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And then the horn of the Jeep blared, causing Alex to jerk away as if he had been electrocuted

"I guess thatʼs your cue to leave" For so

"So it seeain, and Alex io," he called over his shoulder "Tell everyone that I got sick and had to go home, okay?"

I just nodded ot to say

"Alex," I called out He turned to look at me The motion was eerily the saht before "Thanks You know, for being my hero and all" He waved one last time and then cli lot before returning tofor me on the other side of the door

"Did you just walk outside in nothing but a blanket? What happened to your clothes? Where is Alex going? What happened? Are you okay?" Talleyʼs questions ca out any single one

"Slon My brain is too sleepy to work that fast" Talley lookedin my puffy, bloodshot eyes and slow, stiff movements "You havenʼt slept at all," she said "What happened?"

Oh, you know Not uy, which I lost, by the way No worries, though Alex came by in just the nick of ti the full moon? I do, because there just happened to be one of those last night Incidentally, heʼs a pretty hot wolf

"Nothing"

"Then why are your clothes covered in mud and not on your body?"

"I went for a walk because I couldnʼt sleep and fell down" Which was basically the truth I was just leaving out a fewoutside with Alex just now?" What was it that Monty Python used to say about not expecting the Spanish Inquisition?

"His brother came to pick hiood-bye before he left"

"Youʼre lying to me," Talley said "Scout, itʼs okay You can tell me, whatever happened" I could I could also end up with a nice padded room ofinto the bathroo a shower" I was pleased to discover that after two sessions with the cheap bar of hotel soap my skin had faded to a nice jaundiced yellow I twisted et as much of the dirt off my clothes as possible, but still looked like death warnated as our gathering spot

Talley was obviously still upset with me over our earlier conversation She hardly said three words to reat deal of effort on her part Usually she was a regular Chatty Kathy in the ot breakfast, she sat with Jane Potts, leavingoff bits of biscuit and rolling them into tiny little balls when Ashley Johnson sashayed into the restaurant While the rest of us had spent our afternoon throwing snowballs and watchingtelevision, Ashley had put her daddyʼs credit card to good use

The members of our Shakespeare class were pretty easy to pick out in the crowd We were the ones who had obviously slept in our clothes and were lacking basic beauty products Of course, that would never do for Ashley She was decked out in a Vanderbilt University sweat-suit, complete with a baseball cap to hide her unstyled hair She looked like a freaking recruitment poster

"James, how nice of you to share your breakfast with a poor, destitute street person," she said, stopping at our table "Oh wait Scout, is that you? My bad" I was too exhausted to put with her crap or deal with Talleyʼs silent treatreasy hair and the faint sour swith the creepy Ronald McDonald statue outside would be preferable to keeping ot up to dump my uneaten food in the trash

"God, would you look at her," Ashley said as I passed by "No wonder poor Alex had to go home I would probably need hospitalization if I was forced to spend time with that" I snapped