Read Online Buried by Linda Joy Singleton - Free Book Online

stupid,” I say.
    â€œBut strangely true.” Rune grins. “The museum plans to exhibit cockroaches feeding off decaying organic matter. If they weren’t around, there would be more trash.”
    â€œMakes sense,” K.C. says as he crumples a baggie. “But the museum people wasted a lot of money buying bugs that people would give them for free.”
    â€œRoaches are disgusting,” I say.
    â€œVampires would love them.” Rune spikes a cherry tomato from her salad with a plastic fork.
    â€œHow can you say that? Vampires are not carnivores,” I remind her. “We’ve already argued that topic to death. They don’t eat meat.”
    â€œBut they drink blood—which drips from fresh meat.” Rune puts down her fork. “Besides, I didn’t say a vampire would eat a cockroach. Roaches have no blood vessels, so blood sloshes freely in their bodies. A vampire could stick in a straw and drink up.”
    â€œA roach slushie! Anyone got a straw and a roach?” K.C. says, which makes us all laugh.
    Even through my laughter, a worry ticks within me as my internal clock warns that in just over an hour, I’ll have to face my history teacher. And while Principal Niphai was cool, Mr. Sproat definitely won’t be.
    My prediction is dead-on right.
    Mr. Sproat calls me to the front of the class and asks me to match each major war to the U.S. president at that time. Of course, he knows I don’t know. I admit this and he gives me a look like I’m the stupidest student in the world. Then he assigns extra homework for the whole class, evilly shifting the blame onto me. When the bell rings, my classmates swear and shove, and one crude guy even spits on my boot.
    When I show up for detention, my English teacher Ms. Chu is the not-so-lucky teacher assigned guard duty this week. I look around and count seven other students: five guys and two girls. I head for a desk away from everyone else until I get a thought that changes my direction: detention may be punishment, but it could also prove very educational—and I don’t mean in a book-learning way. I remember K.C. saying the Grin Reaper is a habitual rule breaker.
    And I stare at the five guys serving detention, wondering.
    Is one of them the Grin Reaper?

S e v e n
    S it down, Thorn,” Ms. Chu says with a smile. She’s cool for a teacher, twenty-something with purple streaks in her super-short, bleached-blond hair.
    â€œSure, Ms. Chu.” I nod at her, but my gaze still sweeps from guy to guy.
    â€œPick any seat, then pull out homework to do quietly for the next hour.”
    â€œAnd if I don’t have any homework?”
    â€œThe white board needs to be cleaned.”
    â€œJust remembered some assigned reading,” I say quickly.
    I scoot into a seat beside a shaved-head guy with mocha skin and a ruby ring on his pinky that sparkles too brightly to be authentic. He’s camouflaged in a baggy black jacket and hunched over a book, so I can’t tell if he’s ripped with rock-hard muscles or flabby like a dough boy.
    When I stare at Shaved Head, he glances up at me, his dark-chocolate eyes flaring with something that could either be curiosity or annoyance.
    â€œYou come here often?” I ask, like I’m making a joke. All I care about, though, is hearing his voice.
    He rolls his eyes like that’s the stupidest question ever uttered in the universe, then calls me a name that would shock even Rune. He returns his attention to the graphic novel hidden covertly inside his textbook.
    Rude jerk! I think of all the words I want to call him. But he’s not worth my breath. Besides, I found out what I wanted. His voice is definitely not the Reaper’s.
    I contemplate the four other guys in the room. They’re familiar in a seen-around-school way but I don’t know their names. One is young, with a boyish face that won’t see stubble for a few years, so I figure