Invitation to a Bonfire by Adrienne Celt Read Free Book Online

anyway, we need you to help us with a project.”
    At this point a touch of affront might’ve done me good, or at least a bit of skepticism. But I was dazzled by the idea that Cindy, or anyone, had thought about me as any kind of person at all. I didn’t know what woo-woo meant, but between her nervous stance and her hand-waving, I could guess. And in fact I wasn’t opposed to having a reputation for witchiness. It meant there were girls who had looked at me, girls who had whispered and seen something in me that I had no idea was there. Plus, it was a lot less pathetic than I expected.
    I leaned down and picked up my Schopenhauer, placing it facedown on the carrel desk so that the dour portrait on the front of the book, which always gave me the creeps, was out of view. Then I crossed my legs and lightly folded my hands on top of my knees.
    â€œWhat is this … project?”
    â€œOk, I knew you’d be into it.” Paying no attention at all to what I’d hoped was a very sophisticated posture, Cindy grabbed my elbow and pulled me away into the library, weaving through the stacks and then looking back and forth behind us before slipping into a small stairway in the building’s rear. “Shh,” she said unnecessarily as we tiptoed down the stairs.
    We emerged into one of the library’s sub-basements, a supposed research area so poorly outfitted that half of the shelves were empty, and in some places graffiti had snuck onto the walls, eluding the watchful eyes of the facilities crew. Pencil scribbles mostly, though sometimes a haunting slash of lipstick: CHERYL WAS HERE and I’VE GOT YOU NOW followed by WHO? followed by WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO KNOW? Sometimes girls snuck down here to hide books they were using for class projects and wanted to keep frombeing recalled; at the end of every semester a librarian was dispatched to collect and re-catalogue them. Cindy and I made our way to the back of the room, where a few shelves had been pushed around to create a circle, like a clearing in the woods. Several girls were already there, sitting cross-legged on the worn grey carpet.
    â€œOh good,” said a girl named Adeline, who lived on the floor below me. “You got her.”
    â€œWhy am I here?” I asked. My elbow hurt where Cindy had been holding it, and I tried to rub away the pain while still looking cool, collected.
    â€œRight, right, we’ll get to that.” Adeline raised her eyebrows at Cindy and surveyed the room. She asked me: “You know everyone?” Besides us and Cindy, there were three other girls from our year—Bernice, Leslie, and Louise—plus a first-year named Marion who would later transfer out. A senior named Olivia.
    â€œI guess so,” I said.
    â€œPerfect. Well, listen, we’ve all heard about you”—again, I was flattered and confused to hear it—“and we think you can help us with something we need to do. How is, uh, how are your grades going?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou know,” Adeline said. “Are you doing ok in your classes?” She seemed uneasy, clocking my reactions, as if she was as scared as I was that I would say the wrong thing.
    â€œSort of. It’s fine.” I didn’t want to get into it. Cindy smirked, and I threw her a look from the corner of my eye—math was one of my better subjects, actually. Dispassionate, and a universal language. “Why, is this a study group? I like working …” I paused, considered my phrasing, not wanting to lie. “I prefer working on my own,” I said, which I did, because it cut down on the stress of conversation.
    â€œWell, that’s really great for you and all, but not everyone feels that way.” Olivia, the senior girl, had her back pushed up against a bookcase, and she kept rocking into it, making it shudder. “Some of us aren’t doing so great, and some of us need to graduate on