lost ~ the gone series

one

"What day is it?" Mila peered over at her best friend's test.

Karis quickly moved her test to the other side of the desk, away from Mila. "You're trying to cheat off me?" She tried to act shocked, then whispered back, "November 10th."

"Thanks." Mila quickly wrote in the date and sighed. "I got zero sleep last night."

Karis checked to see if their teacher was looking, then replied. "Don't tell me you were up all night because of the Reign finale."

"No way, I wasn't watching the finale, I was doing research," Mila said defensively, "I actually found out-"

"Messner! Addison!"

"We weren't cheating, Mrs. Farley." Karis rolled her eyes.

Mrs. Farley didn't seem to think that was the case. "Zeroes. Both of you."

Karis turned to Mila. "Great. My parents said one more zero, and they'd send me up the hill."

"To Coates?" Mila asked. Kids around them shot daggers at her for disrupting the silence, but what else could she do? She was already in trouble.

"That's what 'up the hill' means." Karis put her head down, giving up. Coates Academy was the only other school in the area, and the only people who went there were problematic rich kids. The only other option was Perdido Beach School, which was where the rest went. And it really was the rest. Everyone from kindergarten to ninth grade was crowded into one building.

Ignoring her best friend's disappointment, Mila got up from her seat. She walked across the room to Mrs. Farley's desk. "I'm done with my test, Mrs. Farley."

The old woman looked up from a book she was reading. "I'm sure you and Karis are both done." She looked back down and continued her book, leaving Mila with an outstretched hand.

"Actually, I was finished five minutes ago." Mila smiled, dropping the test onto Mrs. Farley's pristine desk. "You know I always fill in the heading last. In case something happens to my test."

Mrs. Farley picked up the paper and glanced at it. It was a short test, with only ten equations students had to factor and solve. "It's a perfect paper."

Mila smiled and waited for another response. The response she got was not what she was looking for. "What a shame you'll get a zero for it."

"Dang!" Mila turned around to find the voice. No surprise, the voice belonged to Quinn Gaither, another kid who Mila sometimes hung out with. He whispered the word, but Mrs. Farley reprimanded him just as she did Mila.

"Here's your test, Messner. Might as well throw it away." Mrs. Farley handed the paper back to Mila, but it dropped into her hand before she could grab it. Mila looked back at her teacher, but she wasn't there.

"What the-" Mila slowly brought her hand down and stared at the place her teacher had just been.

The other students in the class, who hadn't been paying attention while Mrs. Farley was there, seemed dazed by what had happened.

"What happened?" one kid asked.

"Where's Farley?" Karis asked, narrowing her eyes at Mila like she had something to do with it.

Mila turned around to face the class. It wasn't a large class, but the skeptical looks of fifteen ninth-graders was enough to make her nauseous. The kids were staring at her, and she really didn't know what to say to them except what she just saw. "Mrs. Farley, um... disappeared, I think?"

At Mila's response, her classmates turned to each other and started discussing furiously.

"I saw it, she just disappeared out of nowhere!" Quinn said to Sam Temple, his best friend.