The Neptune Project Read Online Free Page B

humor, and I can feel Laki’s and Sokya’s joy over the prank they have played on me.
    There’s no time for me to go wash up and change. Now I face being salty and sticky throughout the long trip inland. At least I’ll be cooler while I walk.
    :No squid for you later,:
I think at Sokya.
    :we can find our own squid,:
she replies, sounding very pleased with herself.
    â€œWe have to go now, Robry,” I say. His mother, Alicia, is waiting for us at the end of the dolphin dock. She’s always been surprisingly patient about Robry’s fascination with the dolphins.
    My mother joins us as we leave the dock and merge into the stream of people heading inland to hear this new edict from the Western Collective. Alicia walks along beside her. Neither Robry nor I speak much as we trudge along the dusty road. I’m sweating and my lungs feel hot and itchy by the time we reach the farmers’ town. Santero consists of rows of flimsy government houses that are all beige, squat, and ugly. Beyond Santero, the empty fields stretch for dozens of miles, this year’s corn crop already withered to dead stalks beneath the relentless sun.
    I shiver, despite the heat, when I see the first of hundreds of soldiers standing along the road, wearing body armor and carrying solar rifles. Gillian and I exchange grim looks.
    Cam leaves his friends and deliberately walks between Robry and me and the soldiers. Even though he’s only fifteen, Cam looks formidable. I would feel safer, except that I can see the resentment burning in his dark eyes. I think he has too much sense to do something stupid, but what if he doesn’t? My stomach twists tighter.
    When we reach the center of the town, the adults and youths like Cam who no longer attend school continue on to the large community hall. My mother sends me a reassuring smile. I must look terrified, because Cam says, “It will be all right,” even though we both know it may not be. “Wait for me afterward.”
    Then he goes on with Gillian. I force myself to follow Robry into our school. Inside, he and I are separated when they herd us straight into our classrooms.
    At least today I don’t have much time to think about how miserable I feel at school. I’ve always been too shy to talk to the town girls, and usually they ignore me just like the fisher girls do. Mostly I try to be invisible, and I’ve gotten good at it.
    As I slip into my classroom, I can’t help glancing around for Lena. I hear a trill of laughter, and then I see her. As usual, she’s flirting with Thisen and Rom, the two most popular boys in our year.
    â€œRom, that’s just such a horrible thing to say to me.” Her laugh rings out again on a day few of us can find anything to laugh about.
    She doesn’t even look at me while I walk past her and quietly take a seat in the back. Being ignored by Lena still hurts. She used to be my only other friend besides Robry and Cam. Like me, Lena has parents who went to university. Like me, she’s always had weak lungs and had to wear dark glasses. She used to come swim with the dolphins and me all the time, and then the summer we both turned ten, she suddenly just stopped being my friend.
    I watch Lena toss her long, dark, curly hair and open her brown eyes wide as she gazes at Thisen. She hardly squints at all here in the brightly lit classroom. I wonder if she’s wearing protective contact lenses. They are horribly expensive, but then again, her parents had the money to buy her a pair of dark glasses on the black market, which make her look like an old-time movie star.
    At last our teacher, Mr. Casey, hurries in carrying a clipboard. His face is shiny with sweat, and he looks worried. I feel sorry for him. Unlike many of the teachers at our school, he truly cares about his students. He loves literature more than anything, and he was thrilled that I liked the few novels he’d been allowed to assign us.
    Mr.