Free Inferno by Robin Stevenson Page B

gets up at six.”
    Parker stands up and stretches. “I’ll drive you.”
    Leo folds up the sign, careful not to smudge the still tacky paint. “How about Dante and I go? We can hang the sign, and then I’ll run her home.”
    â€œCheers,” Jamie says. “Parker and I should hit the sack. We both have to work in the morning.” He yawns. “Flipping pancakes.”
    It is weird driving through the empty streets with Leo, and even weirder pulling up to GRSS in the middle of the night. Dark, quiet and oddly unfamiliar.
    â€œSo this is where you spend your days,” Leo says.
    I nod. “This is it.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œIt’s boring. Really boring.” I can’t quite meet his eyes. Parker’s right: He makes too much eye contact. There’s something about the way he holds my gaze that makes it hard to breathe. “Where did you go to school?” I ask, pushing my feet against the floor of the car.
    There’s a long silence. Finally Leo nods out the window. “Right here,” he says.
    â€œHere? You did? When?”
    His hands are white-knuckled around the steering wheel. “Quit two years ago,” he says. “I did grade nine and ten here, quit part way through grade eleven.”
    I do the math. “So you must have left right before I started.”
    â€œI guess so.” He shakes his head slowly. “I hated it.”
    I remember his comments about the suburbs. I guess he hates it not because he’s an outsider but because he knows it all too well. I glance at my watch: two thirty. I know we should get moving and hang the sign, but I don’t want to stop talking. “Did you ever have Mr. Lawson?”
    â€œNazi,” he says. “Power-tripping Nazi. I hated him.”
    I have a bit of a problem with people using the word
Nazi
like that—I mean, much as I hate Lawson, there isn’t really any comparison. Usually I say something, but this time I let it slide. “Me too. You know, he pretty much accused me of lying when I said I’d already read the assigned books.”
    â€œHe grabbed me by the collar once and shoved me up against the lockers.”
    â€œJesus. Can teachers do that? I mean, that’s...isn’t that assault?”
    He gives me a shark-like grin. “You’d think. But it was his word against mine. You can guess who the principal believed.”
    â€œJesus,” I say again. “That’s awful.” I think back to my conversation with Mrs. Greenway. “The new principal is okay. I think she believes me. I don’t think she even likes Mr. Lawson.”
    â€œSure.” Leo stares out the front window at the school. “But when it really matters, wait and see whose side she takes. They’re all the same.”
    I pull my lower lip between my teeth. I’ve always liked Mrs. G., but it isn’t like she’s actually taken my side in any way that counts. She hasn’t challenged Lawson or let me transfer out of his class. So I don’t know. Maybe Leo is right.
    He opens his door. “I guess we’d better hang the sign, hey?”
    We get out of the car and dump the bundle of sheets on the ground.
    â€œWe should hang it so it completely covers the front doors,” Leo says.
    I shake my head. “No. The teachers get in early—they’ll just take it down.” I look at the school building thoughtfully. “I think we should hang it high. Really high.”
    Leo follows my gaze and frowns. The building is two stories high, a sheer gray cliff. “How?” he asks. “We can’t climb up there.”
    I study the building and don’t answer for a minute. A concrete awning juts out over the doors, and above it the wall stretches straight up to join a sloping shingle roof. It’s crazy, but I’m overcome with a reckless desire to impress him. “I think we could do it,” I say. “The first part