Scorpion Shards by Neal Shusterman Read Free Book Online Page A

am I doing? What’s wrong with me?”
    â€œIt’s not you,” said Michael, refusing to let his own tears out. “It’s me. I turn people crazy. I’m like . . . a full moon, only worse.”
    Fleiderman wiped blood from his lips as he crouched low, still unable to look up at Michael.
    â€œYou won’t be going to this school anymore,” he told Michael, finally getting to the bottom line.
    â€œI’m being expelled?”
    â€œTransferred.” Which to Michael was the same thing.
    Fleiderman began to breathe hard, fighting back words of anger. Michael could tell because his face was turning red, and although Michael felt like kicking Fleiderman in the gut, he didn’t. Instead he dug deep within himself, to find a feeling that was decent, and when he found it, Michael took his hand and gently rested it on Fleiderman’s hunched shoulder.
    â€œIt’s all right,” said Michael. “You can say it if it makes you feel better—it doesn’t bother me.”
    â€œI hate you!” said Fleiderman.
    â€œSay it again.”
    â€œI hate you  . . .” Just saying the words seemed to release some of Fleiderman’s steam. He quivered the tiniest bit.
    Although those words hurt, they also gave Michael a sense of control. He could bring people down to their knees in love or hate, altering their very nature. He could turn a bright, sunny disposition into a storming fury. He could turn the heart of an ice-queen into hot steam. Such awesome power must be worth something.
    Michael patted Fleiderman’s shoulder and turned to leave. As Michael crossed the quad, his thoughts became a bit clearer and what fog was left in his own mind began to lift, along with the fog in the quad. Now that the worst was over, he felt relieved as he went back into school to clear out his locker.
    As Michael left the quad, Fleiderman began to feel his fury fading. In a moment, Fleiderman’s humanity came crawling back to him, and he began to condemn himself and obsess overthis awful thing he had just done—for no reason he could figure out. He felt ashamed and terrified.
    Love and hate being two sides of the same coin, Fleiderman began to wonder if the unfortunate Miss Benson also felt this way once Michael Lipranski had been removed from her company.
    T HAT NIGHT, WHILE THE rest of the Eastern seaboard was densely padded with storm systems, a patch of clear sky stalled over eastern Long Island, making it a perfect night for the annual star-watch. After sunset, four dozen kids gathered to spend an evening on Montauk Point with their science teacher, peering through his telescope, drawing star maps by flashlight, and calculating the speed of the earth’s rotation.
    Both Michael and Lourdes were advised not to come, which was more certain to assure their attendance than giving them a printed invitation. Michael, who had been sporting a fake license for almost a year now, drove up in his father’s van, and no one was quite sure how or when Lourdes got there; at times she was amazingly stealthy for a girl of her size.
    Montauk Point was a state park surrounded by cold, rough ocean on three sides, and the bluff beyond the lighthouse was the farthest east one could get in the state of New York. It was the tip of Long Island and simply as far as you could go. Unless, of course, you chose to take one step further east—off the cliff and into the sea.
    It was around eleven that night that Michael Lipranski stood at the tip of the lighthouse bluff, contemplating that final step east that would send him plunging to his death in the cold breakers.
    For Michael, the evening hadn’t begun with such thoughts, but it had begun desperately. The star-watch was a greatmake-out opportunity—and on his last day at this school, Michael felt compelled to take advantage of that.
    Upon arrival, Michael had set his charms on Melissa Brickle, who was, by nature, the