Thresholds Read Online Free Page A

to get near him. She didn’t want him to grab her again.
    Second bell rang.
    She ran, checked room numbers, then glanced back again.
    He had disappeared.
    Nothing she could do now.
    She found her homeroom at the end of the hall. Most of the desks were taken by people who already knew and were talking to each other. There were some empty seats in the front row, but who wanted to sit there?
    Gwenda and Benjamin were in the back row, and there were empty desks all around them. Maya took the desk beside Benjamin and dug into her backpack.
    Benjamin smiled at her, which was a relief.
    “Guess what just happened?” she said.
    “Settle down, settle down.” The teacher, a guy with carroty orange hair and a big red mustache, wrote MR. FERRELL on the green board. “Time for check-in.” He held up a computer printout. “Do we have an Albert Brandy here?”
    A few girls giggled. One of them raised her hand. “I’m Brandy Albert,” she said.
    Mr. Ferrell made a mark on his sheet and called more names.
    Gwenda’s last name was Janus. Benjamin’s last name was Porta. When Mr. Ferrell got to them, kids turned in their chairs and glanced at them with strange expressions. Some muttered to each other.
    Maya guessed the empty desks around Gwenda and Benjamin should have clued her in.
    Maybe she’d picked the wrong friends.
    She checked out the other kids. None of them looked as interesting, though some of them looked nice. Brandy sat with three other girls. All four of them had the same style of ponytail streaming from the left sides of their heads, though their hair color ranged from blonde to black. They were all chewing gum, too. No way she wanted to be part of the Brandy Brigade.
    Mr. Ferrell finished attendance and said, “Are you in the seats you want for the rest of the semester? I’m going to make a seating chart, so be sure.”
    “You could still move,” Benjamin whispered to Maya.
    “I like it here,” she whispered back.
    A couple of kids shifted in their seats and looked around. One girl moved back a row.
    “Okay. I’m charting you now,” said Mr. Ferrell. “I may have to ask for names again. Help me out.”
    Maya pulled out her class schedule and showed it to Benjamin. “You have any of these classes?” she whispered.
    Before he could answer, the door opened and a boy with long, ragged blond hair slouched in. He was taller than anybody else in class. He looked like he worked out with weights. The knees of his worn jeans had giant holes in them, and his white T-shirt was marked with dark stains, as though he’d dunked his hands in grease and then wiped them on it.
    “Mr. Finnegan,” said Mr. Ferrell in a mean voice. “So nice of you to grace us with your presence.”
    The boy burped, a long, melodious one, which made everybody laugh. He shambled toward Maya and collapsed into the desk next to hers, yawning. He didn’t have a backpack or anything, not even a pencil. He smelled like fried bacon.
    “So here’s how it works at Hoover,” said Mr. Ferrell, and he launched into a monologue.
    Benjamin tapped Spanish and Art on Maya’s class grid. Oh, good. She sat back, then leaned forward. She had all kinds of questions.
    She got her binder out of her backpack. On a fresh piece of paper, she wrote:
     
    What’s cheekoovnee?
     
    After checking to make sure Mr. Ferrell wasn’t looking, she edged the paper over onto Benjamin’s desk.
    He looked at the note, then glanced at Gwenda, who was watching them. She leaned forward and scanned the note. She sat back, her eyebrows up.
    Benjamin wrote on the paper, showed it to Gwenda, who nodded, and passed it back to Maya.
     
    Chikuvny. It’s a kind of perfume.
     
    This was so not what she expected.
     
    I don’t wear perfume.
     
    You smell good anyway.
     
    She cocked her head sideways to see if she could get a different view of Benjamin. He had to be joking.
    She sniffed the back of her hand, still watching him. He shrugged, half smiled. She sniffed her