No Angel by Helen Keeble Read Free Book Online Page A

internal bleeding circling in my possibly traumatized mind, I finished getting dressed, then headed out in search of the school nurse. Which was where the Headmistress should have sent me in the first place. If I suffered from weird hallucinations for the rest of my life, it would be all her fault.
    I cheered up. Maybe I could sue. At the very least, brain damage had to be worth half an hour of extra time in exams.
    “Raffi?” called a timid voice. I turned to see a little girl sidling toward me with an apprehensive expression, as if approaching a large dog of uncertain temper.
    I squinted at her, checking for any odd visual effects, but she seemed normal. Though for some reason her chubby, anxious face made me think of . . . dandelions? “Oh, right!” I smiled at her, remembering. “Hi, Lydie.”
    Lydie stopped just out of arm’s reach, apparently in order to inspect her suddenly fascinating shoes. “You—you weren’t at breakfast,” she said to the gravel.
    I checked my watch. “Damn. I overslept.” Shading my eyes against the bright morning sunlight, I started down the path toward the main school. “Sorry, Lydie, I’ve got to run.”
    “Wait!” Lydie hurried after me. Still keeping her gaze averted, she stuck out a hand containing a napkin-wrapped package. “There’s never anything good to eat at the canteen, but Ms. Oleander likes me. She showed me the key code to get into the kitchens once. I snuck in and stole you an egg-and-bacon roll from the teachers’ stash.”
    “Hey, thanks!” I took the lukewarm and slightly soggy snack from her and started unwrapping it. “That’s really sweet of you.”
    Lydie went red from throat to forehead. She tagged along after me like a hopeful puppy, though she still didn’t quite dare to actually look in my direction. “Thanks for not telling on me,” she mumbled to the bushes lining the path. “To the Headmistress.”
    “About the flowers?” I said with my mouth full. “No worries. Though,” I swallowed thickly, “you shouldn’t let the other girls push you into stuff like that. Maybe you should tell—er, not the Headmistress. Tell a nice teacher like Ms. Wormwood about it. The bullying, I mean.”
    From Lydie’s horrified expression, you’d have thought I’d suggested that she solve her problem by calling in a SWAT team. “I couldn’t do that. I’d get a bad grade.”
    I snorted. “What in, popularity?”
    “Yes,” Lydie said woefully. “Claire and her friends are the prettiest and most popular girls in second year.” She hung her head even lower. “If I don’t do whatever they want, they’ll make sure everyone gives me a bad Peer Assessment score. My end-of-year results would be terrible.”
    I stared at her. “Are you telling me that part of your marks are determined by other students ?”
    “Of course,” Lydie said, surprised. “How else could we get evaluated on our ‘leadership and teamwork skills’?” She sounded like she was quoting from a school handbook. She finally looked at me, her own expression quizzical. “Didn’t they have Peer Assessment at your old sch—” She stopped midword, staring up at my face. “Um,” she said after a second. “How are you making your hair do that?”
    “It looks like that naturally,” I lied. Actually, it took three products and ten minutes every morning to stop me from looking like a blond sheep, but to admit that would be incredibly sissy.
    Lydie appeared hypnotized by my hair. I wished it had the same effect on girls past puberty. “What,” she said, sounding bewildered, “on fire?”
    “It’s not— you can see it too? ”
    “Um, yes?” Lydie flinched, looking uncertain. “Sorry? Is it meant to be subtle?”
    I grabbed her shoulders, making her yelp, and dropped down to one knee so our faces were level. “Lydie,” I said as calmly as I could. Judging from her terrified expression, this was not very calm. “This is really important. What exactly do you