Blue Noon by Scott Westerfeld Read Free Book Online Page A

Beth’s mind about majorettes. Maybe being in the marching band was a big deal at Bixby Junior High. Or maybe at this point she simply didn’t know what else to do.
    Seeing Beth in a gaudy costume after two years was so strange, as if time had broken down completely this morning and was heading backward now.
    “Listen, you want to practice together later?” Jessica said. “I mean, I think I’m allowed to go in the backyard.”
    “Sure,” her father piped up.
    “Yes, Jess, that would be great.” Beth turned around to face her again. “Because it’s so important to have an assistant while baton twirling.”
    “All right. Fine. Just trying to be helpful.”
    “And mature. Don’t forget mature.”
    “I said fine.”
    Beth kept looking at her, the gold piping around her collar flashing in the sun.
    “What’s your problem?” Jessica finally asked.
    “Why do you think I had Dad pick me up today?”
    Jessica sighed. “Because you look so ravishing?”
    “No, retard. I could have changed at school.” She dropped her voice. “It was because of you.”
    Jessica shot a puzzled look toward the back of her father’s head. Was Beth talking about Jonathan? Since Jess had introduced the two of them, she’d figured Beth was on her side on the secret boyfriend front. At least Beth hadn’t told Mom and Dad about his late-night visits or how Jessica skipped out at night sometimes.
    “What do you mean, Beth?”
    “Just to make sure you know.”
    “Know what?”
    “That even though you’re not grounded anymore, I’ve still got my eye on you.”
    Jessica sighed again. “Beth, quit being weird. Dad, tell Beth to quit being weird.”
    Don Day was silent for a moment. Finally he said, “Well, Jessica, I kind of know what she means. After all, I’ve got my eye on you too.”

3:27 P.M.
DREGS
 
    “Milk, no sugar, correct?”
    “Yes, please.” Dess smiled politely, but the bitter taste of Madeleine’s tea was already trickling through her imagination, the acid flavor of betrayal on her tongue.
    By rights, this secret place should have been her playground. Dess was the one who had found Madeleine, after all. She’d struggled through sleepless nights to decode the weird dreams the old mindcaster had sent her; she was the one who’d done the math.
    But it had all been in the service of Melissa and Rex. They were the ones really enjoying themselves here in Madeleine’s crepuscular contortion, her little secret hideaway. Rex finally had all the lore he could possibly want. Years of reading awaited him in this house, every document the surviving midnighters of the last generation had managed to salvage when they’d been forced into hiding.
    And Melissa… she had totally scored.
    Dess noticed that as Melissa took her cup and saucer from Madeleine’s hand, the two mindcasters’ fingers brushed for a moment. Then they both smirked at some shared, silent joke.
    The sight made her flesh crawl. The two of them communicated mostly by mindcasting, rarely uttering a word to each other. Dess wondered what they were saying to each other right now.
    On the other side of the big dining table, Rex was also watching them. Besides Rex, Madeleine was the only person whom Melissa allowed to touch her—not that anyone else would want to—but he didn’t seem jealous of little moments like this one. It was those long sessions, when the two mindcasters sat for hours at a stretch with eyes closed and fingers interlocked, that made Rex start to get all territorial.
    Of course, Melissa did have some catching up to do. Growing up as a lone mindcaster, she’d never learned the old tricks that should have been taught to her by the previous generation. A trove had awaited her inside Madeleine’s brain—the thousands of years of memories, techniques, and gossip accumulated since the first mindcasters had learned how to pass knowledge from hand to hand.
    Dess wondered how that math worked. If every generation of mindcasters took all their