Mr Dalton is a mean, sadistic, rude little man who preys on the weak and feasts on the helpless.

Of course, today is no exception.

He drops the giant pile of pop quizzes on his desk with a loud thud that cuts through the noise of the rest of the students talking. I look up from my notebook where I had been drawing random circles and lines, coloring them in messily and wasting most of the ink in my pen.

"Morning." Mr Dalton smiles cheerily. For such a happy man he really does punish his students unreasonably. "It's one of those days again. Pop Quiz Thursday...on a Tuesday."

"I'm pretty sure the only day we don't have a pop quiz is Thursday," my friend, Tally, mutters from the seat beside me, twirling a strand of her ginger hair around a long finger.

I squint a little at her choice of nail polish, noticing how the pink clashes completely with her bright ginger hair and pale green eyes.

"I thought we made a unanimous decision about pink really not being your colour," I say in the nicest way possible.

Tally glances at me from the corner of her eye as she slouches in her seat, knees up and pressed against the front of the desk. "I ran out of the red and you know that I barely have any nail polish, so I had to go raid my mom's drawer otherwise I'd start biting my nails again."

"How did that work out for you?" I ask.

Tally raises her hands that are covered in bright pink polish and I wince. "My mom has an addiction to the colour pink. I should have seen it coming to be honest. I mean her closet is terrifying. Who knew there were so many shades of pink?"

"You should write a book about it," I snicker. "Fifty Shades of Pink. The brand new erotica by Tally Archer. Which shade will they use today?"

"You're hilarious," Tally deadpans, as Mr Dalton comes closer to us, handing out the pop quizzes. "Honestly."

"I try my best," I say, winking.

Mr Dalton comes to a stop at our desks. The classroom is sectioned into rows, each with two desks clumped together as a pair. My desk is pressed up against the wall, under a World War II poster that keeps falling down onto my head and stabbing me in the eye. Tally's desk is right beside mine and there's only one row behind us.

"Francesca." Mr Dalton hands me a pop quiz, "I hope you took my advice and started to study your notes every night. It will do you the world of good."

"Of course I have," I say with a smile. "Every night. I've been right on it."

"Well then this quiz will sure be a test of your studying abilities," he says and places the quiz down on my desk before walking off to hand the rest out.

"Why did I say that?" I ask. "Now he probably expects me to be a genius."

"I wouldn't push it that far," Tally says.

I narrow my eyes at the side of her head and sigh before flipping the paper over. I write my name, knowing it's one thing that I will actually get right. I put the date too, just in case that gives me some sort of brownie points. I glance at the first question and I can't help it when my forehead creases in confusion. I turn, poking Tally relentlessly in the arm.

Her hand is moving quickly, scribbling down word after word and I just stare at her, dumbfounded. She stops and looks over at me with a mix of annoyance and confusion. "What?"

"When did we learn this?" I ask.

"Yesterday. This is literally all of yesterday's notes. It's a fill-in-the-blanks exercise. Just guess." Tally shrugs and begins to write again.

"I can't just guess," I hiss. "Mr Dalton will know for sure that I'm stupid now."

Tally snickers under her breath. "Franny, he's always known you're stupid."

I glower at her. "Thank you for that touching moral support. Really. Couldn't have done it without you."

Tally doesn't answer and I look back down at the quiz feeling the weight of my stupidity hit me full on. I flick my pen back and forth against the paper until the boy in front of me turns around and shoots me a glare. I slowly stop and place the pen down, holding my hands up to him.

"Touchy," I mutter under my breath in the same second that Tally places her pen down and sighs happily. I glance over and see that her whole page, front and back, is filled out perfectly, with her name and the date in the top corner.

I suddenly have the urge to pity myself.

Tally moves her pen out of the way and slides the paper towards me slightly, letting it sit on the crack between our desks. I frown and look up at her questioningly, but she just smiles and looks pointedly over at Mr Dalton, who is by his desk, writing stuff down, paying no attention.

'Thank you' I mouth to her and quickly pick my pen up, scribbling down the words that Tally wrote.

A part of me realizes that I can't go through school doing this. Eventually I'm going to have to actually study the work during the school year and not just the night before the final exam. But another part realizes that it's just a pop quiz, and Mr Dalton doesn't take them for marks anyway, so what real damage am I doing?

I write down the last word on the first page and when I flip the paper over, I notice the classroom door opening slowly. The whole class looks up as someone enters. Someone appears at the entrance, backpack slung over one shoulder, wearing a black leather jacket with a blue, unbuttoned plaid shirt poking out at the rim that is hanging over a white shirt that just peeks out from beneath. The boy closes the door behind him and the familiar face of Tyler Madden stares back at Mr Dalton.

His hair is dark - almost pure black - spiked on top, then tapered in the back. His skin is pale, but not white enough to make the pinkness of his lips become too bold.

"Madden," Mr Dalton murmurs without looking up from his papers. "You're late...again."

The corners of Tyler's lips curve up slightly. "Fashionably."

"I'm sure," Mr Dalton says and reaches his hand out to pass Tyler a Pop Quiz. "You have five minutes to do the whole thing."

Tyler rolls his eyes. He hikes his bag further up his shoulder, makes his way past Mr Dalton's desk and up the aisle closest to my desk. He walks past Tally's desk and heaves himself down onto the desk directly behind mine. People finally look away, and for a moment - it's silent.

Everybody knows Tyler even though he's a touchy subject around most people. He used to be extremely popular, mostly because he was captain of the football team. He was also smart - hellishly smart - and most people made it their life's goal to get him to tutor them. The fact he had the brains and the looks helped immensely.

But then that stopped. It was like someone had snapped their fingers in Tyler's face and the light had died. He was gone for a week and the next thing we know, he's quit the football team and he walks into class late, with a broken nose, his face swollen and discolored from the injury.

It's safe to say that he was the talk of the entire school for weeks after that. Once his nose finally healed up, he began to get little bruises here and there that people noticed. A discoloration on his cheek, a swelling in his eye, a limp to his walk or scabbed-over cuts on his knuckles.

That was last year when we were all juniors. Now we're seniors and there's less bruising. He barely comes to school with a limp and the most we see is a faint bruise on his cheek or his abdomen (that I accidentally once saw when he stretched and his shirt rose).

A chair scrapes against the floor, cutting off my thoughts, and most of the class, including myself, look back to see Tyler hooking his foot under the chair beside his own, pulling it closer. The metal legs press down on the floor, making it squeal and screech in protest. I wince. Tyler finally lets the chair go and throws his feet up on top of it. He looks up and raises an eyebrow as if to say, what? But there's this amusement in his face, this deep-seated amusement that makes me think that he knows exactly what he's doing: he's just trying to get a rise, make a reaction, play with people long enough, until they finally snap at him.

It's a cynical little game playing round and round in his head. I have the sudden wish to want to see into his head, know what possesses him to want to do that, to play with people and irritate them.

I don't realize I've been staring much longer than everyone else, until Tyler's eyes glance over to mine and he catches me in his gaze. He looks at me as if it's the first time he's seen me, and his indifference towards anyone in the class makes me think that it actually is the first time he's seeing me.

And boy, does he look at me.

His eyes narrow slightly, not hostile, but inquisitive. He notices me looking right back at him. He looks at me like he's never seen anyone like me. But it doesn't feel like he's just looking at me, the outer body. It feels like he's looking right through into me - as if he understands me. That sends a cold chill sweeping down my spine.

I turn around and look down at my desk, my hands clenched against the sides of my chair. I decide that I don't like the way Tyler looks at me. Not one bit.

_________

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(French edition of my book ASK AMY is available in bookstores in France and online retailers outside France)