Free Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier Page B

really want to get mixed up in this.
    “Then your grandfather was gay too,” said Gordon.
    “You’re just jealous,” said Cynthia.
    “Jealous? Me?”
    “Of course you are. Because Mr. Whitman is the best-looking, most masculine, cleverest, straightest guy ever. Next to him you look like a silly, weedy little boy.”
    “Thanks very much for the compliment,” said Mr. Whitman. He’d appeared behind us, unnoticed, with a stack of paper under his arm and, as always, breathtakingly good-looking. (Even if he did also look a bit like a squirrel.)
    Cynthia went even redder than bright scarlet in the face, if that’s possible. I actually felt sorry for her.
    Gordon grinned nastily.
    “As for you, Gordon, maybe you ought to do a little research into signet rings and their wearers,” said Mr. Whitman. “I’d like you to write a short essay on the subject by next week.”
    Now Gordon went red. But unlike Cynthia, he could still speak. “For English or history?” he squeaked.
    “I’d welcome it if you would concentrate on the historical aspects, but I leave you an entirely free hand there. Shall we say five pages by Monday?” Mr. Whitman opened our classroom door and smiled brightly at us. “In you go.”
    “I hate him,” muttered Gordon, sitting down.
    Lesley patted him consolingly on the shoulder. “I think it’s mutual.”
    “Please tell me that was just a bad dream,” said Cynthia.
    “It was only a dream,” I said obligingly. “Mr. Whitman didn’t really hear a word about you thinking he’s the sexiest man alive.”
    Groaning, Cynthia sank into her chair. “Earth, kindly open and swallow me up!”
    I sat down at my place next to Lesley. “Poor thing—she’s still as red as a tomato.”
    “And I think she’ll be a tomato to the end of her school days. Was that ever embarrassing!”
    “Maybe Mr. Whitman will give her better marks now.”
    Mr. Whitman glanced at Charlotte’s place and looked thoughtful.
    “Mr. Whitman? Charlotte’s not well,” I said. “I’m not sure if my aunt called the school secretary’s office—”
    “She has diarrhea!” bleated Cynthia. Obviously she felt an urgent need not to be the only one with something to be embarrassed about.
    “Charlotte is excused,” said Mr. Whitman. “She’ll probably be absent for a few days. Until everything has … returned to normal.” He turned around and wrote THE SONNET on the board in chalk. “Can someone tell me how many sonnets Shakespeare wrote?”
    “What did he mean by returned to normal ?” I whispered to Lesley.
    “I didn’t get the impression he was talking about Charlotte’s diarrhea,” Lesley whispered back.
    Neither did I.
    “Have you ever taken a close look at his signet ring?” Lesley whispered.
    “No, have you?”
    “There’s a star on it. A star with twelve points.”
    “So?”
    “Twelve points—like on a clock.”
    “A clock doesn’t have points.”
    Lesley rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t that ring a bell with you? Twelve! Clock! Time! Time travel! I bet you … Gwen?”
    “Oh, no!” I said. My insides were going on a roller-coaster ride again.
    Lesley stared at me, horrified. “Oh, no!”
    I was just as horrified. The last thing I wanted was to dissolve into thin air in front of the entire class. So I got up and staggered to the door, my hand pressed to my stomach.
    “I think I’m going to throw up,” I told Mr. Whitman. I didn’t wait for his answer. I flung the door open and tottered out into the corridor.
    “Maybe someone ought to go with her,” I heard Mr. Whitman say. “Lesley, please would you…?”
    Lesley came racing after me, firmly closing the classroom door. “Okay, quick! Into the girls’ toilets. No one will see us there. Gwen? Gwenny?”
    Lesley’s face blurred before my eyes. Her voice seemed to come from very far away. And then she’d disappeared entirely. I was standing on my own in a corridor papered with magnificent gold-patterned wallpaper. Instead of the