mom goes. It’s probably twenty bucks a bottle.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Kara rolled her eyes. “Of course you wouldn’t. I can’t believe you’re related to that woman.”

Layne picked at her own nails, which were short and unpolished. Sometim-es she couldn’t believe it, either. Her mom lived in labels, the kind splashed all over fashion magazines. More than once, Layne had seen her with the same bag some celebrity was carrying on the cover of Us Weekly .

Layne couldn’t tell the difference between Gucci and Juicy Couture.

Kara thought this was sacrilege. When they’d first become friends freshman year, Kara would beg to rifle through Layne’s mom’s closet. Layne would sit on the end of her parents’ bed and tolerate it, because a friend was a friend. But Layne finally got Kara to knock it off by saying her mom had found out and was pissed .

A complete lie, of course, but there was only so much staring at fabric that she could tolerate.

Kara wasn’t as smart as Layne, either—the only classes they shared were gym and lunch—but she was someone to talk to who didn’t call her a lesbian or get in her face about changing test scores.