скачать книгу бесплатно
“Really?” David asked. “I went in there last week. It’s a great store. I don’t remember seeing you though.”
“That’s my mom’s fault. She dragged me around shopping for school supplies all week. This is the first year I haven’t been homeschooled and my mom’s convinced I don’t have enough supplies.”
“Homeschooled?”
“Yeah. They’re forcing me to go to high school this year.”
He grinned. “Well, I’m glad they did.” He looked down at his sandwich for a few seconds before asking, “Do you miss your old town?”
“Sometimes.” She smiled softly. “But it’s nice here. My old town, Orick, is seriously small. Like five hundred people small.”
“Wow” He chuckled. “LA’s just a little bigger than that.”
She laughed and choked on her soda.
David looked like he was ready to ask something else, but the bell sounded and he smiled instead. “Can we do this again tomorrow?” He hesitated for a second, then added, “With my friends, maybe?”
Laurel’s first instinct was to say no, but she’d enjoyed David’s company. Besides, socialising more was yet another reason her mom had insisted on high school this year. “Sure,” she said before she could lose her nerve. “That’d be fun.”
“Awesome.” He stood and offered her his hand. He pulled her to her feet and grinned lopsidedly for a minute. “Well, I’ll…see you around, I guess.”
She watched him walk away. His jacket and loose-fitting jeans looked more or less like everyone else’s, but there was a sureness in his walk that set him apart from the crowd. Laurel was envious of that confident stride.
Maybe someday.
Laurel threw her backpack on the counter and slumped on to a barstool. Her mom, Sarah, glanced up from the bread she was kneading. “How was school?”
“It sucked.”
Her hands stopped. “Language, Laurel.”
“Well, it did. And there’s not a better word to describe it.”
“You have to give it some time, hon.”
“Everyone stares at me like I’m a freak.”
“They stare at you because you’re new”
“I don’t look like everyone else.”
Her mom grinned. “Would you want to?”
Laurel rolled her eyes, but she had to admit her mother had scored a point. She might be homeschooled and a little sheltered, but she knew she looked a lot like the models in magazines and on television.
And she liked it.
Adolescence had been kind to her. Her almost translucent white skin hadn’t suffered the effects of acne and her blonde hair had never been greasy. She was a small, lithe fifteen-year-old with a perfectly oval face and light green eyes. She’d always been thin, but not too thin, and had even developed some curves in the last few years. Her limbs were long and willowy and she walked with a dancer’s grace, despite having never taken lessons.
“I meant I dress differently.”
“You could dress like everyone else if you wanted to.”
“Yeah, but they all wear clunky shoes and tight jeans and, like, three shirts all layered on top of each other.”
“So?”
“I don’t like tight clothes. They’re scratchy and make me feel awkward. And really, who could possibly want to wear clunky shoes? Yuck.”
“So wear what you want. If your clothes are enough to drive would-be friends away they’re not the kind of friends you want.”
Typical mother advice. Sweet, honest, and completely useless. “It’s loud there.”
Her mom stopped kneading and brushed her fringe out of her face, leaving a floury streak on her brow “Sweetheart, you can hardly expect an entire high school to be as quiet as the two of us all alone. Be reasonable.”
“I am reasonable. I’m not talking about necessary noise; they run around like wild monkeys. They shriek and laugh and whine at the top of their lungs. And they make out at their lockers.”
Her mom rested her hand on her hip. Anything else?”
“Yes. The halls are dark.”
“They are not dark,” her mom said, her tone slightly scolding. “I toured that entire school with you last week and all the walls are white.”
“But there are no windows, just those awful fluorescent lights. They’re so fake and they don’t bring any real light to the hallways. They’re just…dark. I miss Orick.”
Her mom began shaping the dough into loaves. “Tell me something good about today. I mean it.”
Laurel wandered over to the fridge.
“No,” her mom said, putting up one hand to stop her. “Something good first.”
“Um…I met a nice guy,” she said, stepping around her mom’s arm and grabbing a soda. “David…David something.”
It was her mom’s turn to roll her eyes. “Of course. We move to a new town and I start you in a brand new school and the first person you latch on to is a guy.”
“It’s not like that.”
“I’m kidding.”
Laurel stood silently, listening to the slap of bread dough on the counter.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
Laurel drew in a deep breath. “Do I really have to keep
?”
Her mom rubbed her temples. “Laurel, we’ve been through this already.”
“But—”
“No. We’re not going to argue about it again.” She leaned on the counter, her face close to Laurel’s. “I don’t feel qualified to homeschool you any more. It’s time.”
“But you could order one of those homeschooling programmes. I looked them up online,” Laurel said hurriedly when her mom opened her mouth.
“And how much does it cost?” her mom asked, her voice quiet, one eyebrow raised pointedly.
Laurel was silent.
“Listen,” her mom said, after a pause, “until our property in Orick sells, we don’t have the money for anything extra. You know that.”
Laurel looked down at the counter, her shoulders slumped.
The main reason they’d moved to Crescent City in the first place was because her dad had bought a bookstore down on Washington Street. Early in the year, he’d been driving through and saw a For Sale sign on a bookstore going out of business. Laurel remembered listening to her parents talk for weeks about what they could do to buy the store - a shared dream since they’d first got married - but the numbers never added up.
Then, in late April, a guy named Jeremiah Barnes approached Laurel’s dad where he was working in Eureka with interest in their property in Orick. Her dad had come home practically bouncing with excitement. The rest happened in such a whirlwind Laurel could hardly remember what happened first. Her parents spent several days at the bank in Brookings and, by early May, the bookstore was theirs and they were moving from their small cabin in Orick to an even smaller house in Crescent City.
But the months crept by and still things weren’t finalised with Mr Barnes. Until they were, money was tight, her dad worked long hours at the store, and Laurel was stuck in high school.
Her mom laid one hand over hers, warm and comforting. “Laurel, aside from the cost, you also need to learn to conquer new things. This will be so good for you. Next year you can take Advanced Placement classes and you could join a team or a club. Those all look really good on college applications.”
“I know. But—”
“I’m the mom,” she said with a grin that softened her firm tone. “And I say school.”
Laurel humphed and began tracing her finger along the grout between the tiles on the countertop.
The clock ticked loudly as her mom slid the pans into the oven and set the timer.
“Mom, do we have any of your canned peaches? I’m hungry.”
Her mom stared at Laurel. “You’re hungry?” Laurel traced swirls through the condensation on the soda can with her finger, avoiding her mom’s gaze. “I got hungry this afternoon. In last period.”
Her mom was trying not to make a big deal of this, but they both knew it was out of the ordinary. Laurel rarely felt hungry. Her parents had bugged Laurel about her weird eating habits for years. She ate at each meal to satisfy them, but it wasn’t something she felt she needed, much less enjoyed.
That’s why her mom finally agreed to keep the fridge stocked with Sprite. She railed against the as-yet-undocumented detriments of carbonation; but she couldn’t argue with the 140 calories per can. That was 140 more than water. At least this way she knew Laurel was getting more calories in her system, even if they were “empty”.
Her mom hurried to the pantry to grab a jar of peaches, probably afraid Laurel would change her mind. The unfamiliar twisting in Laurel’s stomach had begun during Spanish class, twenty minutes before the last bell. It had faded a little on the walk home, but it hadn’t gone away.
“Here you go,” she said, setting a bowl in front of Laurel. Then she turned her back, giving Laurel a modicum of privacy. Laurel looked down at the dish. Her mom had played it safe - one peach half and about half a cup of juice.
She ate the peach in small bites, staring at her mother’s back, waiting for her to turn round and peek. But her mom busied herself with the dishes and didn’t look once. Still, Laurel felt like she’d lost some imaginary battle so, when she was finished, she slid her backpack from the counter and tiptoed out of the kitchen before her mom could turn round.
Chapter Two (#ufd186ee1-6cb2-57d4-8483-55fcff77b877)
The bell sounded in biology and Laurel hurried to stow the evil bio book as deep into her backpack as possible.
“How was day two?”
Laurel looked up to see David sitting backwards in the chair across her lab table. “It was OK.”
“You ready?”
Laurel tried to smile, but her mouth didn’t obey. When she’d agreed to join David and his friends for lunch yesterday, it had seemed like a good idea. But the thought of meeting a whole group of complete strangers made her cringe. “Yeah,” she said, but she could tell her tone wasn’t convincing.
“Are you sure? Because you don’t have to.”
“No, I’m sure,” she said quickly. “Just let me get my stuff.” She packed her notebook and pens slowly. When she knocked one of her pens on to the floor, David retrieved it and handed it to her. She tugged on it, but he didn’t let go until she looked up at him. “They won’t bite,” he said seriously. “I promise.”
In the hallway David monopolised the conversation, rattling on until they entered the cafeteria. He waved to a group at the end of one of the long, thin tables. “Come on,” he said, putting a hand at the small of her back.
It felt a little weird to have someone touch her like that, but strangely comforting too. He guided her through the crowded aisle, then dropped his hand as soon as they got to the correct table.
“Hey, guys, this is Laurel.”
David pointed to each person and said a name but, five seconds later, Laurel couldn’t have repeated any of them. She sat in an empty seat beside David and tried to catch bits and pieces of the conversation around her. Absently, she pulled out a can of soda, a strawberry-and-spinach salad, and a peach half in juice her mother had packed that morning.
“A salad? It’s lasagne day and you’re having a salad?”
Laurel looked over at a girl with curly brown hair who had a full tray of school lunch in front of her.
David spoke up quickly, cutting off any response Laurel might have attempted. “Laurel’s vegan - she’s very strict.”
The girl glanced down at the small peach half with one raised eyebrow. “Looks more than vegan to me. Don’t vegans eat, like, bread?”
Laurel’s smile was tight. “Some.”
David rolled his eyes. “Leave her alone, Chelsea.”
“You look like you’re on some kind of mega-diet,” Chelsea said, ignoring David.
“Not really. This is just the kind of food I like.”
Laurel watched Chelsea’s eyes return to her salad and could sense more questions about to erupt. It was probably better to just spill than answer the twenty questions. “My digestive system doesn’t handle normal food very well,” she said. “Anything except plain fruits and vegetables makes me sick.”
“That’s weird. Who can live on just green stuff? Have you seen a doctor about this? Because—”
“Chelsea?” David’s voice was pointed but quiet. Laurel doubted anyone else at the table had even heard.
Chelsea’s grey eyes widened a little. “Oh, sorry.” She smiled, and when she did, it lit up her whole face. Laurel found herself smiling back. “It’s nice to meet you,” Chelsea said. Then she turned to her meal and didn’t even look at Laurel’s food again.
Lunch break was only twenty-eight minutes long -short by anyone’s standards - but today it seemed to drag by endlessly. The cafeteria was fairly small and voices bounced off the walls like ping-pong balls, assaulting Laurel’s ears. She felt like everyone was shouting at her all at once. Several of David’s friends attempted to draw her into their conversations, but Laurel couldn’t concentrate when the temperature in the room seemed to be rising by the minute. She couldn’t understand why no one else noticed.
She’d chosen a full T-shirt that morning instead of a tank because she’d felt so out of place the day before. But now the neckline seemed to grow even higher until she felt like she was wearing a turtleneck. A tight turtleneck. When the bell finally rang, she smiled and said goodbye but hurried out of the door before David could catch her.
She speed-walked to the bathroom, dropped her bag on the floor at the base of the windowsill, and pushed her face out into the open air. She breathed in the cool, salty air and fluttered the front of her shirt, trying to let the breeze touch as much of her body as possible. The faint nausea that had filled her stomach during lunch began to dissipate and she left the bathroom - with just enough time to run to her next class.
