Free Night School by Caroline B. Cooney Page A

getting into her Mercedes (Julie was the richest of the group and liked it to be very clear), a girl named Lynnie, somebody for whom Julie certainly had no use and certainly would never bother with, had said, “Hi, piranha.”
    The girls around Julie had snickered. “She’s beyond piranha,” said another girl. “She’s a piranha trainer.”
    Lynnie said, “Don’t get in the water with Julie,” and Lynnie and her friends laughed together and walked away from Julie.
    Normally Julie liked her reputation as the toughest and cruellest in school. Today, however, she had caught herself in a mood of envy. First she was envious of Sal, who had the unusual quality of being good at being alone. Then she was envious of Mariah, who probably had the unusual quality of being happy in her dreams.
    And me, thought Julie, what unusual qualities do I have? It isn’t unusual for teenagers to be mean to each other. It isn’t unusual for teenagers to be well dressed and drive great cars.
    Julie wanted to talk to Autumn and had even considered the possibility of laying her heart bare. Although they were inseparable, Julie-Brooke-Autumn-Danielle told each other very little; it was too risky, maybe because they were inseparable.
    But Autumn had gone out somewhere, without letting Julie know, and Julie was home alone, with nobody to talk to. She imagined herself calling Sal up, or Mariah, or Lynnie.
    Yeah, right.
    Julie was afraid of the dark. Every night of her life, she still checked under the bed. Kept the closet door closed. Had the yardman trim the branches away from the house so nothing rasped against the siding. She still went to bed before her Mom and Dad so that she’d never be the one to turn off the last light.
    Julie had slept with a night-light since birth. Her end of the house actually had three night-lights: bedroom, hall, and bathroom. She was a big buyer of night-lights, which you could find in catalogs. She had bunny rabbit night-lights, Christmas night-lights, moon-and-stars night-lights, and Mickey Mouse night-lights.
    They had not helped Julie like the dark. They had only taught her that collecting was fun. Whenever Brooke-Autumn-Danielle spent the night, Julie liked to pretend that her grandmother was the night-light freak. I don’t spoil her fun, Julie explained generously, I let her think the night-lights are really sweet.
    They weren’t sweet.
    They were essential.
    What would she do if the electricity went off? What would she do if Mom and Dad were very, very late? What would she do if there were a prowler, or a strange car in the drive, or a creepy noise from the roof, or footsteps on the stairs?
    Julie was afraid to shampoo her hair, lest she be blind and helpless in the dark. She could not have the television off, but she could not have the sound on, either; it would mask whatever sounds in the dark Julie needed to be alert for. She could not go to bed, because there she was cornered, but she could not stay up, because there she was exposed.
    She could not laugh at herself, she could not calm herself, she could only wait for her parents to return, and in the meantime she focused herself on Autumn, whose fault this was; if Autumn were home the way she had been told, Julie would have a voice on the line and all would be well.
    “We were shadows!” cried Autumn. “How did it film us? We couldn’t even see each other when it happened.” She wanted to get sick, right there on the sidewalk. For her face, the feminine but strong looks of which she was so proud, had observed Mr. Phillips like a scientist observing a rat in a maze. With a little superior smile she had turned off his only light, and raised her eyebrows in contempt when Mr. Phillips screamed.
    Nothing good of Autumn showed in that film. Only the lowest part of her: the scummy part.
    I didn’t know I had scummy parts, thought Autumn. I didn’t mean to be mean! It isn’t fair that somebody was filming. I would have behaved right if I’d known