Sweetblood (9781439108741) Read Online Free Page A

been doing so good in art. Not since my black painting. Maybe I’ll do a painting of red blood cells. A cutaway view of an artery with all the blood parts in full gory glory. I could do a series of paintings detailing my personal blood history, from the first bat-borne microbes to the rabies vaccination to the full-blown attack on my beta cells by my berserker immune system.
    It would be an epic tragedy, a real tearjerker.
    The real tragedy this semester is that French comes right after chemistry. Most days I arrive nearly comatose.
    I fell way behind in French just two weeks into the semester.
Comprendez?
Not
moi
, not hardly a word, and this is French
deux
. Mme. D’Ormay has us readingBaudelaire while I’m still trying to figure out the difference between
nuit
and
noir
. One means black and one means night and I just can’t keep them straight. Oh well. If I’m flunking one class, I might as well fail
deux
.
    I enter the language lab in my usual impervious-to-learning trance but wake up when I notice a new body at the other end of the table. His hair is as black as mine, his face is pale and smooth, and he is wearing a black leather vest. Just as my eyes lock on to him, his head snaps around and he nails me with a pair of bright blue eyes.
    Part of me is thinking, This is so stupid. But another part of me is
dissolving
. We stare at each other for, I don’t know, two or three seconds. Inside I am
screaming
at myself to look away, but he looks away first and I feel an instant hollowness, as if he has yanked a stake from my heart.
    During the next hour I do not learn much French, but I find out that Blue Eyes has just transferred here from Kennedy High on the west side of the city. Mme. D’Ormay gives him the French name Guy, pronounced “gee,” as in
geek
. His real name is Dylan Redfield. Both names suit him, I think.
    I used to eat lunch with some of the more disturbed kids from art class, but a couple of them ruined my appetite building tabletop sculptures out of bread and lasagna, so now I dine alone. Our school has an open campus policy, so most of the kids—the ones with jobs or money, anyway—head out to one of the nearby rude-food outlets. The rest of us either eat in the cafeteria or, when the weather’s nice, out on the lawn. Today it’s raining and cold, so I’m stuck sitting at my corner table in the cafeteria with my yogurtand carrot sticks and a box of blood (what I call cranberry juice in a box).
    â€œHey.”
    I look up; it’s Blue Eyes.
    â€œHey.” I try not to sound hysterical.
    He puts his tray down across from me, not asking my permission.
    â€œYou’re in that French class, right?” he asks.
    â€œOui.”
    He laughs as if I’ve said something delightful, so I forgive him for interrupting my
dejeuner
.
    â€œI’m Dylan,” he says.
    â€œLucy,” I say, pointing at my nose with a carrot stick.
    â€œI thought it was
Lucinda
.” He makes a stab at the French pronunciation and garbles it so bad I actually giggle—and I am not the giggling type. But instead of getting offended he laughs with me, then says, “My French sucks.”
    â€œI think French sucks, period,” I say. I look at his tray. He has the Seward High cafeteria special: unidentifiable glop in assorted colors, a couple of bread-and-butter sandwiches, and a carton of milk. “You gonna
eat
that?” I say. Right away I wish I hadn’t, because it really isn’t very nice to slam somebody’s food before they eat it. I jam a carrot stick in my mouth to shut myself up.
    But Blue Eyes is oblivious. He thinks I’m encouraging him to chow down, and that’s what he does. I don’t know what I expected, but it’s a bit of a disappointment to find out that he eats like a normal teenage boy. I try not to watch as he shovels.
    â€œSo how come you sit all by yourself?” he asks abruptly.
    I shrug. I’m