A Fate Totally Worse Than Death Read Online Free Page A

a career in business, and marriage to a dimwit blonde. He eyed Helga’s fascinating handwriting and sensed a different path before him.
    The bell rang, ending the day’s last class. Drew passed his paper up to the front and hurried to catch Helga. Waiting just outside the door, breath mints clattering around in his mouth like balls on a roulette wheel, Gavin got to her first.
    â€œWondered if you might want to watch football practice today. A real slice of America.” He modestly omitted his role as star halfback. “I could give you a ride home after.” He herded the mints into a cheek, then smiled.
    â€œThat’s extremely kind of you,” said Helga. “I’m afraid that today I have too much homework. And, actually, I prefer walking home, in order to get my exercise.”
    Drew caught her words. “I’m walking today, too.” He halted at Helga’s other side. “If you don’t mind company.”
    â€œNot at all,” she said.
    The racket from Gavin’s breath mints grew faint as he retreated down the hall. Drew grinned. He’d played his cards right. He’d recalled that she’d accepted his ride a few days before with some reluctance. She liked exercise. So did he. A good pair of walking shoes probably impressed her more than a BMW. He’d left his in the garage today, and now firmly made up his mind never to drive it to school again. Purchased out of the mountainous profits from his father’s exporting firm—selling pesticides outlawed in the U.S. to unsuspecting, impoverished countries—the car had filled Drew with guilt. Walking to school through the fresh-minted morning, he’d felt clean, as if bathed in a Norwegian fjord. Now he and Helga were walking together.
    â€œThat’s the Hall of Fame,” said Drew, serving as her self-appointed guide. They stopped before a case filled with photos. “Cliffside High’s most illustrious graduates.”
    She pointed to a bare spot. “Who used to be there?”
    â€œFranklin Critch. One of Cliffside High’s
most
illustrious graduates. Until he was prosecuted for larceny, perjury, and mail fraud.”
    They both laughed and stepped outside. “And that?” Helga indicated a large, bronze plaque set into the ground.
    â€œThe student seal,” Drew replied. “Which seniors like us can order freshmen to polish, on their knees.”
    â€œThat sounds rather cruel.”
    â€œExactly. A bizarre encouragement to the strong to find pleasure in dominating the weak.” He noticed how well his words flowed in Helga’s presence, just as they had with Charity.
    â€œYou’re a much more interesting guide than the one I was given my first week.” Helga smiled at him. “Though, according to Tiffany Boyce, I should not associate with you.”
    Drew rolled his eyes in disgust. “The old world’s rigid class system lives.”
    They descended a lengthy flight of steps, Drew’s mind on Charity Chase. She too had complained about the Hun girls. Drew hadn’t taken it too seriously. Her suicide, however, was undeniable, and had tormented him all spring and summer. Only Helga’s appearance had caused his foglike grief to begin to lift. For the first time in months, he could see blue sky and feel the sun. He liked the sensation.
    They crossed the quad among the other students. Tiffany had no trouble spotting them: Drew in his tie-dyed shirt and patched jeans, paperbacks sprouting from both back pockets, and Helga tall and pale, like a candle borne in a procession. She rose from her bench and headed their way, carrying the Pentax camera she’d checked out from the yearbook office. Although her assignment was to capture student life, recording the full panorama of the campus, the photos she took were conceived, composed, and cropped to put only Huns on display. Like the long line of Hun photographers before her, she’d