Free Guilt by Leen Elle Page A

exception." She teased.
    "Well, don't I feel honored." He exclaimed, and his eyes brightened just a little.
    After a moment of silence, Claire reverted her attention back to the reject girl, who was still enduring the bully behind her. The jerk found his prank just as entertaining as he had five minutes ago.
    "Claire", Corry broke the lull in conversation, "Ah, would you . . ."
    Before he could finish his question, the sound of metal scraping on tile interrupted him. The Freak pulled out a chair across from them and sat down in it. He dropped his lunch tray on the table, and gave them an ambiguous stare as he began to shove a hamburger into his mouth. Claire and Corry just looked at him, bewildered by his intrusion, and disgusted by his eating habits.
    "Um," Claire spoke up to the Freak at last, "I didn't know you had lunch this period."
    "I do," he responded mid-bite.
    "Oh." The whole experience felt strange, not to mention embarrassing. He was the school 'Freak', after all. But Claire had a sudden revelation (probably the product of her recent people studies) that he was as lonely as any teen and wanted the company, no matter how he acted in a way that covered up the fact. For a girl who sat by herself everyday, what kind of reputation did she really have to lose by sharing a table with the Freak, anyways?
    She turned back to Corry. "So, what were you going to say a minute ago?"
    "Ah," he glanced at the Freak. "Never mind."
    "Hey," the Freak got their attention, again. "Have you heard the latest on the kidnapping case?" He shoved the last of his burger into his mouth and washed it down with a swig of chocolate milk.
    "Apparently," he continued, "they found one of the girl's shoes in the woods." He opened his bag of peanuts. "Didn't say which woods, though. I bet it was just out back here, behind the high school."
    Corry slammed his fist down on the table. Claire turned to look at him, and saw a red face and furrowed brows. He snarled at the Freak. "That's enough. Get over your morbid fascination, you shithead." Then, he got up and walked out of the cafeteria.
    Claire sat there, stunned. Her eyes involuntarily fell back to the reject girl and the paper wad boys. The Freak followed her gaze and saw the bullying. He took a peanut from his bag, and chucked it at the jock, hitting him in the forehead. The boy looked around and made eye contact with the Freak. When he realized who threw the peanut at him, he scowled, but stopped his prank and returned to eating his lunch.
    The event brought Claire back from the befuddlement caused by Corry's rage. She looked at the Freak, who smiled at his own handy-work, and then she stood up from the table. She gave him a disappointed look, not because he threw the peanut (she would have congratulated him on his aim, there) but because he made Corry upset. She left the cafeteria, hoping to catch up with her friend, but he was nowhere to be found.
    In art class, later that day, Corry didn't say much. Even when Claire attempted to discuss the final exam for George Eliot's
Silas Marner
, which Corry had read the year before and promised he would find his old test copy for, the boy just didn't say more than three words together. What he did do was give the Freak dirty looks all through the period.
    He waited for Claire after class, but didn't speak a word until he left her at algebra. His dark mood seemed to be worse than ever, and Claire began to wonder if she should say something.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Thirteen
     
    I woke up in the night. A noise roused me from a dreamless sleep. It was a lonely call that echoed through the distance. A melancholy trumpet solo that resonated one mournful note over and over, and was accompanied by a muffled rhythmic rumbling that resembled the drum roll on a tympani. That sound made me shiver. I hadn't heard it in so long, and it felt ghostly to my ears. I couldn't explain exactly why, but it made me want to cry.
    When I was a small girl,