Read Online Fire Maiden by Terri Farley - Free Book Online Page A

because her turn was coming and she didn’t know what to say, Darby listened uneasily to Morris, a guy who reveled in being the class clown as he confided that his pet mynah bird had screeched “Nevermore!” all night.
    Darby was rubbing superstitious chills from her arms when Morris added, “Of course, my mynah only knows three words, and nevermore is the only one we can understand.”
    As the class’s laughter subsided, Darby decided to tell about last night’s dog howls and Navigator’s bucking.
    â€œI don’t know that much about it, but I’ve heard animals can kind of predict earthquakes,” she finished.
    â€œYou should ask Mr. Silva about that,” Miss Day told her.
    â€œI will,” Darby said, but she was glad three other students began arguing whether or not such a thing could be true, and if it was, should it be attributed to the animals’ instincts or physical sensitivity.
    Mr. Silva was her Ecology teacher. In his billowing white lab coat and shoulder-length, gray-streaked black hair, Mr. Silva looked like he should be teaching wizardry rather than science. He was one of Darby’s favorite teachers ever, but her stomach hurtwhen she imagined his reaction to her missing homework.
    Darby was picturing herself walking into Ecology to see ALL HOMEWORK DEADLINES EXTENDED BECAUSE OF EARTHQUAKE written on the board. That way Mr. Silva wouldn’t know she’d messed up.
    Just then, the bell to end class rang, and Ann Potter popped through the door.
    Ann was greeted with a spontaneous round of applause. Darby smiled. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Ann’s absence and was worried about her.
    Blushing so that her freckles stood out even more than usual, Ann patted her red hair as if she could subdue the curls into order, and then she bowed.
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    Because Darby and Ann had their first three classes together, by the time they reached Ecology, Darby had managed to tell Ann about her adventure in setting Hoku free, then rounding her up, about Aunty Cathy’s accident, and about Megan’s crack-the-whip episode with Francie the fainting goat.
    But she hadn’t told Ann that she’d forgotten to interview Tutu. She just didn’t know how to say it, especially since Ann seemed a little, well, spacey as she talked about the strange pre-earthquake behavior of the Potters’ horses.
    â€œSoda, who’s never cribbed before, was eating wood like a termite. So, yeah…” Ann’s voice trailedoff as if something worse had happened.
    Darby hated the idea of making a bad day worse for her friend. She found herself depending on her daydream that Mr. Silva would put off the assignment.
    â€œIt was just a little teeny fire,” Ann explained as they walked toward Lehua High’s science wing, “from an electrical short, I think, so…”
    â€œA fire?” Darby yelped, and her reaction worked on Ann like a bucket of cold water.
    â€œReally, it was just a little flare-up. Moving the horses was a precaution. Of course we wanted to get all of them out of the barn, anyway, but they wouldn’t go!”
    â€œNot even Sugarfoot?” Darby asked. Although she hadn’t met Ann’s caramel-and-white pinto, she couldn’t believe he wouldn’t follow Ann out of a burning barn.
    â€œNope,” Ann said.
    â€œI’ve heard of that before—”
    â€œOf horses being stupid? Yeah, me too.”
    The voice that interrupted belonged to Darby’s cousin Duxelles Borden—nicknamed Duckie by Darby.
    The big girl shortened her strides to walk next to Darby for a few steps and Darby wondered if she’d ever get used to Duckie’s appearance. A sheet of metal-bright blond hair fell to her shoulders. The hem of her denim skirt was about five feet off the groundand though her white blouse might have looked Victorian on some girls, the size of Duckie’s biceps made her