Read Online ARC: Crushed by Eliza Crewe - Free Book Online Page A

my mother.
    The cramped classroom is packed with short, two-person tables, crammed so close that the bulkier kids need to twist sideways to fit between them. The usual sleepy boredom of the class is replaced with a buzzing energy brought by this morning’s news – the tiny confines seem almost too small to contain it all.
    I work my way through the classroom, toward the middle of the back row. Omar, one of Isaiah’s cronies, slides out a foot to trip me. I pretend not to notice, then stomp on it.
    Jo spins at the smothered yelp, and gives me the “be-good” glare. Then her eyes flick to Omar, taking in the way he’s cupping his foot and puts it all together.
    “Be-good” morphs to “Fine-but-no-more”.
    I smile.
    She rolls her eyes.
    I slide into my seat, ignoring the glare of my tablemate, Eli. “If it’s not the Loch Shit Monster,” he says nastily. “How’s it hanging, Nessie?”
    “Oh that wit!” I say as I drop into my seat. “Rapier sharp, I tell you! And here I thought it’d be as dull as the rest of you.”
    Professor Wendell, an angry woman who was young with the dinosaurs, chooses that moment to enter the room, but her arrival does nothing to halt Eli’s whispered assault. She only operates at a bellow, either because she assumes we’re as deaf as she is, or, I suspect, is trying to make us as deaf as she is under the whole misery-loves-company theory. Usually I’m grateful for my spot in the back row, as there are times when I see Jo visibly cringe when Crusader Wendell gets particularly worked up, but today it provides the perfect cover for Eli’s snide comments.
    I promised Jo I’d be good, so I clamp down my back teeth and I stare straight ahead. I try to block his words out, but they’re right there, making a little hissing sound as they slip into my ear.
    He grows bolder when I don’t respond, and leans in even closer. From the corner of my eye I see a fat smirk stretch across his face and I can’t help it, my hands think about how easy it would be to snatch that smirk right off his face. They creep onto the desk, dancing a little across its surface.
    Down, girls!
    I flatten my hands on the desk with a little more force than necessary. The nearby students turn around and, despite being all the way across the room, Jo turns around as well. I swear she has a special sixth-sense that warns her when I’m plotting. She sees how close Eli leans, and the way my wicked hands are already again waltzing across the surface of the desk. Her be-good glare is back.
    I force my hands smooth again and she turns around. The instant she does, Eli starts in again.
    Good, good, good. The word follows like a swarm of stinging bees. Breathe in, breathe out. I look at the clock. Forty-five minutes left to go.
    Forty minutes.
    They’re just words, insults by an idiot. Not even particularly clever ones.
    Breathe.
    Thirty minutes.
    Just words.
    Eli elbows me hard . That’s it. My chair squeaks as I shove back from the table and my hands curve into claws. Jo spins in her chair and catches my eye. She lifts her eyebrows in a way that uncannily resembles the way my mom used to do it. “Behave,” they say.
    I glare back a “no”.
    Her eyebrows go yet higher in a haughty “ Yes .”
    I switch approaches. My eyebrows sweep down at the sides, in a “pleeeeeeeeeease”.
    My hands twitch and wiggle. Jo sees them, shakes her head and mouths, “Sit on your hands.”
    She can’t be serious. As if my butt would stop my hands even if it could. Does she not realize it’s in league with the rest of me?
    But her expression says she’s not kidding. Then she mouths, “You promised.”
    I sigh. I did, though it doesn’t seem fair as that promise was made before the student body decided to declare war on me. Still, I sit on my hands like an obedient little monster, unwilling to threaten my and Jo’s fragile peace. Think of something else, Meda. Ignore him. Go to your happy place. I close my eyes and expect to see