Chapter One

Stomping to my locker to grab my things for gym, I uttered a sotto voce string of curses that brought me the attention of everyone who passed me in the hallway. I studied for the dang test, crammed for a full hour before class, but that didn't matter at all to Mrs. Davidson. Her class in irrelevant history had me nodding off nearly every day and made for sparse notes to study from. We were supposed to read the text book, too, but everyone knew she never asked questions from it, totally hung up on her own magical words.

And worse, everyone agreed that even if we managed to stay awake, she didn't cover everything that would be on the test. She consistently had the lowest grades of any teacher in the school and had the nerve to blame it on us! But in the past, I wouldn't have cared that much. As long as I maintained my C average and managed to get through this last year of high school, I was just settling in to count the days.

Unfortunately, I had learned in a meeting with my counselor at the end of last term that I was skating on thin ice. I'd dropped a few classes—one with Mrs. Davidson—that I found intolerable, and miscalculated on the number of credits required for graduation. The only way I'd finish with an actual diploma and keep my mother from figuratively "wringing my neck" was to pass every class between now and June. If I failed just one, bam, I'd have to retake it over the summer, not be able to walk with my class, miss all the graduation everything. While I didn't care about most of those things, Mom did.

Now I had to meet with Mrs. Davidson after school and grovel and beg for a retake. I'd said a few things when I dropped her other class sophomore year, resulting in her being less likely to cut me any slack. Dammit! I should walk out the door today and never come back. At eighteen, nobody could legally stop me. But what would I do? Work fast food for the rest of my life? In this state, that did not pay a living wage, so not only would my pores be filled with days' old grease, but I'd have to stay at home and face my parents' disappointment every time I approached the washer with my hideous polyester uniforms.

I had just read that they shed plastic fibers into the environment, too. While I did not belong to the climate activist group at school, I didn't want to make things worse. Family camping trips in nature were among my favorite childhood memories, and I wanted future generations to have the same experiences.

Opening my locker, I spotted the pointless text book for Irrelevant History 101 and was suffused again with rage. All thoughts of staying in school to avoid destroying the oceans with my plastic uniforms and disappointing Mom and Dad were overtaken by my anger at Mrs. Davidson. I would not let that old biddy ruin my plan to get out of this place with that blessed piece of paper my parents found so valuable. No matter how bad things got here, how much I wanted to run, my folks were good to me and deserved better from their only child.

I shoved my backpack into the locker and turned away to investigate a scuffle down the hallway. Typical. There was always someone pushing and shoving between classes, but the smell of something burning was coming from somewhere else. Somewhere close by. There was some kind of an arsonist among us. I knew because the headline on our school newspaper read: An Arsonist Among Us. A couple of trash cans, an underwatered bush outside. Nothing too serious, but the weird thing was the ever-present cameras did not catch anyone actually lighting the fires.

"Ouch!" I batted at a spark that landed on my arm, adding the scent of burning hair to the general paper-burning aroma. What the?

"Get back!" Someone grabbed my arm and jerked me away from my locker into the flow of students moving between classes. "Your hair is on fire."

I landed on my butt and slid to the opposite wall of lockers, slapping my head to put out the smoldering lock of hair. But when I looked up, students were rushing past in a mass of screaming, panicked humanity. I scooted against the wall, trying not to get trampled, preparatory to joining the rest, but a second's opening in the crowd had my jaw dropping. "My locker!"

Someone had set my locker on fire. And it had to be while I was standing right there. But the fire alarm began to shriek and the sprinklers went off at that moment, drenching everyone, making the floor slippery and adding to the chaos. Somehow, amid all that, I managed to get my feet under me and become part of the flow out the door and onto the lawn. Sure, we had regular fire drills, but somehow they all began when we were all in class, and if there was an alternate plan for when we were changing classes, I had never heard of it.

We milled around while three fire trucks pulled up and the uniformed firefighters leapt out and raced into the building. Staff and faculty joined us, but while the teachers would have been checking off the students from their class, nobody had been in any of their rooms yet. They clustered at one corner of the lawn, talking to each other and looking stressed.

After about a half hour, the school was considered safe. The flames had been contained to a single locker, we were told, so we filed back into the building to go on with our day. At least most of us did. I had noticed a few of my classmates sneaking away while we waited, unlikely to return anytime soon.

I stopped in front of the burned-out hole that had been my locker. I was glad the fire hadn't gotten beyond it, but it had held all my books, my backpack with my laptop and papers and, etc. All I had was my small wallet that lived in my jeans front pocket with my driver's license and school ID and a few other relevant cards in it. Maybe twenty dollars in small bills. At least I wouldn't have to replace any of that, but my makeup had been in that backpack. Also, how could I go to class without my laptop or any other essentials?

A chill ran down my spine at the memory of the fire starting. Who had done it? I'd been standing right there, close enough to cause harm as the rancid odor of burned hair reminded me.

"Minx Johannson." I turned to find one of the kiss-ass students who ran errands for the administrative staff standing behind me. "You are wanted in the office."

"On my way." Maybe they could explain to me who was going to pay for everything that had been destroyed and how they planned to protect us from the arsonist? Someone could have been hurt either by the fire or by the escape process. I'd seen a few people go down on the wet floor, and if they hadn't been injured, it was purely by luck.

But when I arrived at the office, I was faced with not only the principal and my counselor but also the fire chief and a township police officer. And they didn't look like they were there to apologize for my lost laptop.

"Minx, sit down." The principal moved behind his desk and took his seat. "You, too, officers." Were firefighters called officers? I wasn't sure. But from the looks everyone fixed on me, this wasn't going to be good. My stomach twisted.