Behind the Gates Read Online Free Page B

rattler. Believe me,you don’t want to get bitten with Mississauga venom. It kills instantly. And for you swimmers in the group, this lake is so polluted that should you jump in to swim across, you will be too sick to make the trip back.”
    Mrs. Brewster stares at me again when she says this. I don’t know how to feel about it. I guess I’m flattered that she recognizes me as a swimmer. It must be something about my build, but it makes me feel strange just the same.
    Evelyn Posner tilts her head. “For a polluted lake, it sure sparkles,” she notes.
    Once more, Mrs. Brewster casts a sour, annoyed glance at Evelyn, but makes no comment.
    “Wait for your name to be called,” Mrs. Brewster instructs us, “and be ready to present your ID bracelet.”
    This is not a strange request. We’re all used to holding out our wrists all the time, like at school and security checkpoints and that kind of thing. They might as well be surgically attached to our bodies instead of just linked around our arms. We can’t even get into most buildings without a bracelet check.
    “Anne Abadi,” Devi calls, reading from a clipboard. “Alice Abbott.”
    Anne Abadi is a girl with long dark hair and Alice Abbott is her opposite, fair with mousy brown hair. The girls step forward, raising their left hands.
    I expect Devi to produce a scanner. But she doesn’t.
    Instead, she holds up thick black clippers.
    I wonder what she plans to do with those. I’ve never seen anything like them.
    Maddie and I exchange glances.
    Our expressions change into horrified stares of disbelief as Devi raises Anne Abadi’s wrist and the scissors. She looks like she’s about to snip it off, but that can’t be true. All our lives we’ve been told that nothing can remove an ID bracelet.
    A gasp travels across the crowd of girls as a low, electric zap sound comes from the clippers. In the next second, Anne’s bracelet is in Devi’s hand.
    Anne’s eyes are wide. Her jaw drops in shock. We all understand how she feels. It’s as though Devi removed one of her fingers.
    I slap my right hand over my left wrist and clutch it to my chest. This can’t be happening! Without my ID bracelet I won’t be able to do anything, to go anywhere. Without my bracelet who will I be? I’m not even sure!
    Maddie and I look at each other. What’s going on? “Maybe … they’ll scan them all together and return them later,” Maddie suggests. “Or they need to keep them somewhere safe, like everything else?”
    “Hmmm … maybe … I guess so,” I murmur uncertainly. I watch as girl after girl has her bracelet cut off. It’s obvious that each one is disturbed by this. The girls frown or chew their fingernails; some even well up with tears, sniffling and rubbing their pink noses as they return to the group empty-wristed.
    “Jordan Baker.” The pale blonde who was sitting beside Evelyn on the bus approaches Devi. Cringing, she presents her arm to Devi, but then pulls back. Jordan can’t bring herself to do it. Devi grabs at Jordan’s wrist and they start an awful sort of tug-of-war, Jordan struggling to pull away, Devi trying to hold the clippers with one hand and pry Jordan’s wrist away from her body with the other.
    “I
need
your
bracelet,
Ms. Baker,” Devi commands.
    Jordan shakes her head. “I can’t.”
    “Yes, you can, Ms. Baker. It’s for your own safety.”
    We’re all staring at the showdown. Evelyn rolls her eyes when she hears the thing about our safety again, but everyone is too stunned to move.
    With a sharp yank, Devi grabs Jordan’s bracelet, abruptly snipping it off. The girl looks at her in shocked disbelief. Then Jordan bends forward and vomits onto the dirt.
    “Some people are
way
too attached,” the coma girl jeers loudly. The tall tennis-playing girl snickers at the taunt, but she is the only one. The rest of us can totally relate to how Jordan Baker is feeling.
    Jordan stands up and sees Mrs. Brewster and Devi glaring at her. “Sorry,”