Free Devilish by Maureen Johnson Page B

well, but her spikes were much longer than mine and shocked out all the way around her head in a series of thick points. She was small and clearly muscular—seriously athletic, in a dancery kind of way. But she didn’t seem graceful, just hard. You sort of knew that if you touched one of those muscular arms, it would probably feel like a rat trapped in a bag.
    “We’ve come to examine a bas-relief that’s on special display at the university,” he said. “A very fascinating piece from Byzantium. It strikes me that you might be interested in seeing it yourself. You seem quite a well-educated young woman. I speak as an experienced educator. I know a good student when I see one.”
    This guy clearly had no intention of letting me go. He had a bad case of the chats-too-much.
    “I guess,” I said.
    “Incidentally, the lamb was quite excellent. Please tell your mother that we were extremely satisfied. We would certainly recommend The Pink Peppercorn. Wouldn’t we, Claris?”
    Claris looked deep into the Brown bookstore window, obviously not too interested in meeting a short high school student whose mom worked in a restaurant. “It was good,” she said. But she didn’t mean it. She said it the same way you say something like, “The cable’s gone out.”
    Her eyes met mine in the window. They glowed white as they reflected off the lettering of a Brown sweatshirt. I turned back to Mr. Fields, who was beaming like an idiot.
    “What brings you out today, Jane?” he asked. “Just taking in this fine afternoon?”
    “I’m getting coffee.”
    “As are we. Perhaps we could get a cup together?”
    “The dog has been in the car for a long time,” Claris said, wheeling around. “We should get the dog.”
    “Yes,” he said. I could tell he was annoyed, but he buried it. “That is a good point. Our dog has been in the car perhaps a bit too long. He’s not fond of the car. He sometimes enacts canine rituals on the seats as a form of retaliation. But there’s time enough for a quick cup, I think.”
    He smiled his small-toothed smile, and Claris openly rolled her eyes and turned the other way, this time looking into the slow-moving single lane of traffic in the road.
    “Let’s just get it to go,” she said. “There’s a Starbucks here.”
    An almost-visible ripple of discomfort passed between them. I hate adults who have stupid fights in front of strangers.
    “I’ve got to go anyway,” I said. “I’m meeting a friend.”
    “Ah!” he said. “We won’t keep you any longer, Jane. Maybe some other time, if fate throws us together. We are spending some time in this area, so this is quite possible.”
    He bowed, and then he and Claris continued on their way. I hurried in the opposite direction, just in case he had a change of heart and just had to tell me something else.
    “Wonderful,” I said to myself. “Now I’m going to see this guy everywhere. I’m the luckiest girl I know. How much better can my life get?”

sixteen
    Pasquale’s was deeper into the Brown campus than we usually went. It took me a while to find it, since it was half hidden under a photocopy shop, with only a small blackboard and a clump of smokers outside identifying it. Edith Piaf was warbling in French over the stereo. There was an array of vegan cookies on display that looked disturbingly like dog biscuits. For entertainment, there was a shelf full of yellowing books and some Jurassic board games that you could tell were missing pieces without even looking in the box. A girl in a massive, checked head scarf was sobbing her eyes out at a table in the corner. Another girl walked in behind me carrying a tomato sauce jar half full of water. The jar had no lid.
    This kind of thing isn’t so unusual around Brown, which is filled with the Ivy League’s most entertaining misfits. They liked to hang out in places like this.
    Allison was sitting primly to one side, two mismatched mugs in front of her. She was sipping from one very