Jilliane Hoffman (4 page)

3

Florida weather could be so freaky, Lainey thought as she watched the blob of black to the west slowly make its way over the Everglades and toward Coral Springs. Just twenty minutes ago there wasn’t even a cloud in the sky. She hurried across the patch of brown grass that led to the duplex where Mrs Ross, Bradley’s after-school sitter, lived. The warm afternoon breeze had degenerated into cool gusts that made the palm trees rustle and bow. Thunder rumbled in the not-so-far-off distance. The storm was getting closer. She wondered what the weather in Columbus, Ohio was like. If it ever rained on only one side of the street, or poured when the sun was shining. She wondered what it felt like to play in snow …

A zimmer frame with two tennis balls stuck on its front legs sat just outside the screen door on the cement step-up. Taped above the doorbell was a tiny piece of paper with the number 1106 scribbled in old lady chicken scratch. Hopefully Bradley had his stuff ready to go, Lainey thought as she rang the bell and looked at her cell. If he didn’t have practice, Zach was home by five. ‘Hi, Mrs Ross,’ she said sweetly when the door opened. A cat ran out between the old woman’s legs and scurried into the bushes.

‘Sinbad, you get back here, now!’ Mrs Ross scolded in her soft, shaky Southern twang.

Bradley’s elementary school got out an hour and a half before Lainey’s middle school, so Mrs Ross served as the afternoon pit stop until Lainey could come get him. Her mom used to let Bradley just go home alone, but one of the new neighbors threatened to call the Department of Children and Families and report her, so now she had Mrs Ross watch him. In Lainey’s opinion, Bradley would have been better off on his own. Mrs Ross was nearing what looked to be a hundred and couldn’t see, hear, or remember very well. And her house always smelled like pee and boiled eggs. ‘Hello there, Elaine,’ she said. ‘Come on in, now.’

‘Do you want me to get him for you, ma’am?’ Lainey asked.

‘Who?’

‘Sinbad.’

There was a pause. ‘The cat,’ Lainey added.

Mrs Ross looked around. Then the light snapped on. ‘Oh, no, no. Just let him be. He’ll come on home, I suppose. That’s where the food is.’

Bradley popped out from behind the door that led to the living room. His face was pale. ‘A severe storm warning’s been issued. They’re saying tornados are possible.’

Uh-oh. Her brother could watch
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
and
Saw IV
back to back, but ever since Hurricane Wilma had taken out his bedroom window a couple of years ago, five minutes with the Weather Channel sent Bradley into a complete tailspin. The weather alert must’ve broken into his cartoons.

‘Maybe we should wait it out,’ he said, his eyes wide with fear. Mrs Ross gummed her lip and looked back and forth at the two of them. Obviously she wasn’t too worried about tornados. She wanted her TV back.
Oprah
beckoned.

‘Don’t freak. It’s not even raining yet,’ Lainey replied calmly.

‘I don’t know … They say tornadoes sound like a train.’

‘We have to go Brad. Come on.’ She looked over at Mrs Ross. ‘We can’t stay here.’

Mrs Ross shrugged.

‘Don’t know …’ he muttered again.

‘Look, we’ll run home together before the rain starts. I’ll race you.’

Bradley looked past her. Another rumble of thunder sounded and his lip began to tremble.

Lainey sighed. The sight of her normally totally obnoxious brother melting into a pile of tears should make her smile, but it did just the opposite. She actually felt bad for the kid. He looked terrified. ‘You can hold my hand, Brad,’ she said quietly, crouching down on her knees to look him in the eye. ‘It’ll be OK. I promise. But we gotta go, like, now.’

Just as they rounded the corner of 43rd Street on to 114th Terrace, hand in hand and at full speed, God turned on the faucet. And the thunder. A huge boom that sounded as if it was right above their heads set off three car alarms. By the time they made it inside the house three blocks later, they were both soaked right down to their underwear, which made a now completely freaked-out Bradley chuckle for a split second.

She stood right outside the door and waited while he changed into dry clothes, then she led him back into the family room, closed the blinds and popped
Resident Evil
into his PlayStation. A video game meant no more weather alerts, and the screaming zombie victims took care of the thunder. She watched him from the kitchen until the rain band had passed over and it was clear Bradley was more concerned with a cannibal finding him in a closet than he was about a twister taking out the family abode. In twenty minutes the storm would be over, he’d be back to his old self and she wouldn’t feel bad any more. There wasn’t much time.

While he jumped on the couch in his Spiderman jammies, killing zombies left and right, she quietly slipped out of the room and headed down the hall into her bedroom.

Then she locked the door behind her and turned on the computer.

4

Before the screen had even warmed up, the computer blurped. An IM. While she changed out of her wet clothes, she clicked on the flashing orange tab.

It was like he knew she was there. Like he sensed her presence. That was so cool!

LainBrain says:	hi! was just guna rite u
ElCapitan says:	sup?
LainBrain says:	tried to beat the rain & lost
LainBrain says:	I love storms, but its nasty out
ElCapitan says:	does that mean you’re soaking wet?
LainBrain says:	pretty much
ElCapitan says:	ooohhh. I like
LainBrain says:	drying my hair
ElCapitan says:	What happ on math?
LainBrain says:	don’t ask
ElCapitan says:	u wont be 1st to fail algebra
LainBrain says:	didnt fail. D
ElCapitan says:	(::[]::)
Lainey smiled.
LainBrain says:	thanks 4 the pity
ElCapitan says:	been there. HATED trig. Got a C.
LainBrain says:	moms gonna scalp me. prob grounded 4 life
ElCapitan says:	2 bad. I like ur hair
ElCapitan says:	& ur pretty head

She blushed, absently stroking a damp piece of hair that had escaped her towel turban. He was so easy to talk to.

Lainey stared at the screen. She totally wasn’t expecting that.

Oh my God. He was asking her out. Wait –
was this a date?
She looked around the room, as if hoping to see an audience there who could corroborate what she’d just read and interpret exactly what it meant. Where the heck was Molly when you needed her? Of course it was a date … Movies meant date. Food meant date. Movies and food definitely meant date. A
real
date. She was just asked out! Then the complete joy that had her jumping up and down in her room, squealing like a piglet, stopped as quickly as it had come on, replaced by icy, realistic panic. What was she doing? There was no way her mom was gonna let her go. No freakin’ way. Especially if she knew Zach was seventeen. She nibbled on a nail. Shit. She didn’t want to tell him no. What if he didn’t ask again?

Lainey stared at the computer as if it were alive, watching her carefully through its blinking curser. Her stomach twisted with both unease and excitement.

She looked around the empty room. A strange tickle itched the back of her throat, as if something had gotten stuck halfway down and wasn’t budging any more. That
could
work. She
could
tell her mom she was going to the movies with that new girl, Carrie. It’s not like she’d ever check, anyway. Liza was the problem child, not her. And short of, ‘Did you have a good time?’ she knew there’d be no questions asked. There never were.

Lainey chewed on her lip. Her brain was a mush of thoughts.
What should she do?

That’s right. Zach lived in Jupiter, which, according to MapQuest was, like, an hour away.
He was gonna drive an hour just to see her …
Lainey took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding. She’d never done anything wrong before. Besides the picture, she’d never gone against the rules. But her mom would just say no for the sake of saying no, and because she had these dumb, arbitrary rules about how old you had to be to do certain things. Twelve for make-up, thirteen for group dates, fifteen for car dates. A knee-jerk reaction to Liza’s screwed-up adolescence. If she didn’t go on Friday, when would she ever meet Zach? Never, that’s when.

She leaned back in the chair. Her brain was spinning. She not only had to figure out how she was gonna get herself across town on Friday afternoon to Coral Springs High – which she’d never even been to before – she also had to figure out how that self was gonna look like the girl he thought she was when she got there. Then an icy thought gripped her, causing a race of goosebumps to ripple across the back of her neck.

What if it didn’t work? What if he saw right through her and knew she was thirteen? What would he do then?

The computer blurped.

She smiled. It was as if he’d just read her mind. Again.

ElCapitan says:

im no psycho