Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix Read Free Book Online

whole body ached from trying to balance on the white porcelain chair—the toilet—all night. She wondered if it was safe to move yet. The room was as bright as midday, but Jessie couldn't see any windows. So it was those globe things again, putting out more light than Jessie had ever seen from a candle or a lamp. Even though the lights had almost led to her capture the night before, now that she was safe, she decided once again that they were incredible.
    "Heather, is that the ring Jason gave you?"
    "Yeah. Like it?"
    The voices came from in front of Jessie's little metal stall. She was so eager to see what real 1996 girls looked like that she knocked her elbow against the back of her toilet getting up.
    Whoosh!
    This time the sound came from her toilet. The water swirled powerfully, then disappeared. In a few moments, more came pouring in from the back. Jessie watched it in amazement and felt the pipes that led to the wall. So that was why the toilet hole wasn't very deep. But where did the water go?
    Jessie decided it was too much of a mystery. She went to the door she'd fastened so carefully the night before. Through a crack, she could see three girls standing before a mirror. One had her hand held out for the other two to see. All three girls had hair as wild as Jessie's, and Jessie grinned. Her hair fit in without her having to do a thing with it! For the first time she could remember, she could get up in the morning without trying to braid her hair.
    Jessie tried to see what the girls were wearing, to compare with her own clothes. But it was hard to tell through the narrow crack. And while Jessie was peering out, the girls finished admiring Heather's ring and left.
    Jessie wanted to follow them, but first she wanted to find an outhouse. She started to unfasten her door, then remembered she didn't have to. Minutes later, she pushed the whoosh lever and felt quite proud that she'd figured out 1996.
    Finally stepping out of her stall, Jessie faced the mirror. It was enormous, stretching the entire length of the wall. And unlike all the mirrors in Clifton, it was clear and undistorted.
    For the first time in her life, Jessie saw herself without waves and lines and blotches.
    Half fearing this might be another mirror people watched through, Jessie still stared in fascination. Her dark hair, unbraided, swirled around her head like a cloud. Digging through the bag Ma had given her, Jessie pulled out a wooden comb and began yanking it through her tangles. She went slowly, preoccupied with gazing in the mirror. Her eyes, she saw for the first time, were exactly the same color as Pa's in sunlight: greenish with flecks of hazel. But hers were impatient, curious, and she had never seen his look that way.
    Standing back far enough to see her jacket and jeans, Jessie examined herself carefully so she would be able to compare herself with the real 1996 people. The coat Ma called a wind- breaker was kind of pretty, even though it looked boyish. She unzipped it far enough to see the thing Ma called a T-shirt. It was yellow and had a huge black circle imprinted on it, with a line and two dots inside. It sort of looked like a smiling face, maybe on some stick figure Katie or one of the other little children drew in the dust.
    While Jessie was staring at herself, she heard another whoosh and a girl stepped out from one of the other bathroom stalls. Jessie pretended to concentrate on combing her hair, but watched the girl carefully. She had fluffy blond hair that stood straight out from the sides of her face, almost as though it had been frozen in the wind. Her pants were the things Ma called blue jeans, but they were faded and much tighter than Jessie's. And her purple flowered top looked nothing like Jessie's T-shirt. Patting her hair, the girl stepped to a counter
    MMun mum m?ii
    in front of the mirror and turned a knob. Water gushed out of a shiny metal loop.
    "What's wrong? Never seen anybody wash their hands before?" the girl