Wrath

Hank Sawyer looked dumbfounded.

Lowenstein looked apologetic-or rather, what she thought a suitably apologetic expression might be.

Sorrento looked triumphant.

Powell looked satisfied.

And Reed looked away. Whatever happened, he’d still have his job. He’d still have his band. He’d still have his buddies, and his stash.

There was nothing in this place he wanted or needed, so maybe Sorrento, for once in his miserable tight-ass bureaucratic life, was right.

Maybe it was time for Reed to go.

“I know I said I’d do the lab for you, but don’t you think you should at least pretend we’re working together?”

“Sorry, what?” Harper looked up from her doodles to discover her geeky Girl Friday had put down her beaker, turned off her Bunsen burner, and was waving the lab instructions in Harper’s face.

“I said, how about you actually help me out here, before Bonner catches on?” The girl jerked her head toward the front of the empty room, where their robotic chem teacher was nominally supervising them.

Harper had cut class again today, unable to face Miranda across the lab table, but that meant a makeup lab- and that meant a big, fat zero unless she could find someone to do the work for her.

Enter Sara-or was it Sally? Sandra? whatever-a Marie Curie wannabe who always aced her labs and whose semester-long services could apparently be bought for the price of an outdated dELIA?s sweater and a setup with debate team captain Martin somebody the Third.

“Trust me, you don’t want my help,” Harper said, laughing…

“But it’s easy,” the brainiac argued. “If you just balance the equation and calculate the molarity of solution A, then you can estimate…”

Harper tuned out the droning. Back in the old days, with Miranda doing their labs, she hadn’t been subjected to any of this chemistry crap; instead, Miranda had just measured and stirred and poured, all the while keeping up a running commentary on Harper’s latest rejects or the possibility that the Bonner was naked under her ever-present lab coat.

Miranda had always known the perfect thing to say; she was never judgmental, patronizing, or-the worst crime, in both Harper’s and Miranda’s minds-boring. Harper had taken her for granted-and driven her away.

She got that now. Miranda and Adam were right: They’d been too good for her. Maybe she was lucky it had taken so long for them to realize it. And maybe she still had time to change.

“Thanks for your help, Marie, but I’ll take it from here,” she said suddenly, grabbing the lab instructions.

“Uh, my name is Sandra?” the girl pointed out, sounding slightly unsure of it herself. “And I’m not sure you want to do that. We’re at kind of a delicate stage, and last time you-”

“I said I’ve got it,” Harper said, accidentally sweeping one of the beakers off the table. Both girls jumped back as some of the solution splashed through the air.

Young Einstein pushed her glasses up on her face and began backing away. “Sure. Okay. No problem. I’ll just get out of your hair then, uh… good luck!” She turned and raced from the room.

No one’s got any faith in me, Harper thought in disgust. No one realized that she could be diligent and virtuous if she set her mind to it. Hadn’t she managed to manipulate and connive her way to the top of the Haven High social pyramid? That took strategy, brains, and forethought. Compared to that, being a good person would be easy.

Harper sighed. Okay, maybe not easy. But it wasn’t impossible; she was just out of practice. Whatever Miranda and Adam thought, she had it in her. She’d prove it to herself, and then she’d prove it to them. “Okay, what’ve we got here?” she mumbled.

Step 3: Combine 10 ml of your titrated acid solution with 10 ml of water. Record the pH.

What had Marie Curie Jr. said about balancing the molarity and calculating the equation of the solution? Or was it estimating the equation and balancing the solution? And what was a titrated acid, anyway?

Harper threw down the work sheet. She didn’t need to get a perfect score on her first try, right? The important thing was making it through the lab on her own. So all she needed to do was concentrate and-

CRASH!

Oops. Hopefully that wasn’t the beaker of titrated acid that had just smashed to the floor.

“Everything all right back there, Ms. Grace?” the Bonner asked nervously, too nearsighted to see for herself.

“Just fine, Ms. Bonner,” Harper chirped. “Don’t worry.”

Harper picked up something that might or might not have been her titrated acid solution and dumped some into the remaining beaker. Then she spotted a test tube filled with a clear liquid. Marie must already have measured out the water; now, all she had to do was dump it in and…

A huge puff of smoke exploded out of the beaker, blasting past Harper before she had the chance to move out of the way. “Ugh,” Harper moaned in alarm, “what’s that-?”

The Bonner looked up in alarm, wrinkling her nose as the stench wave hit her. “Harper!” she cried, pinching her nostrils together and backing toward the door. “What did you do?”

“I don’t know!” Harper waved away the foul greenish smoke, trying to hold her breath and escape the noxious combination of rotten eggs and raw sewage. She dumped the beaker into the sink, grabbed her backpack, and ran out of the room, joining the Bonner in the hallway.

“Oh dear oh dear oh dear,” the Bonner was muttering to herself. “I’ll have to contact the principal, I’ll have to have the room fumigated, I’ll have to-” She caught sight of Harper, or rather, caught scent of Harper. “Smells like we’ll have to get you fumigated too,” she said, stepping away.

Harper took her hand away from her nose and breathed in deeply, her eyes widening in horror. She smelled like she’d gone swimming in a toilet.

The Bonner shook her head sadly and pulled her lab coat tighter around herself, as if it would offer some protection from Harper’s cloud of stench. “Ms. Grace, I’m afraid I’ll be forced to give you a zero on this lab.”

Harper looked down at her soiled clothes and back at the lab-turned-toxic-waste dump, took a big whiff of her new eau de sewer, and nodded. “Zero sounds about right,” she muttered. Apparently, these days, that’s all she was worth.

When Kane had coaxed Miranda out for a post-detention aperitif, he hadn’t intended a torture session at the Nifty Fifties diner. But when Miranda had suggested it, her face flushed with pleasure, he’d said yes almost instantly.

Not that there weren’t plenty of good reasons to stay away from the diner, even above and beyond those the local health inspector published in the town paper every year. He could have cited the watery milk shakes and five- alarm chili, aka heartburn-waiting-to-happen. He could have reminded Miranda of the grating Chuck Berry anthems piped through tinny speakers, punctuated by scratches, squeaks, and the high-pitched whine of a grimy waitress announcing “order’s up.” Then there was the burned-out neon, the scratched, faux-leather bar stools, the vintage movie posters peeling off the wall, and the Route 66 junk clogging the counter, longing for impulse buyers to give them a new home.

But all of those would have been excuses, skirting the truth of why he’d hoped never to set foot inside the dilapidated diner again. It was Beth’s turf, and he didn’t want to face her there. He’d spent one too many long afternoons lingering over a greasy plate of fries, waiting for her to finish her shift, and he could do without the flashback to happier days.

But when Miranda had raised the idea, he hadn’t hesitated before agreeing, “Shitty Fifties it is.” His own reluctance was reason enough to go; he wouldn’t let Beth’s presence scare him away from anywhere, especially one of Grace’s few semi-tolerable dining establishments. Reluctance stemmed from fear, and fear was a sign of weakness, to be attacked wherever it appeared. Better to do it yourself, Kane believed, than wait for someone to