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Authors: Stacy Claflin

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BOOK: Deception
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There they were, flying right above my car in their massive whirl.

I didn't take the time to wonder why they were following me. I started the car as fast as I could and floored it out of the parking lot. The only thing I thought about was where I was going to go. I looked at the clock and decided to go to work early. The deli would still have the last of the breakfast crowd and the late risers grabbing some coffee.

It would be crowded, and best of all, indoors where creepy birds don't go.

When I arrived at the strip mall, I ran inside as fast as I could, not looking to see if the crows had followed me.

Jennifer, the manager and my boss, asked why I was early. I made up a story about wanting extra time to work. She bought it and soon I was making breakfast sandwiches, the thought of crows far from my mind.

My shift went faster than normal because in the back of my mind I was not looking forward to leaving and possibly having some ugly visitors waiting for me outside. I was extremely grateful that there wasn't a single bird in sight as I left the deli and walked to my car.

When I got home, I ran straight to my room and started packing for spending the night at Brooke's house. I hadn't seen her in a couple of years since she had moved. We used to spend so much time together because we lived so close to each other. Her family was like my second family. I was curious to hear more about her new dreams of moving far away to design clothes.

Just as I put the last item in my bag, there was a knock at my door.

"Come in," I said, sighing.

My dad walked in, and seeing my bag asked, "Moving out?"

"I ran into Brooke and we're going to have a sleepover at her house tonight," I informed him.

"Next time, you should probably ask instead of telling me," he said. "But I'm glad that you'll be going over there. She was such a good friend to you."

"Yep," I said, eager to get out of the house. "So do you need something? I'm in kind of a hurry."

He smiled. "I wanted to let you know that your mom and I have decided to take over your car insurance payments. We'll cover your gas too."

"Are you serious?" I pinched myself to see if I was actually awake.

"Of course we are. We know that you worked very hard for your car and you've been paying for everything, on top of keeping up good grades."

"Did you need me to prove myself?" I asked. "You certainly didn't need Natalie to prove herself."

He sighed. "I know you feel jealous of her. It's not a competition."

"That's what you guys always say! How is it not a competition? When I had my sixteenth birthday eleven months ago, you guys got me an iPod, then for her
sweet sixteen
you guys buy her a very expensive car. What's the deal with that?"

"I don't know, honey. It's not like I planned it that way," he said. "I would like for us to get you something very nice for your birthday. Is there anything that you want?"

I sighed. "I'll have to think about it."

"Honey, I hope you know how proud I am of you. You want something and you go after it until you get it," he said. "You had already worked for and bought your car before you turned sixteen. Not many kids do that. You've been working hard on your grades for years, so that you have a flawless record to get into a top school. You're not yet seventeen and you already know what the requirements are for getting into those Ivy League schools."

I wasn't sure how to react to what I was hearing.

"Alexis, I'm not very good at expressing how I feel, but I could see that it needed to be said. I want you to always know that's how I feel. I'm very proud of you, your responsibility and big dreams. I know that you will fulfill them all."

"Thanks," I said, uncomfortably. I wasn't used to this type of conversation. So I grabbed my bag. "I have to go. I don't want to keep Brooke waiting."

He gave me an awkward hug before I walked out of my bedroom.

As I walked through the kitchen, my mom stepped in front of me. "Where do you think you are going?"

"I'm going to spend the night at Brooke's house. Dad said I could."

"You don't deserve it after the way that you behaved yesterday. What are you wearing, anyway?"

"Clothes," I told her.

"I don't get you at all," she said. "You don't care a bit about what's stylish or about looking nice to any degree. That's why I don't ever buy you nice things; you wouldn't even appreciate it. You just go and buy yourself plain things and you're happy with that." She looked thoroughly disgusted.

"You don't ever buy me anything, so I am forced to buy cheap stuff with my measly deli income! If I didn't buy myself anything then I would have nothing." I stormed out of the house, ignoring whatever it was that my mom yelled at me as I left.

I got into my car as fast as I could, put Brooke's new address into my navigation system and was very glad when I pulled into the driveway of her new place. A full night without my family!

When I got inside the house, Brooke's mom, Rachel, gave me a big hug. Her dad, Charles, and brother Stephen remarked on how good it was to see me again. It felt like they'd never moved away and it also felt more like family than when I was at home. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed not only Brooke but her whole family until that moment.

Dinner was full of lively conversation and a lot of questions directed at me, since they hadn't seen me in a couple of years.

After dinner, Brooke nearly dragged me up to her room. We sat on her huge, king sized bed and started talking about what we'd missed in each other's lives over the last couple of years.

"I'm glad that you are still planning on going to an Ivy League school!" she said. "You've been working so hard on your grades for so long. You can do anything!"

"And I can't believe that you went from wanting to be a teacher to a fashion designer!" I exclaimed.

We both laughed.

"I can't believe that we didn't stay in touch!" I said.

"We'll keep in touch now! I'm so glad that I ran into you at the park, I've missed you so much!"

She smiled. "So are you going to your homecoming dance? It's only a couple of weeks away. Mine is on that Friday night and yours is the next night."

I groaned. "I'm trying to ignore the whole thing. Natalie will probably be crowned Sophomore Princess and I don't want to deal with that. I have to endure her being a princess at home all the time as it is."

"You know why you
really
aren't looking forward to it?" she asked.

I stared at her.

"It's because you have never gotten dressed up. You don't even see your potential! You would have so much fun."

"I doubt that," I said.

She shook her head. "You would be so surprised. I bet you would love all of the attention too. Like I said at the park, I've always been jealous of your looks."

"What could you possibly be jealous about?"

"What isn't there?" she asked. "You're gorgeous. You only need to know what to do with your features. I think you are going to be surprised at how beautiful you are when you make the effort."

"Well I don't have a date anyway and nobody is interested in me in the slightest, so I guess I won't be able to find out if you're right or not," I said, hoping the subject would be dropped.

She smiled again. "My cousin is coming into town in about a week and he'll be here for a few months. You can go to your homecoming with him. You'll be stunning and everyone will forget all about Natalie. Aside from that, he's very good looking and all the girls will be jealous of your date as well as your looks."

"You've got everything all planned, don't you? How long did it take for you to cook this up?" I asked.

"I'm a very fast thinker!" she exclaimed. "So what do you say?" Her eyes were begging me to say yes.

I sighed. "Okay, fine. But you're going to have to do all of the work to make me look good."

"That's the fun part!" she squealed. "Let me measure you and I'll create a dress just for you!"

"What? Isn't that going to be expensive? Or time consuming or something?"

She giggled. "It'll be a lot cheaper and besides, I need to design a gown for a class that I'm taking. You're helping me out!"

"I guess if it will help
you
out," I offered, standing up to get measured.

The rest of the evening was fun girly time that I actually enjoyed. I didn't think that I would like being measured or giving my opinions on fabrics and colors; I was usually so busy with getting good grades and going to work that I didn't have time for any of that stuff.

The next morning, I woke up before Brooke and peeked through her blinds to see what the weather was like, hoping that the sun would stick around. It was fall and the weather was sure to turn cold soon; I wanted to enjoy each warm sunny day that we had left.

Before I could even tell what the weather was, like a crow flew past the window and cawed really loudly right in front of me.

"Augh!" I shrieked, heart pounding twice as fast as normal. I jumped away from the window, no longer caring about the weather.

Brooke was blinking her eyes. "What's going on?" she asked sleepily.

I tried to force my breathing back to normal before I answered. "I was looking out the window and a crow flew by and scared me."

"A crow?" she asked.

"Yeah, they've really been freaking me out. Yesterday, a bunch of them were flying around me and it really unnerved me. Now this, it's so weird."

"Yeah that is really...weird," she said. "Stay away from those things. I've heard that they will attack people."

"I've heard of them attacking small animals but not people."

"Oh they will attack people too, so be careful."

"That's fantastic," I sighed. "Here I was thinking that it was just creepy, but now it's dangerous too."

"Is anything else weird going on?" she asked.

"Like what?"

"Like anything out of the ordinary at all."

"Things have been spontaneously exploding around me," I said. "On Natalie's birthday, a bunch of light bulbs shattered at home. They burst outside and inside. Then some exploded at Natalie's practice too in the gym, which was right after her smoothie erupted all over her face." I couldn't help giggling at that last part.

Brooke giggled too. "That's strange. What was going on when the lights started exploding?"

I thought for a moment. "The first lights blew up when my parents gave Natalie the new BMW. Then some exploded in my room after they told me that I had to go to her practice to cheer her on. Why? What does that have to do with anything?"

"You know me. I have to know all the details about everything!" she said. "So you were pretty mad about the BMW?"

"Mad? I am furious about it! What's worse is that they can't even see the blatant favoritism that they have for her. There is nothing about her that is more special than me! I just don't get it! They buy her the nicest of everything and make me work for everything. My mom even blames me for that, saying that I wouldn't appreciate nice things if she did buy them for me. Can you believe that?"

"Obviously not much has changed," she said. "Except that they are buying her even more expensive things now than before."

"It will never change. That's why I am going to college far, far away from Delphic Cove." I could feel the rage trying to surface in me again.

"I can only imagine how awful it must be to have to live with that and then to have her be so popular at school too."

"It's worse than awful! Everywhere I go, I hear about how great Natalie is and how wonderful she is. Great, she can hit a ball over a net but does that mean that she needs to have everything handed to her?"

"It's not right at all. You get better grades, you work hard, you should have nicer things than she does," Brooke said.

"You're right!" I exclaimed.

POP!

A light bulb in Brooke's room shattered.

"What is going on with these lights?" I exclaimed.

"It seems like every time that you get mad something explodes," Brooke said, not moving to clean the mess.

"Are you listening to yourself?" I asked. "Are you suggesting that I am causing all of this stuff?"

"It makes sense if you think about it," she said.

"It makes
no
sense! Light bulbs and smoothies don't explode because someone is mad!"

"Then why is everything blowing up when you are so angry?" she asked.

"You're really going to blame this on me? You sound like my mother!"

Brooke laughed. "I don't sound anything like her. I'm not blaming you for these things. You didn't go planting explosives. I just said that things are exploding when you're mad. It's a simple correlation. I would think that the girl that everyone used to call 'the scientist' could see that."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "The crows showed up when I was feeling relaxed and happy."

"What do you make of all of this?" she asked.

"I don't know what to think of any of it!" I exclaimed. "It's insane. It makes no sense whatsoever."

"It
is
crazy," she said. "Well, let's not focus on it. Why don't you get in the shower and I'll make my special omelets. You will love them--everyone does!"

"Okay," I said, sighing. "I'm sure a nice warm shower will help get my mind off everything."

Brooke smiled. "Definitely! I'll see you downstairs!" She jumped up and ran out of the room.

As I was getting my stuff out of my bag to get into the bathroom, I heard Brooke talking to her brother.

"We were right, Steve. The lights bursting at the gym were from Alexis, lights keep bursting when she is angry."

"So it's finally starting," her brother replied.

What was starting? What were they talking about? I opened the bedroom door, expecting them to be right outside, but they weren't. I tiptoed around the entire floor, but they weren't there.

I went down the stairs quietly and crept around until I spied them in the office at the other end of the house. There was no way that I should have been able to hear them from Brooke's bedroom. That should have been impossible.

I snuck back up to Brooke's bedroom and looked for a vent or some other way in which I could have heard them talking. There was nothing that would have allowed me to hear them. She had an old style heater that didn't have vents.

BOOK: Deception
8.06Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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