Storm by Virginia Bergin Read Free Book Online

idled in the road for a moment, looking at it. That’s how good my driving is now: I can “idle,” foot just resting on that accelerator, hand still clutched on that gear stick, ready at any second to take off.
    â€œI know these people,” I said, ignoring her freaking. I turned off the engine.
    â€œRu,” breathed Saskia.
    I could hardly hear her. I could hear music! Thumping music! Someone was having a party.
    A grin—a small but hopeful grin—crept onto my face.
    â€œWe could just say hi,” I said. “Just see what’s happening… Trust me…these people are cool. They’re really, really cool.”
    Trust me? How could I even trust myself? I didn’t really know those people at all.
    A kid dressed as a pink fairy ran past the front of the house, chased by another kid in a dinosaur getup, spiny tail dragging.
    â€œThey’ve got kids here…” said Saskia as if that was a wondrous thing.
    â€œYeah,” I said. I’d seen that before too—how these cool people had been kind enough to take in stray kids.
    The track that was playing quieted—for a second or two, you could hear the noise of a generator—and then—OH! A track we knew came on! I grinned bigger. It hurt…but any place where kids are messing about having fun, that’s got to be all right, doesn’t it? Any place where people like the same music as you… Those people have got to be all right, don’t they?
    â€œS’pose we could just see,” said Saskia.
    We piled out of the car. Couldn’t have cared less about the sky. Excited, that’s what we were—nervous, obviously, but excited . We crunched up the gravel of that drive, the both of us high-pitched whisper-singing the chorus right up until we got to that great big front door. Then we went quiet. Nerves.
    We did knock, but I don’t suppose anyone would have heard over the racket. The front door was open anyway, so we went in.
    We stood in the darkness of a grand entrance hall. There was this huge staircase right in front of us. Around the banisters, Christmas lights were wrapped: twinkling, disappearing into the blackness at the top of the stairs. There were portraits—old oil painting–type portraits—hanging on the stairwell. I didn’t suppose they’d had glasses and mustaches like that originally. Certainly not the ladies. I also didn’t suppose their clothes had been spray-painted in rainbows of neon paint. And I know for a fact that none of them would have had speech bubbles coming out of their mouths saying—
    â€œHi!” shouted another kid, this one dressed in one of those crazy, padded muscleman Superman outfits as he chased the fairy and the dinosaur through the hall.
    They whacked open the door to the room where the music was coming from—a blast of sound and smoke and weed and alcohol-y drink fumes escaped—and ran in, the door slamming behind them.
    Two seconds later, Superman flung the door open again and shouted “Bye!” at us, then disappeared again.
    â€œSask?” I said.
    That was pretty much the last thing I remember saying to her that night. A new track started up—superb mixing!—we burst into singing and—hey!
    She shrugged and grinned. She walked toward the door, singing. I followed, singing. Did a little shimmy. (It hurt.)
    Sask poked the door open:
    PARTY CENTRAL!!!!!
    If you need that explained to you, your life has been even more unfortunate than mine. But I judge not, so here’s a summary:
    Music Frenzy! Dance frenzy! Fun frenzy!
    Champagne frenzy! (CLASSY!)
    And most hilarious and brilliant of all: FANTASY COSTUME FRENZY!
    Ha! Every single fabulous person in that place was in a costume. Every kind of beautiful and fantastic creature was there, from masked and gowned ladies to aliens from outer space to a very convincing beady-eyed fox in a hunter’s jacket, and a gold-painted guy who