Читать книгу The Night Flyer's Handbook 2-Book Bundle - Philippa Dowding - Страница 15

After Jez and I run out of the bathroom, I can tell she is really upset, because she’s clutching my arm, like she does in scary movies when she’s about to start screaming. Unfortunately, this isn’t a movie, although I’m starting to wish it was. I really don’t want my best friend to start screaming, though, because then I will be kind of convinced that I am a freak.

I’m pretty convinced already.

We make our way outside to the sidewalk in front of the school and start walking back and forth. I eye some trees nearby in case I start to float away and need to grab on to something quick.

Jez doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, then she blurts out, “Okay, Gwennie Golden, what’s going on? You … you were … you can fly!” I have to hush her up; even people far away are looking over at her, because she’s shouting.

“Shhh, Jez. Quiet, I don’t need people hearing us.”

Just then Christopher and Christine come running up. I must look pretty weird or freaked out, because my little sister says, “What’s wrong with you? You ran into the bathroom at lunchtime.” At the same time my little brother says, “You were supposed to help us get french fries.”

Shoot. I forgot about that. I did promise my mother that I’d help the twins buy themselves french fries at lunch today. Now they’re getting older, she wants them to start to learn the basics of how to survive on the planet, starting with the essentials, like how to purchase french fries in a busy school cafeteria lineup.

“Sorry, guys, I kind of had an emergency. I forgot. We’ll do it on Monday, okay?” The twins eye me curiously. Sometimes it seems like they are using both their brains as one big brain and secretly working things out between themselves, without talking. I swear they are brain-talking together about me now as they look at me.

“Yeah, Gwen had an emergency …,” my little brother says.

“… because she had to go poop!” my little sister says. Then the two of them run off together, laughing hysterically.

“They’re weird,” Jez says, watching them go. I must look hurt, because she says quickly, “Sorry, but they are. I swear they think together before they speak.”

“Yeah, sometimes it seems like that. Look, lunch is almost over. I don’t know what’s going on. I woke up yesterday morning on the ceiling. It happened this morning, too. I don’t know why.”

“Well, are you feeling okay, otherwise?” she asks. Jez is a born mother — that’s all she ever asks anyone, if they’re feeling okay.

“Yeah.” I nod. “That’s the really weird part. I actually feel fantastic. I mean, I feel really, really great. I wake up on the ceiling, and it’s like the best sleep I’ve ever had in my life.”

“But how do you get up there?”

“How the heck do I know? I just wake up there. It’s been happening here at school, though, which is weirder.”

Jez actually laughs. “Weirder? What could be weirder than waking up on your ceiling, Gwen? Does your mom know?” As soon as she says it, she realizes how that sounds.

She shakes her head. “No, of course she doesn’t know, does she?”

I shrug. “What do you think? I’m not going to tell her I’ve been flying around my room at night. She’s already got enough to deal with.”

I bite my lip and look away. We don’t talk about that, Jez and I.

About what my mother has to deal with.