Read Online Revealed by Amanda Valentino - Free Book Online

subject. “Let’s talk about Thornhill’s list.”
    I did my best to conjure the list for Nia. Since last night, I’d started to think I might have seen Frieda’s name on it, but I couldn’t be sure if my thinking about Frieda had just made me imagine I’d read her name there or if I really had. As I recited the names I was pretty sure I’d seen, I couldn’t decide which was worse: trying and failing to remember who had been on Thornhill’s list, or picturing Callie and Ryan sitting in the library, heads together, laughing over some difficult-to-solve math problem. Callie, you’ve made everything so clear to me. I think I’m in love with you. Oh, Ryan, you’re so impossibly dense. You obviously can’t function without me. I think I’m in love with you, too.
    Okay, this had to stop. With everything at stake, I had bigger things to worry about than Callie’s peer-tutoring session. Still, ever since I’d seen her and Lee Forrest pass each other in the hallway without speaking, I couldn’t help wondering if maybe I had a chance. . . .
    * * *
    The last place I would’ve expected to have my problem solved was art class, yet that was exactly where the solution appeared.
    â€œHey, Hal,” said Mr. Varma. He stood behind my shoulder and looked at my still life of a bottle of Heinz ketchup and a plate with a crumpled napkin and half-eaten pickle on it. I was working from a photo I’d taken when my mom, Cornelia, and I had gone to the Orion diner for dinner a couple of weeks—or was it a lifetime?—ago.
    In spite of everything that was on my mind, I’d gotten totally into the painting. As I stood in front of the canvas, the familiar feel of the brush in my hand and the soft swish of the paint had put me in a trance that took me a million miles away from the rest of my life.
    â€œHey,” I answered. Back in September, I hadn’t liked Mr. Varma as a teacher because he doesn’t say much and I felt like I needed him to be more direct when he gave an assignment. By now, I’d come to see it was just a matter of listening closely to the few things he does say.
    â€œI like this.” He pointed at the napkin I’d worked so hard to make look crumpled.
    â€œThanks. I feel like the pickle isn’t right, though.” He looked at the misshapen object I’d drawn and frowned in concentration.
    â€œNeeds some work,” he agreed. “You might want to vary the color a bit.”
    He was right. The shape wasn’t the problem so much as its intense greenness . I nodded and he turned to leave, but before he could take a step away, he snapped his fingers and turned back to me.
    â€œI have a favor to ask.”
    The last time Mr. Varma had asked me for a favor, I’d ended up carting dozens of canvases to the art room from a supply closet on the other side of the school. I steeled myself to hear his request.
    â€œEleanor is a bit . . . concerned about some of the detail work on the As You Like It sets.”
    It’s so weird when teachers refer to each other by their first names; at first, I had no idea who Mr. Varma was talking about, and then I realized Eleanor must be Ms. Garner.
    â€œOh,” I said, not sure where this was going but anticipating carrying something extremely heavy to a galaxy far, far away.
    â€œShe asked if I knew someone who could help her with a leaf situation, and I immediately thought of you.”
    â€œA leaf situation?” I asked.
    â€œAs in, things that do not currently look like leaves but need to be made to look like leaves in the very, very near future.” He smiled wryly.
    â€œWhen does she want my help?”
    â€œAfter school—now that we have this security issue, they’re working on sets during play rehearsal. I gather it’s a bit chaotic.”
    I probably would have said yes to Mr. Varma anyway, but his next question guaranteed I’d be