Just Another Hero Read Online Free Page B

or the fire department. Nor have we been able to locate any smoke or fire. The alarm this morning was set off by a student—one of you.” She paused for effect.
    â€œLike we didn’t already know that!” Luis said with a smirk.
    The principal droned on. “One of your peers deliberatelychose to interrupt your studies and endanger your health by forcing you to stand in the cold while we evaluated the situation. This is the fourth such false alarm this semester. We want them to stop. Setting off a fire alarm when there isn’t a fire is illegal, dangerous, and punishable by suspension.”
    Kofi hadn’t actually seen Crazy Jack pull the alarm, but he was pretty sure he was the one who had done it. Jack was just plain wack. He kept his band cymbals with him all day long and would crash them for no reason at all—in the halls, at lunch—wherever he felt like it. Teachers would frown and write him disciplinary reprimands, but the next week he’d be at it again.
    If anybody had the nerve to pull the alarm to get out of class, it would be Jack. He made no secret of how much he hated chemistry and history. So far they’d had three tests in Jack’s history class, and there had been a fire drill during every single one. Nobody in the administration had made the connection yet, but principals, Kofi had noticed, were sometimes slow to catch the obvious.
    Mrs. Sherman continued, “You know the identity of this person. He or she is endangering us all. You may send an anonymous e-mail or text message to my office with the name of the perpetrator. Or you may just write the name on a piece of paper and place it in my mailbox. I appreciate, and expect, your cooperation. Let us continue the school day with no further interruptions.” The television screen went blank.
    â€œYeah, right,” Kofi whispered to Arielle in front of him. “Like who’s gonna tell?” She just shrugged and bent overher work. There were only about ten minutes left before the next bell.
    Kofi felt restless and had no desire to finish the chemistry lab. The left side of his forehead was throbbing. It had been almost a year since he had broken his arm in the same pledge stunt that had gotten Josh killed, and although his arm no longer ached like it used to, he found his headaches had increased. He also found that his doctor seemed to have no problem refilling his pain-med script for him.
    Kofi reached down into his book bag with both hands, felt around until he found the small plastic medicine bottle, uncapped it, and removed one small round pill from it. On the street his meds were called Killers or Kickers or the Ox. But this is a legal prescription for OxyContin, he thought. I’m not like those kids who are using. He glanced around to make sure no one was looking, then popped it into his mouth and swallowed it dry. He then took a deep breath. By the time the bell rang, he was feeling much better.

ARIELLE
CHAPTER 4
    FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4
    IT WAS A DREARY FRIDAY AFTERNOON. Arielle picked at the polish of one of her fingernails nervously as she sat on a stool in the elaborate, custom-designed kitchen of her stepfather’s house and waited, shivering. Chadwick Kensington O’Neil kept the thermostat at fifty-five degrees in the winter, eighty-five in the summer. He seldom ran the heat or the air-conditioning.
    She gazed at the gleaming stainless-steel refrigerator and stove, the sleek, built-in dishwasher, the marble counters, and the shiny copper pots and pans hanging from hooks in the ceiling, but she felt no pride. Her stepfather made it clear that all of that, as well as the lush white carpets and the original oil paintings on the wall, and she and her mom—belonged to him.
    The lush white carpet was what had her worried at the moment. She’d spilled cola on it last night, and she’dspent more than an hour on her hands and knees, scrubbing and scrubbing, trying to erase the brown