Backwards by Todd Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page A

seconds longer than seemed necessary. That snapped the zombie out of his trance. Then he did a curious thing — he glanced nervously at the table of guys wearing varsity jackets. It all happened in an instant, but it made me wonder what he might be worried about.
    Dan retreated to the hallway to eat his lunch while pretending to do homework. In actuality, he drew spirals in the margins and scratched his head. No wonder he’d bomb the math quiz tomorrow. I wanted to go back and see Cat again, except the zombie wouldn’t budge. When the period ended, he shuffled to biology, arriving before everyone else and sitting in the back corner.
    Students filed in, occupying the seats around him. To my surprise, Cat entered and sat in the third row. We actually had a class together! She must have ditched the other day after yelling at Dan.
    Mr. Huber, the teacher, announced that they were going to start their dissections today. He rolled out a cart of dead frogs pinned to black wax-filled trays, one for each lab group. A sharp, vaguely chemical scent accompanied the frogs. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” said Mr. Huber, sniffing loudly. Most of the students crinkled their noses at the smell, but I found it pleasantly familiar. The classroom had been rife with this scent the other day. “Of all the senses, smell is the one most closely associated with memory,” said Mr. Huber.
    Seeing the frogs whole was like witnessing a miracle. They appeared perfectly stitched together and healed after the massacre of splayed bodies and amputated organs I’d observed in class before. If I kept going backwards, the frogs would return to life, although I doubted I’d get to see it. They’d probably arrived at the school already pickled. Still, travel backwards long enough, and all wounds heal.
    Three other people sat at Dan’s lab table, but Dan didn’t talk to any of them. After a few groans and jokes, they set to work cutting open the frog and identifying organs while filling out their lab reports. Dan stayed off to the side, stealing glances at Cat.
    “Liver,” said Ed, one of Dan’s lab partners.
    The zombie shifted his gaze back to his group. “Huh?”
    “Number five. It’s the liver, not the pancreas.”
    “Oh, right. Thanks.”
    “You okay, Dan?” asked Ed.
    “Yeah,” he said. His cheeks strained as he forced himself to smile. “I’m just not into cutting up frogs.”
    Ed kept making small talk, but none of it interested me much. My attention stayed fixed on Cat. She chewed her lip and wrote in her notebook. No one at her table spoke to her, and she didn’t do anything with the dissection. She seemed even more isolated than Dan.
    At one point, Dan walked behind her to get some paper towels, and I glimpsed what she’d been writing. Instead of lab notes, she cupped in her hand a carefully folded page with a name written on the front in curly, elegant letters:
Finn.
    Dan glanced at the table where the guy with the lazy smile who’d been nice to Teagan sat. So that must be Finn. The zombie watched him intently. He looked above average in height, with perfectly symmetrical, attractive features, yet from a strictly physical perspective, Dan might be considered more handsome. And although Finn dressed well enough, his sense of style wasn’t exactly original. The thing that struck me the most about him was his confident, friendly manner. While other students were insecure and self-conscious, Finn appeared at ease and in control.
    There were three other people in Finn’s lab group — an obnoxious, geeky guy with curly hair; an awkward girl with thick glasses; and a pretty blonde whom I’d noticed with Finn before. I’d thought Finn might just talk to the blonde, but he involved everyone in his group.
    I tried to block out the other noises in the classroom so I could hear what he said. The curly-haired guy was manipulating their frog’s legs, making it do a grotesque little dance on a folder.
    “Nice, but you’re