A Girl Called Dust by V.B. Marlowe Read Free Book Online Page A

you?”
    She frowned. “Arden, what—”
    But I didn’t stay to hear what she had to
say. I took the stairs two at a time and slammed my bedroom door. Once my
parents jumped to the conclusion that I was suicidal, they had replaced my old
doorknob with one with no lock so I couldn’t keep them out. Fortunately, I’d
learned how to wedge a chair underneath the knob to stop the door from being
opened. When Mom knocked a minute later, I ignored her until she went away.
    Holing up in my room until dinner time, I
got a ton of work done and even managed to slip in a nap. The smell of Mom’s
famous macaroni and cheese woke me up and drew me toward the kitchen. The best
part of her macaroni was the bits of bacon she put into it. That dish had
always been me and Dad’s favorite.
    When I sat at the table, Mom kissed my
forehead. “We’ll talk later. Made your favorite. Hope it makes you feel
better.” I felt guilty about being mad at her earlier.
    “Thanks, Mom.”
    “Girls, let’s go,” Dad called from
upstairs. When I’d passed Quinn’s room, she and Paige had been in there
giggling about something. Dad and my sisters came downstairs and took their
places around the table.
    Dad patted my hand. “How’re you doing,
kiddo?”
    I shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”
    Paige picked bits of bacon out of her
macaroni. She was a vegetarian when she wanted to be, which was only half the
time. “It sucks what happened to that teacher. His daughter goes to my school.”
    “Paige, let’s find a better word for
sucks,” Mom snapped. “But yes, it is terrible.”
    “Everybody is saying a werewolf did it.
There was a full moon last night,” Quinn contributed to the conversation. “My
friend Brittney has this theory that it’s a person who hates school that
transforms into a werewolf, and it will sacrifice a teacher at the beginning of
every year. Last year it was Mrs. Chin. This year it was Mr. Thompson. If I
were a teacher, I would quit.”
    “Quinn, that’s ridiculous,” Dad said.
“There’s some kind of animal lurking in those woods, and I want you all to stay
away from there.”
    “Why?” Paige whined, as if she ever hung
out in the woods. “Whatever it is, it only attacks at night.”
    “It seems to be a random animal attack,”
Mom said, giving Dad another serving of macaroni. “I agree. Stay away from the
woods at night and there should be nothing to worry about. Everyone is getting
all worried and paranoid over nothing.”
    I put my fork down. Mom’s macaroni didn’t
taste as good as it usually did. It tasted kind of like paste, and the bacon
bits were too hard. “Is it over nothing, Mom? What would Mrs. Chin and Mr.
Thompson have been doing in the woods at night, huh?”
    Mom rolled her eyes. “How do you think
they got to the woods if they hadn’t gone there themselves? I don’t know why
anyone would go there at night, or for any reason, but they obviously did.
Maybe they were going for a night run. People do strange things, Arden.”
    Something wasn’t right. Things weren’t
making sense. It would have been nice to have Fletcher to talk to, but I had
decided that I was never going to speak to him again after the way he’d treated
me. What kind of friend kept secrets and accused people of doing horrible
things they would never even dream of?
    “May I be excused?” I asked, hoping to get
away without doing the dishes even though it was my turn.
    Mom gave me a small smile. “Sure, honey.
Your sisters will clean up the kitchen.”
    “What! No!” my sisters wailed at the same
time.
    “You will,” Dad told them. “Your sister’s
had a bad day.”
    Quinn poked at her macaroni. “Stupid
werewolf.”
    Upstairs in my room, I pulled Anastasia
from my closet to wear the following day. Anastasia was pastel purple, and I’d
added small jewels to the ribbon that tied at my waist. I’d really wanted to
wear Eleanor, but she needed to be ironed, and I didn’t have the energy to do
that.
    Lying on my bed