Free When Rose Wakes by Christopher Golden

my homeroom teacher assigned me a student ambassador to be my guide for the day, and I’m supposed to wait for her and have lunch with her.”
    Kylie put on her backpack, hooking her thumbs under the straps. “Who’s your ambassador?”
    “Courtney Sauer.”
    “Lovely. I’m sure that’s a joy,” Kylie said.
    Rose sighed. “Not exactly. But it’s just one day. I mean, it’s supposed to be longer, but neither of us wants that.”
    “Maybe we can eat together tomorrow,” Kylie said. “It was great meeting you, though.”
    “You, too.”
    They walked out together, stopping in the corridor as the flow of people rushing to lockers swept by them. Several people said hello to Kylie, who gave little waves and made funny faces at them. She had such positive energy and charisma that although she couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, everyone seemed to notice her. She really seemed to be having a good time, and Rose admired that, even envied it.
    But then heads started turning away, looking elsewhere, and the energy in the corridor changed. The throng parted and Courtney Sauer approached them. Rose watched several guys checking her out, trying unsuccessfully to be cool about it. Courtney drew an entirely different kind of attention than Kylie did. Rose thought it seemed like hunger. To be with her. To be her. To understand how to become whatever she was, to have what she had.
    “Hey,” Courtney said, ignoring everyone but Rose. “Come on. Lunch is this way.”
    Rose glanced at Kylie. “I’ll see you later.”
    “Absolutely,” Kylie said. Then she turned to Courtney, smile widening, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Hi, Courtney. Gosh, you’re looking blond today.”
    Rose stifled a laugh as Kylie departed, vanishing in theflow of taller students. Courtney stared after her, upper lip drawn back almost in a sneer.
    “How nice. You made a friend,” Courtney said. “Everyone should have one.”
    Then she set off, as usual assuming Rose would keep up. They weaved through the corridor traffic, down the central staircase to the first floor, then cut across to the stairs at the west side of the building. As they walked, Rose realized that she could have found the cafeteria herself. The gym was on the east wing and the caf on the west. Simple enough.
    Rose tagged along behind Courtney like some unwanted kid sister, but that was fine with her. She shared Courtney’s obvious desire not to acknowledge that they were together. As they moved through the throngs of students jammed in front of lockers or herding toward their next period classrooms, they joined a flow in the middle of the corridor who were all on their way to the cafeteria.
    A left turn brought them into the west wing, through a pair of propped-open sets of double doors, and down half a dozen steps into the caf. At first Rose wondered if some of the kids who had first period lunch had not yet vacated their tables, but then she realized that those already seated had somehow managed to arrive early and had already gotten their lunch. Long tables that seated twenty-four each in attached chairs ran up the center of the huge room in two rows. On either side of those werelarge, round tables seating eight to ten students each. A quick glance confirmed Rose’s instant suspicion that the younger students were relegated to the long tables, the round and more exclusive ones having been claimed by juniors and seniors.
    For the most part.
    Apparently, Courtney and her clique warranted some kind of special dispensation, for she marched over to a round table on the left side of the caf and parked her backpack on one of the chairs. She grabbed a spare chair from a stack on the wall and set it into place beside her own without casting a glance at Rose.
    “What’s that about?” asked a pretty Latina girl.
    Courtney nodded toward Rose. “I get to play ambassador to the new girl.”
    Rose watched the reactions on the faces of Courtney’s friends. There were four of