Soul Fire by Nancy Allan Page A

Cameron who commanded the center of attention at school, at the pool, on the ice, and with my friends. I wasn’t the Ashla Cameron I used to be.
    So, who was I?
    I was somebody I didn’t like, that’s who.
    “Why not,” I heard myself mumble as I joined him under the cedar tree. He lit a fresh joint and I watched my hand reach for it. He slid it between my fingers and as I lifted it to my lips, I thought, I shouldn’t’ do this . There were horror stories about these things being laced with heroin and other unknowns. What on earth was I thinking? Not knowing how to inhale, I assumed I was supposed to take a deep breath. Smoke filled my lungs, strangling me. I coughed and rasped and nearly choked to death right there. He rescued the hand-rolled morsel before it fell to the ground.
    “Man,” he said when I recovered. “A newbie every which way.” He took another drag, and then passed it back to me. “Try again. Just a small puff this time.”
    Once more I watched my shaky hand take the joint. This time I followed his suggestion. Same deal. Big coughing fit. I guessed I wasn’t cut out for this.
    He grabbed the joint and dragged on it, waiting for me to recover. When I stopped sputtering, he said, “So how’s it feel to suddenly be a reject?”
    I looked at Delta through watering eyes. He was tall, slim, and wiry. Really good looking, but he belonged to a wannabe gang of thugs called the Tarantulas. They were the dregs of Mount Olympic High, and for that matter, the entire community. Most of us feared doing anything that could put us in their sights. If any one of us were so unfortunate as to attract their attention, we knew we could be tormented viciously. At best, we might simply become the target of their cruel taunts. In the last two years, I had seen half a dozen beatings. In the most recent incident, a freshman had been kicked so badly by a Tarantula that he had almost died. A favorite pastime of theirs was to beat the crap out of an easy mark. When not inflicting pain, this unsavory group did drugs, roared around in junkers, sprayed graffiti, and generally pissed everyone off. Because there were about forty of them, they managed to get away with a lot.
    The irony of me standing with one of them, smoking pot—or trying to—was not lost on me. I ran with the untouchable crowd. We were the elite group of stressed out over-achievers. We got top grades and were committed to a sport, dance, or an art form that took us over the top. We organized food bank collections, did community service, signed up for the annual play, rooted for our school teams, ran the school newspaper, and so on. We were considered the most likely to succeed, provided we didn’t burn out first.
    Delta was looking at me expectantly. Instead of answering his last question, I asked, “So, how did you get into the Tarantulas?”
    He shrugged. “Did stuff.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a sandwich bag of little pink pills. “Want to go to a party?”
    I eyed the plastic bag. “What are they?”
    “Greatest high ever.”
    “Don’t think so,” I told him, walking away, still choking on the smoke that lingered in my lungs and noticing that the world suddenly seemed a slightly happier place.
    “Hey,” he called after me.
    I turned around.
    “Two’s a party. Why don’t we go somewhere and give these babies a try.”
    Hmmn. Did I want to do that? If I went home, Mom would freak. My new after school job at Elenas, in the mall, didn’t start for hours. That was, unless they decided to fire me for being the dweeb that crashed into Justin Ledger. So why not? Nothing else to do. “Maybe.” I heard myself say, and we set off.
    After a few blocks walking double time, I asked him, “Where are we going?” Having no coat, I couldn’t stop shivering. Winter months were always cold and wet and I hadn’t stopped at my locker for my jacket.
    Delta noticed. “I know a place where we can get out of the cold.”
    “Yeah,