The Lottery by Beth Goobie Read Free Book Online Page B

fingers of her right hand.
    “Rolf de Regt, Shadow Council secretary,” said the guy with the binder, giving her the same hand signal.
    “Fern O’Brien,” said the girl next to him, and so it went, the circle introducing itself one by one, pausing longest at Linda Paboni, Shadow Council vice president and demerit enthusiast sitting directly opposite Willis Cass. Jesus, thought Sal, I left my back wide open. Several runaway glances were enough to match the girl in front of her to Kimmie’s vampire queen stories — the power smirk, the knowing eyebrows, the direct hazel gaze sharpened to a killing edge. Slightly giddy, Sal continued to rotate on the footstool, obediently receiving each name and three-fingered salute until she found herself once again facing Willis, another lengthy pause, and a long swallowing silence.
    “Four demerits,” Willis mused, stroking his chin. “Punishment begins at five, Sally. You’re lucky I didn’t give you two for your last indiscretion, but we’re going easy on you today. We’re not brutes, we know you’re learning the ropes, but we have to follow the traditions that were set in place long before any of us started at this school. We all haveour parts to play. You play yours, and you’ll find out we’re really on the same side. Friends.”
    Sal’s stomach lurched, and she fought the neon urge to throw up all over his double-knotted Reeboks.
    “In fact, we’re the only friends you’ve got now.” Willis’s voice faded to a whisper and the circle around Sal sighed and rustled as if some kind of epiphany had been achieved, something beautiful released.
    Straightening in his burgundy throne, Willis’s demeanor changed. “Okay, listen up, folks. Wroblewski and McCormick are dropping by in five to give us the rundown on our prospective duties. Everyone tighten your asses. Fake respectable.” His glance trailed across Sal as if he’d forgotten her presence. “Victim dismissed,” he said. “When we want you, you’ll know.”
    She stumbled to her feet, muscles stiff from gripping panic in one position for so long. Ellen Petric snickered and the circle parted, defining her escape route. At the door she fumbled for the knob, breath locked in her lungs until she reached the hallway, until she was free.
    “One more thing,” said Willis, as her hand tightened on the doorknob. “Shadow business is dead secret. No one outside hears about it. Ever.”
    She felt the leash about her throat, tightening like the silence in the room. Then someone coughed, the doorknob turned, and she was stepping into a hallway that echoed with a long, indifferent emptiness.



Chapter Five
    When she walked into English, she knew the word was out. Her first class after lunch had been Music — there’d been the usual grimaces and sideways glances as instruments squeaked and lips grew puffy and raw, but nothing conspicuous, nothing that loomed out of people’s eyes and said they knew. Now, as Sal walked into English, the clue was the sudden silence that followed her across the room, a force field turning faces down and away as she blundered along the aisle toward her desk. Collapsing into her seat, she banged a thigh and felt again the absence of pain, though her joints were disintegrating and cold waves traveled her gut. Then, suddenly, sensations loomed, her cheeks throbbing with heat, her skin a slow gloating fire. With a loud sucking sound, her sweaty hand slid across the varnished surface of her desk. Biting her lower lip, she swiveled to face the window.
    Outside, the sky was a flawless blue, arcing up and away. She stared at it, part of her rising into its blueness, a part that no longer belonged to her because it couldn’t live within anyone as trapped as she was. For she was well and truly trapped. There was no way out. She remembered last year’s winner — Jenny Weaver, a grade eleven student. Brainy, popular, Jenny had decided the whole thing was bogus and hadn’t responded to the