Read Online Wish You Were Dead by Todd Strasser - Free Book Online Page A

Stuart. While he liked to sit with his jock friends in the back of the room, Adam, as a rule, maintained a somber demeanor in class and refrained from the typical dumb-jock hijinks.
    “How would you feel if someone decided you deserved to die?” Mr. Osmond asked. “Who’s to say what constitutes a behavior or crime deserving of the death penalty?”
    The class went quiet. Mr. Osmond scanned the room for someone willing to answer. There were certain people he could count on to give an opinion. I was one of them, but today I averted my eyes, hoping he wouldn’t call on me.
    “Madison?” said Mr. Osmond, as if he could feel my reluctance.
    I sighed and gave the answer I’d prepared in my head in case I was called. “I’m not sure I believe anyone has the right to decide who deserves to live or die.”
    “You’d have let Hitler live?” asked Tyler.
    I looked over at him, but unlike previous times when I felt my attraction for him stir, this time I felt wary and uncertain.
    “I guess I believe that really bad people should be in prison for the rest of their lives,” I said.
    “Are you serious?” Tyler asked as if I’d just said I believed pigscould fly. “Hitler? You’re talking about someone who was responsible for the deaths of six million Jews. Women, children, babies, complete innocents. How can you think someone like that could be allowed to live?”
    “Hitler is an extreme case,” said Mr. Osmond. “We were talking about someone who has not committed murder.”
    “If someone intentionally does something that he knows can result in death,” Tyler said flatly, “then that person deserves to die.”
    “Even if he doesn’t actually kill anyone?” asked Mr. Osmond.
    “It’s like everything they’ve been telling us about bullying since kindergarten,” Tyler went on. “You can tease and taunt someone until they’re so miserable they kill themselves. Why should people who do that go unpunished?”
    It was interesting to me how certain people revealed things about themselves. You could tell that there was something personal about Tyler’s statement. I was willing to bet that something had happened in his life to provoke it. Once again I found myself feeling disconcertingly attracted to him. Was it his intensity? His looks? Or maybe it was that he seemed to think and care about something other than what kind of car he owned and where he was going to college?
    At the same time I felt the urge to disagree with what he’d said. I raised my hand, intending to say that if you decide to put someone to death, you’re no better than they are, but Mr. Osmond looked past me. “Adam?”
    Heads turned, perhaps because this was the first time since Lucy disappeared that anyone had heard Adam contribute in class. I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Courtney, but shestared forward, almost as if she’d expected me to look at her.
    “People who kill themselves choose to do it,” Adam said, looking straight at Tyler. “Nobody makes them.”
    “That’s easy for you to say,” Tyler shot back. “I bet you’ve never been teased or bullied. In fact, if anything, you hang around with the exact sort of mental morons who do most of the bullying in this school. So what would you know?”
    The class went silent. It wasn’t only the venom in Tyler’s words that caught everyone by surprise. It was the way he spoke to Adam. Not just because I couldn’t recall anyone ever speaking to Adam like that, but because, as far as I knew, Tyler didn’t know Adam at all.
    “Let’s try not to let this get personal,” Mr. Osmond cautioned. “We’re having a philosophical debate, okay?”
    “Just a minute.” Adam stared at Tyler. “I don’t know you, and you sure as hell don’t know me, but it strikes me that you’d be precisely the kind of person who’d be against stereotyping people. So I would strongly suggest that you reconsider your statement.”
    Rarely had I heard such calm words delivered with more