Behind the Gates by Eva Gray Read Free Book Online Page A

shrug. “If your parents hadn’t paid for me to be here, my parents couldn’t have afforded it.”
    My eyes dart around quickly, making sure no one is listening. “Shh,” I warn.
    Maddie lowers her voice. “Now I’m a ‘future leader’ because I’m here. If I couldn’t afford to be here, who would I be? A big nobody?”
    “But you
are
here,” I remind her.
    “That’s not the point.”
    I know it’s not the point, but this is a touchy subject and I want to get off it. “Well, I’m just happy we’re here,” I say. “And you should be, too.”
    Evelyn sits down at our table. “I have to ask you guys something about science,” she says. “Don’t you think it’s odd that we’ll be learning an awful lot about starting fires, building explosives, and making poisonous gases?”
    “I had fun building that fire today,” I say.
    “Sure, it was fun,” Evelyn admits, “but don’t you think it’s a little weird that tomorrow we’re going to learn how to blow stuff up?”
    I only shrug, again, because I think that’s going to be really interesting, too. For the first time in my life I enjoy science class. Maybe it is a little strange, but then, what’s normal anymore?
    On the second day of outdoor skills Rosie and I are paired up. I’m not exactly thrilled about this. The first thing we do is review fire-building from the day before. While I’m off in the woods collecting branches for kindling, Rosie stays behind arranging the stones in a circle.
She leaves me to do all the work while she sits and plays with rocks,
I complain silently to myself.
Does she think I’m her servant?
But when I return, a bundle ofbranches in both arms, Rosie already has the beginnings of a fire.
    “How did you do that so fast?” I ask.
    “I just grabbed some small twigs for tinder to get started,” Rosie says, sitting back on her heels. “Nice timing. We need the larger kindling branches to keep this thing burning.”
    Did she just give me a compliment?
    I set my bundle down and we both get to work building a tepee-shaped structure that quickly lights. “You got nice dry branches. Good job,” Rosie says as we back away from the rising flames.
    Was that
two
compliments?
    After teaching us to douse the fires and scatter the ashes, Emmanuelle hands us each a .22-caliber lightweight rifle for target shooting. Once more, Rosie and I are paired up. We lie side by side on a dirt mound facing two stands with paper targets stapled into them.
    Emmanuelle shows us the correct position for holding the rifle and how to sight the middle of the target. “Remember, girls, even though these are relatively smallrifles, they’re still going to kick up on you when they’re fired. You have to be able to find just the right spot below the target to compensate for that kick. It will take some practice to get it right. If you don’t figure that out, all your shots will go high and you won’t hit the center.”
    Emmanuelle shouts the commands and we shoot. Then she takes down the targets. Just as she predicted, my shots from the first round are all completely outside the bull’s-eye area. Rosie’s bullet holes cluster just above it. She checks her paper target and then reaches for mine. For some reason, I let her take it.
    “Aim just below the target,” she advises.
    “Then I’ll miss,” I argue. I wonder if she’s just messing with me.
    “No, you won’t,” she says confidently, returning the paper. “Just try it.”
    Emmanuelle calls for another round of firing. Despite my misgivings, I aim low, like Rosie suggested.
    When Emmanuelle shows us our results after that round, mine are much better. I haven’t hit the center, but all my shots are now much closer than before.
    I notice Rosie smiling down at her paper and lean over to see her result. Bull’s-eye! One of her shots made it dead center into the middle.
    “Wow! Nice work,” I say.
    “Thanks,” Rosie replies.
    “You should hang that on our front door,” I