Free Circle of Stones by Suzanne Alyssa Andrew Page A

something, which can take days. Or forever.
    Moreland calls up Karen Ang, Paul Banerjee, and then me, Aaron Chase. She hands back my assignment and glares over the frames of her black plastic reading glasses. I grab my paper and my backpack and get out of there. I don’t look at my mark until I’m down the hall, clear of any classmates. There are a lot more red circles and scratches than I’d expected on the first page. I flip to page two, where I see D- in unnecessarily large script. That bitch.
    I put on my coat and bolt off campus. This puts me smack in the middle of the busy, grubby mess of Toronto’s Yonge Street. Vancouver’s grimy, too, but everyone stares at the water and the mountains and goes into denial. Only real difference is there’s scads more people here. That makes it a good place to hide. Forest for the trees. I push through dazed shoppers walking super slow like they’re mentally incapacitated. I get halfway to the subway then remember those office hours I wrote in my notebook. Guess I need them after all. My mom and dad are funding this little back-to-school operation. The deal is I’ve got to get a C average or they’ll kick me out of the house. I’m pretty much on Plan Z at this point, and totally broke. Plus I don’t want to have to make an extra trip back downtown. Might as well get the business over with. I grab my cellphone out of the pocket of my jeans to check the time, ignoring the new text messages from Ilana. Moreland’s got half an hour left.
    I boot it back to campus. More people are waiting to get on the elevator than can fit, so I huff up a couple flights of stairs and navigate the hall maze to Moreland’s closed office door. I wait for a few minutes. The door opens to let out a stressed student with the huge plastic food container and nondescript clothes of a science major. She’s probably picking up a prerequisite.
    â€œNext,” Moreland says from behind her desk.
    I stride in, toss my coat and bag on the floor, and slump down in an orange guest chair. Moreland pours steaming water from her electric kettle into a latte-sized mug. A nauseating fruity herbal tea aroma fills the tiny, book-cluttered room.
    â€œAnd you are?” Moreland asks. She never seems to remember her students’ names. She calls us all “you.”
    â€œAaron Chase.”
    â€œYou’re here because you don’t like your grade, I imagine.” Moreland crosses her legs and leans back in her chair. She’s got a boxy black jacket on over a blue T-shirt. Her scary-short haircut makes her look like a male model. Everything about the way she looks, moves, and speaks is intimidating.
    â€œYeah. What’s up with this?” I toss my paper onto her desk.
    Moreland plucks her reading glasses from the top of one of her massive paper stack towers and looks at my assignment for a long time, considering she’s already read it. I stare at her wiry shoulders. She’s fit for someone so old. I wonder what she looks like when she takes the jacket off.
    She finally looks at me. “Did you read the book?”
    â€œâ€™Course.” I cross my arms, realizing she already thinks I’m an idiot. I clear my throat and try to stop thinking about her mysterious, older-woman breasts.
    â€œLet me see your copy then.” She flings an arm in my direction. I’ll bet she has those muscled Madonna contours in her arms that thin older women have.
    I fumble in my backpack and retrieve my paperback of Ondaatje’s The English Patient . Moreland plucks it out of my hands and gives it a quick flip.
    â€œThat’s what I thought.” She hands it back with a smug look. “What were you doing when you read it?”
    â€œI was probably on the subway.” The tea stink might as well be laughing gas. I can’t think fast enough to fabricate a convincing lie. “I’ve got this long