Awake and Dreaming by Kit Pearson Read Free Book Online Page A

tell anyone that she was going to Victoria at the end of the week. “They might start interfering,” she said. “Later I’ll write the school a note and say you’ve left temporarily.”
    But Theo knew that, once again, she was being yanked out of a school for good. Even if she did come back, Rae and Cal would be living in another part of the city.
    She didn’t like this school, not any more than she had liked any of them. But she had become used to it. She always stood alone in the same place at recess and ate by herself in the same chair at lunch. And this school had the best library—she’d miss that most of all.
    Theo wondered what would happen if she went to Ms. Sunter and told her Rae’s plan. Maybe she could do something. But maybe Ms. Sunter would arrange to take Theo away from Rae and put her in a foster home. That would be just as scary as going to live with Sharon.
    There was no solution. All week Theo was too miserable to daydream. She sat at her desk and lookedaround the classroom with a pounding head. She’d miss all this—the gerbils scuffling at the back of the room, the smell of chalk and boys’ sweaty socks, the frieze of everyone’s handprints above the blackboard. She would even miss Mr. Barker’s bounciness and Angela’s shy smiles. At least school was something —ahead of her was nothing.
    Theo curled herself into a tight ball on the couch and refused to speak to Rae for the rest of their last evening together. That night in bed she clutched Sabrina and sobbed into her pillow so Rae wouldn’t hear.
    C AL HAD TAKEN the day off to drive them to the ferry on Sunday. He was supposed to come at 11:30, but he still wasn’t there at one o’clock.
    There was nothing to do but wait. Rae had washed all of Theo’s clothes and made Theo have a shower. She combed out her wet hair, complaining at the tangles. All Theo’s things were packed in the bulging duffel bag sitting at the door. Rae paced and smoked, while Theo sat motionless, wishing with all her might that Cal wouldn’t come at all.
    Just as Rae was about to use Mrs. Mitic’s phone and call him, Cal appeared at the door.
    â€œSorry,” he muttered. “Something came up.” He kissed Rae and glanced at Theo. “How’re you doing, kid?”
    Theo turned away from his beery breath. She hated everything about him. She hated the way he pushed back his perfect hair in the mirror before they left andthe way his boots pounded on the stairs as he carried down Theo’s bag.
    You are a beetle, she decided, watching his long legs in their tight black jeans scuttle down ahead of her. A black beetle I could squash with my shoe.
    Most of all she hated the way Rae acted around him. She didn’t even complain that he was over two hours late. She sat beside him on the front seat and kept her hand on the back of his neck all the way to the ferry, tickling and caressing it. Sometimes Cal leaned over and kissed her hair, and sometimes they sang together to the words of the loud music on the radio.
    They were disgusting. Theo tried to pretend they weren’t there. She stared out the window as they made their way out of Vancouver and through a long scary tunnel that roared with car engines. The traffic increased until all the cars seemed to be having a race to the ferry. They sped past flat fields dotted with barns, horses and cows. Suddenly the sea appeared, dim mountains in the distance, and they followed the line of cars across a long spit that led over the water like a bridge to the ferry terminal.
    Cal dropped them off at the foot-passenger entrance. He gave Rae a long lingering kiss. Then he held out his hand to Theo. “Goodbye, kid. Have fun.”
    Theo yanked her hand out of his grasp and wiped it on her jeans. Cal shrugged and told Rae that he’d see her tomorrow.
    T HEY WERE JUST IN TIME for the three-o’clock ferry. Theo and Rae had to run