Read Online Rolling Dice by Beth Reekles - Free Book Online

around with a big smile, taking everyone in, and pauses at me. “You’re new, aren’t you?”
    “Yup.”
    “Name?”
    “Madison. Um, I mean, Madison Clarke.”
    Miss Augustan nods. “Do you do much Art? Photography? Photoshop?”
    “Not really. I guess I liked it in my old school, though.”
    “Good enough for me,” she says brightly. “Welcome to my class, Madison. Okay, everyone, we’re going to break y’all in easy this year. I set up fruit bowls and vases. Paint them. Draw them. Abstract, watercolor, pastels, pen—anything at all! Whatever and however it strikes your fancy! But at the end of this double period, I want your interpretation of one of those displays on that canvas!”
    There’s a heartbeat of silence before the class bubbles with conversation and the clatter of pens and pencils and paints being taken out.
    I look at the small desk beside my easel. There’s a paint palette of about a dozen colors, a couple of black pens, varying grades of B and HB sketching pencils, a couple of paintbrushes and an eraser. My hand lingers over them before I pick up a pen.
    I don’t start to draw, though; I twirl the pen around in my fingers a couple of times, and then I turn in my seat to look at Carter, who’s drawing a green curve with a pastel.
    “So,” I say pointedly. “About Tiffany?”
    Carter sighs. His hand pauses, but he doesn’t turn toward me. “Tiffany Blanche,” he tells me, “is more or less the Queen Bee of the school. If she were a senior, that would be indisputable. She’s …” His mouth twists like he’s finding it hard to pick the right words. “She’s … bitchy, but most of the time she puts up a front as a nice person. Like, she smiles at everyone in the corridor, but you know it’s a front. Which is the worst part, because then you feel bad for hating her. But she’s got her place in this school and that’s where she likes to stay, just like the rest of them. The rest of
us
,” he corrects.
    I know what he means, and I nod. But then I reply, “She seemed really nice when I spoke to her. I mean … she was talking to
me
.”
    “Then you’ve got your place now too,” he responds, not unkindly. He gives me a small smile to soften his words.
    “If she was talking to you,” he carries on, “then I’d suggest you don’t talk to me. One of her
minions
might see you.” His ominous tone makes me throw my head back and giggle. But he just stares at his canvas, slowly forming an apple, without even a hint of humor in his face.
    “What’re you talking about?” I ask, a little nervously.
    Carter shrugs. “Do you need me to bring out the dictionary definition of ‘minion,’ or are you okay on that?”
    “No,” I say, frowning in confusion. “I just—I don’t understand.”
    “What’s there to understand?” he says. “Like I said, if you want to be friends with Tiffany, stop talking to me.”
    “But
why
?”
    “I don’t think you really need me to answer that, now, do you?” Finally he turns his head, and the look on his face is still grave, but there’s something sad about it. Almost pitiful. “You’re a smart girl, Madison.”
    And then I get it: Tiffany’s pretty much the most popular girl in school, from the sound of it. Carter is probably not the kind of guy who hangs out with the popular crowd. And if I want in with the popular crowd, and Tiffany, then I don’t want to be around Carter.
    But I don’t know anyone else in this class, and I don’t know if any of Tiffany’s friends are here. And anyway, I kind of like Carter. He seemed like a nice guy when I talked to him at the party.
    So I say to him, “How exactly did you lose half of your eyebrow?”
    He laughs a little, but there’s still that pity in his eyes when he shakes his head at me. “My fourteen-year-old cousin had a blowtorch and decided to get all up in my face with it.”
    “Oh, ouch,” I reply, and turn back to my work.
    After a couple of minutes Carter says, “You