Night School by Caroline B. Cooney Read Free Book Online Page A

voice sharply.
    Come on, Mariah, said Andrew impatiently. He knows you’ve thought of somebody.
    Come on, Mariah, said Autumn anxiously. This is scary. Just name somebody alone in the dark, and you can end it.
    Or begin it, thought Mariah. What will it begin when I name a person alone in the dark?
    Come on, Mariah, said Ned. All we need is a name.
    Mariah kept the two syllables of Bevin’s name to herself.
    Fine, said the voice. Which secret shall I discuss first, Mariah?
    What secrets? asked Andrew.
    He actually turned to her, and she actually saw him: not the real Andrew; perhaps nobody ever knew the real somebody else, but a facsimile of Andrew; the negative of his photograph. She could see his waiting half-smile, wanting to know the secrets. And she knew absolutely that Andrew would feel invaded by her daydreams; he would feel she had no right to try to own him when he hadn’t offered.
    Mr. Phillips, said Mariah quickly. Mr. Phillips, after all, was only a substitute person himself. Mr. Phillips, alone in the library, said Mariah quickly, he’ll be the perfect SC.
    There was quiet.
    A rich satisfied quiet, like after a good meal.
    Four students and an instructor contemplated the existence of Mr. Phillips and his perfection as an SC.
    But what does SC stand for? asked Autumn.
    An SC? repeated the instructor. Through the dark came a moonlike slice of smile.
    That’s what the guillotine cut off when I came in the door, thought Mariah, that piece of smile.
    An SC is a Scare Choice. Thank you, Mariah, for supplying tonight’s Scare Choice.

Chapter 5
    T HE FOUR CLASS MEMBERS and their instructor were nothing but darkness, shifting and reforming. They filtered into the library like poison into a town reservoir.
    Mariah tried to prevent her shade from joining the group. What was going to happen here? What were they going to do? She didn’t want to do it. But she no longer had control. She was merely part of a bleaker, deeper darkness.
    Bevin is safe, Mariah told herself, that’s what counts. I didn’t give them Bevin’s name.
    Through a dark now full of herself and the others, Mariah saw the Scare Choice. He didn’t know yet. They were at that fraction in time where things could still stop; where the victim didn’t yet know he was a victim.
    Ned kept himself in the center of the class, for there he felt protected from his own weakness. What if the class realized that he was a lonely castoff himself? Only inches from being a Scare Choice?
    Although Ned had never heard of an SC till a minute ago, he saw that Mariah had named a perfect one. The man reeked weakness, nervous fingers gripping a pencil too hard, shallow forehead wrinkled with worry that he might incorrectly grade some other teacher’s papers. Probably he felt protected by the knowledge that he was the only occupant of the building.
    But he wasn’t the only occupant.
    Night Class was there.
    The Scare Choice sensed something. He shuffled two papers for no reason except to occupy his fingers. He looked out of the corner of his eyes without moving his head. A little twitch appeared in his cheek.
    Andrew squinted into his camera. How metal and plastic could pass through a plaster wall fascinated Andrew. The class had not existed as they passed through the walls of the library and surrounded the SC, and yet the camcorder did exist, and somehow it had also moved through the wall.
    The shadows he filmed seemed to have body, not merely light deflection. Andrew wondered how much would actually show up on the film. He circled the SC for a better angle.
    The SC noticed. The SC held himself very still, trying to analyze the change in the atmosphere around him. It was an interesting reaction. Very primitive. Like a white rabbit freezing in the snow to hide.
    Andrew focused, and now the thin nervous facial features of the SC appeared right in the little crosshatch. Sort of like aiming a rifle, thought Andrew. I’m shooting him.
    It’s like joining a very exclusive