Free When Rose Wakes by Christopher Golden Page A

them already at the table—the others probably in line for lunch—and their expressions ranged from disdain to amusement. Before any of them could say anything, a dark-haired, broad-shouldered guy came over and set his tray down next to Courtney.
    “Hey, babe,” he said, lightly touching her arm. He glanced at Rose out of the corner of his eye. “How’s your day?”
    “Perfect,” Courtney said.
    “She’s babysitting me,” Rose volunteered, then blinked in surprise that she had bothered to speak at all.
    The guy nodded. “Excellent. Will there be spanking if you get out of line?”
    Courtney scowled in disgust but Rose couldn’t help laughing.
    “You’re a pig, Eric,” Courtney said.
    Eric threw up his hands. “Guilty as charged,” he said, then slid into his chair and picked up the milk glass from his tray. Before he could take a drink, his gaze locked on Rose and brightened. “Wait a second.”
    He cocked his head, studying her. “New student. You must be Coma Girl!”
    They all stared at Rose with new interest and she felt something freeze inside of her. Bad enough they treated her like she was beneath them, but now she was worse than nothing; she was a curiosity. A freak.
    “How does that work?” the Latina girl asked.
    A tall, pale brunette leaned back in her chair, appraising her. “Simple enough. You go to sleep and wake up and your clothes are all out of style.”
    They all laughed. Another girl, lightly freckled, practically leered at her. “So how’d you wake up, Sleeping Beauty? One of the doctors give you a kiss?”
    Courtney smiled, obviously enjoying her discomfort.
    “You can grill her all you want once I have my lunch,” Courtney said, then turned to Rose. “Come on. They don’t give us much time.”
    The two girls got into the lunch line, surprising Rose.She had assumed that Courtney would have cut right in front. But then again, there were plenty of upperclassmen in line, and while Courtney obviously considered herself royalty where other sophomores were concerned, she must have some awareness of the limits of her power in the high school pecking order.
    After receiving a plate laden with some kind of pasta, cheese, and red sauce creation the lunch ladies had labeled manicotti, Rose got herself a glass of apple juice and a small salad and started following Courtney back toward their table. Still wearing her backpack, obviously a wanderer with no real place of her own in the school’s student hierarchy, she felt like a puppy dogging its master’s heels.
    “Rose!”
    Nearly tripping over a pair of crutches an older guy had put down beside his table, she stumbled a bit and almost spilled her juice. When she’d found her footing again, she glanced back and saw that it had been Kylie who called to her from the end of one of the long tables with attached seats. She gestured for Rose to join her, indicating an empty seat beside her. Rose hesitated, glancing at the table full of Courtney’s friends. Did having an ambassador assigned to her mean that she had to stick with that ambassador? Would her failure to do so be perceived as disobedience? She didn’t want to get into trouble on her first day—she owed Aunt Fay and Aunt Suzette more than that.
    Kylie called to her again, beckoning with one hand,making a funny face to urge her on. Rose laughed softly and changed direction, glad now that she had not left her backpack at Courtney’s table.
    She slid her tray next to Kylie’s and slipped off her backpack.
    “Thanks for saving me from the torture of eating with those people,” she said.
    Kylie smiled, popping a forkful of salad into her mouth and talking as she chewed. “Yeah, for a minute there I thought you were going to, like, totally ignore me. I was thinking they had taken over your mind or something.”
    Rose plopped her backpack between seats and slid into the chair between Kylie and an orange-haired guy talking about football and the army like they were one and the same