Fault Lines by Brenda Ortega Read Free Book Online

still sitting on my bed. “Why didn’t you run, Dani?” he says. His face is twisted like he’s going to cry. “Why’d you get caught?”
    I want to answer him, but I can’t. I don’t know the reason. Maybe in the back of my mind, I’d hoped getting caught would put an end to this unhappy time, but so far it’s only created more misery. Mike speaks up. “Because she’s not the brightest tool in the shed, little man. I tried to warn her about Todd. I said he was a bad one to hang around with, but she wouldn’t listen.”
    I laugh. “You’re one to talk. You know all about bad influences.”
    We eye each other, but he doesn’t speak – and I know why. I’ve won this particular verbal smackdown with the plain and simple truth. Mike not only gave in to bad influences. He became one, just like me. I got my first glimpse of it a few days after Justine’s dad died.

then
    we walked right into a stink bomb
    “Let’s go in the woods,” Justine said in this walking-dead tone of voice.
    It was the day after her dad’s funeral. We were wandering around the streets of our neighborhood, me babbling about school, the drama club, Mrs. Luna, everything she’d missed in the week she’d been out – everything but what we were both thinking about: the sight of him in that casket, his large belly sticking up, orange skin except where his cheeks had red patches of blush on them, waxy lips like a pink crayon, rubbery hands and fingers like plump sausages folded across his chest.
    We stood at the end of our street where a walking path starts into the woods. Justine was wearing her forbidden leggings, not talking, looking like someone sleepwalking despite the brilliant October weather. It was Indian summer – when the trees explode like fireworks in vivid reds and yellows and purples but the breeze still blows warm. My favorite time of year, but I couldn’t shake a feeling of nervousness. I looked at the thin trail leading off the dead-end street and wondered if Justine should follow the dark tunnel into the forest.
    Finally, I didn’t have a choice. She went ahead.
    We couldn’t walk side by side on the skinny trail. I hiked behind Justine going fast, up hills, down, around curves, past the mucky pond where I used to catch tadpoles in a pail, into clearings with waist-tall weeds, then back into trees.
    Within several minutes, we approached the point that my parents didn’t let me go beyond: the railroad tracks.
    Justine kept on. I thought she would turn and walk on the train track’s trestles like we sometimes did, but she went over the tracks and down a slope on the other side.
    “Wait, Justine, what are you doing?”
    Ahead was a large u-shaped open area, surrounded by forest, and right in the middle of this clearing were three giant pine trees, taller than my house, sitting alone in a triangle. The clearing is known as Stink Bomb, don’t ask me why, but all the kids know the hiding space in the middle of the pine trees – The Triangle – is burnout central.
    “Justine! You know I can’t go any further!”
    I was talking to the back of her head, and it continued moving toward Stink Bomb. I ran into dead weeds and cattails to get next to her on the trail.
    “What are you doing?” I whispered. “Let’s go back.”
    No civilization was around for miles. Who would know if some older kids decided to get their kicks beating us up?
    “I’m going,” Justine said. “You go back if you want.”
    I heard voices in The Triangle. “Justine, somebody’s there! Let’s get out of here!”
    She cut around where the trail curved and led to a slight break between two pine trees. The entrance. I grabbed the back of her t-shirt, but she pulled away and walked in. I stopped for a second, unsure, but figured I had to go. I ran to catch up.
    Suddenly, she stopped so quick I bumped into her back.
    Then a tingle of fear and amazement spread all over my body when I heard a familiar voice say, “Justine? What are you doing