Kinetics by Andrew Peed Read Free Book Online

floor
hallway.  I slowly raised my eyes to the bottom level of the window on the
classroom's door.
    Some girl was sitting in my spot.  I had
never seen her before in my life.  She was similar to me but there were some
differences.  Her hair was shorter, for one.  She could have been a cousin of
mine.
    I went back downstairs where Ronnie waited
outside pacing around the entrance.
    "The principal wasn't in." He
said as I walked up.
    "Yeah, well I was." I said in
a huff.
    "What do you mean?"
    "I was counted present in the
system, so I went up stairs, and sure enough there was some girl sitting in my
seat." I ran my fingers through my hair.
    "Did she look like you?" He placed
a sturdy hand on my shoulder.
    "Not really, I don’t know, Kind
of." I was really starting to freak out.
    We waited around for gym classes to
start.  Ronnie's second class was in gym, with me and Josh.  Josh always gave
me a hard time in that class.
    We snuck in and hid under the
bleachers.  The class filled in from the showers; the students wore uniforms. 
A guy that looked similar to Ronnie came from the locker room followed by
Josh. 
    "Hey Ronnie!" Josh acted as if
he were friends with Ronnie.  They gave each other a friendly man hug. 
    The other me came out of the girl’s
locker room and met Josh halfway across the gym.  Josh wrapped his arm around
her waist. 
    “Show some self-respect and get away
from that pig.” I growled through my teeth.
    She didn't, she pulled herself closer
and she kissed him, and not a friendly kiss either a loving embrace. 
    The coach had to break them apart.
    I wanted to puke.
    I held my stomach and turned to Ronnie,
"Let's get out of this twilight zone hell before I vomit." I hissed.
    He nodded and we slipped out through the
back door.  I couldn't believe what I had just seen.  It was horrible.  It was
awful.  Above all it was WRONG.
    We hightailed it back to where the
orphanage was but we stopped before we got there.  We ducked into a bookstore
and acted like we were browsing.  There were two cops checking out the truck
that we had left parked on the curb next to the empty plot of land.  One of the
cops was a state trooper. 
    "What the hell are we going to do
now?"
    "I don't know." Ronnie opened
a book on how to hypnotize women.  I gave him a nasty look.  "I just picked
up a random book."
    I looked back out of the window, as a
tow truck backed up to the stolen truck.  The guy that was hooking our truck up,
furious, he knew that the owner wasn't going to show up to pay the tow bill.  Town
policy was if you get towed you pay.
    "Are you two going to buy anything
or are you just going to stare out of my window?" a woman asked as she
sorted through books on her counter.
    Ronnie purchased a guide book on the
area and as soon as the cops were gone, we bolted from the store to find the
others.
    ~//~
    We met the others at the diner.  Kenny’s
hands were full of groceries.  They were heading back from the market. 
    We walked back to the empty plot.  We
took cover in the woods behind where the house used to sit.
    "Where is the truck?" Rachel noticed
it was gone first.
    "It got towed.”
    We sat in quiet and then it hit me like
a ton of bricks. 
    I jumped up and ran off into the woods. 
    I ran deeper into the woods.  Ronnie
followed yelling for me to come back but I couldn't. I knew this was the last
thing left to prove that we had been here.
    I looked for the clearing and there it
was, small with a huge oak growing at the center.  The leaves made a perfect
roof to keep the weather at bay.  When we had our first real summer here after
all four of us had arrived we had spent hours in this clearing. 
    The old woman never came out here.  I
looked at the trunk closely and it looked just as it had when we had all carved
our names into the bark all those years ago.
    Our names; Ronnie, Kenny, Sandy,
Grace around the word Friends
    I ran my fingers across the grooves that
we had made with Ronnie's pocket