Viral Nation by Shaunta Grimes Read Free Book Online

over. “Oh, my.”
    She handed it back to Clover.
    “Where do I go now?” she asked as she shoved the paper back into its pocket.
    “Well, to the ballroom. But…”
    Clover looked down the long hallways that stretched on either side of the front room. At the end of one were double doors with people milling around them. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”
    The skirt of her mother’s dress swished around her bare knees, and her feet felt weird in white leather shoes that forced her to walk on her toes. Her brother made her wear them. He said her sneakers were too informal for orientation, and if she was going to wear their mother’s dress, she had to wear the shoes that went with it. She hated how her toes squished into the front of them and the back slipped up and down on her heels. Her feet were already raw and swollen from the walk to the Academy. She didn’t want to think about how they would feel by the time she got home.
    Intellectually, Clover knew what a ballroom was. Still, as she came to the door, she braced herself for a room filled with every kind of ball she’d ever heard of: rubber balls, giant beach balls, baseballs, basketballs, the kind of tiny balls that bounced like crazy when you threw them to the floor.
    This ballroom was basically a big square with hardwood floors and elaborate, brightly lit chandeliers overhead. More electric light than she’d seen all at once in her whole life.
    There was no furniture except for a table along one wall that had stacks of folders and two more in the middle with food on them. There were no chairs.
    There were also no melon balls or Ping-Pong balls.
    Clover walked in a straight line toward the food, her arms pulled in tight against her body. No tennis balls, but there were a lot of people. The room was big enough that none of them needed to touch her, but Clover knew from experience that space didn’t matter to them like it did to her.
    “Oh, my God, look. She brought her dog,” an all-too-familiar voice behind her said. “They aren’t going to let her have her dog here, are they?”
    Mango stayed at her side, heeling perfectly. He didn’t react when a slender hand reached down and petted his head.
    “Please don’t touch him, Wendy,” Clover said.
    “Don’t be so lame. I’m just saying hello.”
    Wendy O’Malley. They’d been in primary school together. For the first time, Clover looked around. Her low-level anxiety ramped up when she realized that she recognized nearly all of the faces in the room.
    The Academy was her reward for putting up with Wendy and her gang of mean girls for ten very long years. It was
hers
. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to her until now that it was theirs as well if they passed the exams.
    Her hand shook around Mango’s lead and the walls of the ballroom closed in some, but she tried not to let Wendy see that she was rattled as she walked away. There was chocolate on the table. West almost never won them any sweets or enough sugar to make their own. She could count on one hand how many times she’d had real chocolate.
    “You don’t have to be so rude,” Wendy said.
    Mango made a soft sound next to Clover. He knew better thananyone what happened when Clover had to spend any time around Wendy. Especially when there were no adults around.
    “Still wearing your mama’s hand-me-downs, I see.” That was Heather Sweeney. Wendy’s evil minion.
    “You
both
passed the entrance exams?” Clover asked as her weight shifted from one foot to the other, once and then again. It didn’t seem possible that they were both here. They barely had a full brain between the two of them.
    “Of course we did,” Wendy said. “I can’t believe you did, spaz. Do they have special ed here?”
    Clover looked around, but didn’t see any adults. She didn’t realize her weight-shifting had turned into full-fledged rocking and the low hum in her head was coming out of her mouth until Mango pressed against her legs and stopped her.
    “I guess