Read Looks Over(Gives Light Series) for Free Online

wrote.  I dug my history book out of my backpack.  He turned around when he had finished writing multiple sets of instructions--I don't know how he managed to recall all those page numbers by memory alone--and wiped the chalk residue from his hands.  "If your grade is on the blackboard," he said, "start reading.  If you're not on the board, talk quietly among your friends.  I'll be with you in a second."
     
    He went over to the first graders' table and bent his head toward them in conversation.  I tried to read his hand signs, but Autumn Rose In Winter's long, bobbing ponytail was blocking my view.
     
    "Well?" Annie said.  "What do you all think?"
     
    I read the question at the top of page 44.  How successful is forced cultural assimilation?  Explain.   Oh, boy.  I hated questions like those.
     
    "It didn't work," said the auburn-haired boy at the end of the bench.  "We're still living on a reservation, aren't we?  And we've got our ancestors' given names as surnames, as Mr. Red Clay said."
     
    "Nah," Rafael said, "I think it worked.  We wear jeans and speak English."
     
    "You're cheating!" Zeke said.  "You read all this stuff last year."
     
    "You wanna say that again?"
     
    "You wanna hit me again?"
     
    I waved my arms.  I didn't know how else to get them to shut up.
     
    "Everything alright here?" asked Mr. Red Clay, approaching our table.
     
    The wiry-haired boy lifted his head from the table at last.  Had he been sleeping all this time?  His eyes were a blue-green, his face dusted with freckles.  He looked exotic, in a way, three different ethnicities rolled in one.
     
    "Rafael threatened Zeke," he said.
     
    I gazed at him in disbelief.  I shook my head.
     
    "He most certainly did not!" Annie burst out at the same time.
     
    "Mr. Sleeping Fox," said Mr. Red Clay, "how old are you?"
     
    "Seventeen," said the wiry-haired boy.
     
    "Then I suggest you act it.  Turn in your summer book reports, please."
     
    I hadn't actually written a summer book report, but Rafael had put my name at the top of his.  He opened his folder, took out a thick leaflet, and handed it to Mr. Red Clay.  I touched Rafael's arm as Mr. Red Clay collected the papers and moved on to the twelfth graders.  The look on Rafael's face was scalding, but I knew it wasn't meant for me.  I smiled at him.  His anger visibly melted away.  He closed his hand over mine and gripped it, his thumb running over my knuckles.
     
    It was about noon when the school day ended.  If this was indicative of a regular school day, I thought, I might finally become a fan of the education system.  I went home for lunch, then out to the grotto.  I didn't know whether that coywolf pup was still hanging around; I left sandwiches for him underneath the willow tree, just in case.
     
    Annie, Rafael, and I went to Aubrey's house in the afternoon for homework.  I really liked Aubrey's house, an old-fashioned farm manor with dark walls and ceiling fans.  His bedroom window overlooked the cultivated fields out back, the leafy shoots of the autumn crops already poking out of the ground.  Aubrey played bluegrass on his portable radio and we sat beneath the sloping ceiling while we read sleep-inducing history passages, Annie on the bed, Aubrey on the windowsill, Rafael and me on the floor.
     
    Happily, not all of Mr. Red Clay's assignments were lengthy chapters from the history book or inundating math problems.  Sometimes he took us out to the woods, where he showed us the plants that were centuries old and the newer ones that the European settlers had brought over, and the hybrids born when the two interbred.  He took us into the badlands and we sampled the tent rocks to find out how long ago they had formed.  He showed us the hidden seams in the gorges where our ancestors had mined coal and Zeke Owns Forty swore he found a dinosaur fossil, but it was only the remains of a big-horned sheep.
     
    Sometimes, after school, Annie and Aubrey and I