Night School by Caroline B. Cooney Page B

show up and didn’t even bother to call? I need to retract that. It wasn’t fair of me. Poor guy was correcting papers here in the library and had some sort of mental breakdown on his way home. Police found him just sitting in his car by the side of the road at two o’clock this morning. He’s been hospitalized.”
    “I’m sorry to hear it,” said Andrew. Andrew was more than sorry. He was horrified. “What hospital?” said Andrew numbly. “I’d better visit him.”
    “Andrew, what a great kid you are!” said the principal, sounding far too surprised, as if he’d had his doubts about Andrew.
    When the school day ended, the morning scenes occurred in the reverse, like a daily film running backward. There were Mariah and Andrew standing by the bulletin board, noticing that the Night Class sheet was gone. There was Ned, wall-clinging, inching toward them.
    And there were Tommy and Sal, still not touching, still very fond of each other, still walking purposefully. A definite, very enviable pair.
    Autumn said quietly, “Neither of them would ever be an ETS.”
    Mariah practically leaped out of her shoes.
    “I didn’t mean to startle you,” said Autumn. “I thought you saw me coming.”
    Mariah shook her head. How dare Autumn mention the ETS? It brought Mariah’s nerves too close to the surface, as if the slightest sun or windburn would expose her fears.
    “Sal and Tommy are strong,” said Autumn. “I felt it all the way down the hall. You don’t choose the strong one for your ETS, you choose the weak. It would be like a lion picking a lion or a leopard picking a leopard, to pick Sal or Tommy.”
    “Autumn, are you going to do it?” whispered Mariah. “Are you really going to choose an ETS?”
    “The teacher said there’s no dropping out, Mariah, I don’t want to face that teacher without my homework done.”
    “I’m dropping out anyway,” said Mariah. “It’s okay for lions and leopards to choose victims, but it isn’t okay for us. We wouldn’t be doing it to survive. We’d be doing it to … to …”
    “To scare them,” said Andrew.
    “Are you going to do your homework, Andrew?” Mariah’s voice was below whisper. It was hardly even breath.
    Andrew whispered, “There’s some old lady that lives down the road from us. She’s half gonzo. She doesn’t ever remember anyone’s name, she just waves and waves like her wrist is stuck. She lives alone.”
    Mariah was horrified. A neighbor of his? Some peaceful old confused lady, and Andrew had chosen her for his ETS?
    “Have you done your homework, Mariah?” breathed Andrew.
    Mariah twitched.
    “Well, well, well,” said Julie-Brooke-Danielle. “What homework are we talking about?”
    Autumn flinched. The minute she was with her three dearest friends she felt like less of a person.
    Julie said, “What did you and Autumn do in that class, anyway, Mariah?”
    “Nothing,” said Mariah quickly. Much too quickly.
    Julie’s sharp green eyes sharpened.
    She’s creepy, thought Mariah. But who am I to call another person creepy? I who have secret crushes that last for years and years? I who go to Night Class and offer up Scare Choices?
    “Autumn won’t talk about it,” said Julie. “I mean, she won’t even tell me the subject.”
    “There is no subject,” said Mariah.
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Julie. “It’s night school. Of course there’s a subject. You can’t just go there and sit around and pick on each other.”
    The word “pick” penetrated minds as if it were itself a pick: an ice pick, an iron-ore pick.
    Who would Mariah pick? Who would Andrew pick?
    Who would pick Bevin?
    Or had somebody already picked Bevin?
    “What is that Night Class?” said Danielle. “What’s the subject anyhow? Photography? Filming?”
    Andrew went white. “Why do you say that?” he asked.
    “I can’t think of anything else I’d be willing to come back to school for at night,” said Danielle. “I want to go into film, of