The Secret Hour Read Online Free Page B

like a coin pressed against the tip of Melissa’s tongue. The scent of unbridled energy was everywhere, but maybe that had just been the storm. And of course someone new was always full of unfamiliar flavors, unexpected faculties. Each of Melissa’s friends felt different to her, after all.
    But Jessica Day felt… more than different.
    Melissa remembered to pull her headphones from her bag. She would need them to get through the halls to homeroom. As they crossed the street, Rex put a hand on her forearm, careful not to touch bare skin, steadying her as he always did this close to the distractions of school.
    He pulled her to a stop as a car shot past.
    “Careful.”
    “She’s freaky, Rex.”
    “The new girl?”
    “Yeah. Weird, even for one of us. Or maybe she’s worse.”
    “Worse how?”
    “Normal.”
    Melissa switched on her disc player as they continued, edging the volume up to push away the massive, approaching roar of school, pulling her sleeves down to cover her hands.
    Rex turned to her as they reached the front door. He squeezed her shoulder and waited until she was looking at him. Rex alone knew that Melissa could read lips.
    “Can you find her?”
    She answered with deliberate softness—she hated people who yelled over the music in their headphones. “No problem.”
    “Soon,”
his lips formed. Was that a question or a command? she wondered. Something about his expression, and the worry in his mind, disturbed her.
    “What’s the big rush?”
    “I think there’s danger. More than usual. There are signs.”
    Melissa frowned, then shrugged.
    “Don’t worry. I’ll track her down.”
    She turned away from Rex, missing his reply, unable to concentrate as the school—with its noisy squall of anxiety, boredom, desire, misdirected energy, worry, competition, cheerleader pep, stifled anger, a little joy, and too much outright fear—swallowed her.

5
11:34 A.M.
RURAL LEGENDS
    “Okay, ten weird things about Bixby…”
    Constanza Grayfoot folded back her notebook to a blank page and placed it primly on her knees. The other girls at the library table waited in silence as she wrote the numbers one to ten in a column down the left side.
    “I’ve got one,” Jen said. “Back two winters ago, when they found Sheriff Michaels’s car out in the badlands.” She turned to Jessica with eyebrows raised. “But no Sheriff Michaels.”
    “Number one: Disappearance of Sheriff Michaels,” Constanza pronounced carefully as she wrote.
    “I heard he was killed by drug dealers,” Liz said. “They’ve got a secret airstrip in the badlands for when they fly stuff in from Mexico. He must have found out where it was.”
    “Or they were paying him off and they double-crossed him,” Constanza said.
    “No way,” Jen said. “They found his uniform, badge, and gun, I heard.”
    “So what?”
    “And also his teeth and hair. And his
fingernails.
Whatever’s in the badlands is a lot worse than drug dealers.”
    “That’s what the drug dealers want you to think.”
    “Oh, like you know.”
    Liz and Jen looked at Jessica, as if she was supposed to resolve the issue.
    “Well,” Jessica offered, “the badlands sound… bad.”
    “Totally.”
    “Girls,” a voice called from the front desk of the library. “This is supposed to be a study period, not a chatting period.”
    “I’m just working on my article for the paper, Ms. Thomas,” Constanza explained. “I’m editor this year.”
    “Does everyone in the library have to work on it with you?”
    “Yes, they do. I’m writing about the ten things that make Bixby… special. Mr. Honorio said I need a wide variety of input. That’s how I’m supposed to write it, so I’m working, not chatting.”
    Ms. Thomas raised one eyebrow. “Maybe the others have work of their own to do?”
    “It’s the first week of school, Ms. Thomas,” Jen pointed out. “Nobody has any serious studying to do yet.”
    The librarian scanned her eyes across the five of them,