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Part 4
Page 1
"Right. What sparked the Boxer
Rebellion in 1897?"
Shujuan, 14, pressed at her
temples and groaned. "I know this, I know this. Just gimme a second."
"We did a whole unit
on it," Wenlong, 15, told her, horrified. "Sleeping through several thousand
years of ancient history is one thing, but this is going a bit far even
for you."
"Hint?" she begged desperately.
Jianmin seconded the notion.
Wensley sighed. "You can't
learn anything if I keep leading you to the answers..."
She couldn't very well argue, but this was getting
hard. The rain was pounding down in a constant rattle and she couldn't
stop thinking where Guonan was hiding himself now, what with getting run
out of the house by her mom again. That was a main thought, but there was
also the nuisance of the track meet next week, and Mom once again conveniently
out of town for it, and that didn't even start on how much of a stupid
idea it was to invite the guys over to her house for a study session in
the first place. It wasn't like anyone was getting anything out of it.
Except possibly her mother, coming by once or twice
every few hours to ask if anyone needed drinks or snacks, and once, now,
to inform Shujuan there was someone at the door to talk to her.
"Not Guo? Right; stupid question..."
She went to the door alone and put on her school
coat as a guard against the cold, opened up into the frost and the rain
rattling off a standard greeting and stopped short when she saw her. The
girl. No, nix that, The Girl. Because there was never any other that had
deserved so much as a mention before now.
The Girl was shivering and drenched and had been
out in the rain forever, up to her ankles in the frothing puddles by the
house steps, clutching at herself for a warmth that wasn't there, pale
hair falling into her eyes. Eyes already run red with tears long before
she spoke and had the words cloud in the air in front of her lips.
"I had to see you," she told her, voice shaking
as much as her shoulders.
Shujuan retracted from the door a little. Tried
saying lightly, "Sorry, but we're gonna bomb this test ourselves, so..."
"Not about that."
The Girl wiped at her streaming face with the back
of a bare wrist, twice as miserable as a wet cat, the saddest and most
pathetic creature Shujuan had ever laid eyes on. The victim of some unspeakable
agony she couldn't begin to relate.
"It's just," she said, "I love you."
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