Strange Girl by Christopher Pike Read Free Book Online Page A

road. It was still early: a quarter after nine. As usual, I drove and Janet sat up front with me while the others hung in the back and played video games on Shelly’s tablet and took frequent hits off a fifth of Jack Daniel’s Mike had smuggled aboard. Because I was driving, the open liquor bottle made me nervous, but there was only so much control we could exercise over Mike. I knew Shelly and Dale would inevitably take larger nips of the bottle than they would prefer just to keep Mike from walking onstage totally smashed.
    “I heard you guys rocked in Stoker,” Janet said as we left town. I always felt a wave of relief leaving Elder and getting on the interstate. I imagined what it would be like when I said my final good-bye to the town. My favorite part of the trip was driving over the Missouri River and visualizing how far it traveled before it merged with the Mississippi and flowed all the way down to New Orleans. If LA and New York did end up rejecting me, I thought it likely I’d end up in “Nawlins,” backing up a jazz band in the French Quarter. I loved jazz but, like masturbation, it wasn’t something a guy talked openly about at school.
    “We sucked,” I said. “The place had the acoustics of an aquarium and the students kept calling out for us to play Mariah Carey’s greatest hits.”
    “That’s sick,” Janet said.
    “Tell me about it. We compromised and ended up playing Coldplay, Maroon 5, and the Beatles. Eventually they shut up and danced with their dates.”
    “Did you get paid in cash?”
    “Their student body president insisted I take a check.”
    Janet fumed. “That asshole. He swore on the phone he’d pay cash. If that check bounces we swing by there next weekend and torch their new hockey rink. Can you believe the good people of Stoker voted to pay two million for that rink when their only high school has computers that still use floppy disks?”
    Lightning struck. “So that’s why the sound was so bad and why it was so cold! We played on top of that damn rink! They must have covered the ice with wrestling mats or something.”
    “You’re kidding me?” Janet said.
    “I’m not. My hands were numb by the time we played our encore.”
    “What did you play?”
    “Foreigner’s ‘Cold As Ice.’ ”
    Janet smiled. “I think tonight’s show’s going to be hot. I’m glad we’re spending the night.”
    As much as I disliked Elder, I couldn’t compete with Janet when it came to wanting to get out of town. The girl took every excuse to escape. I sometimes suspected she’d volunteered to manage us just so she’d have a reason to split on the weekends.
    “Any news on the Aja front?” I asked.
    “Oh, I meant to tell you. Heard from Macy Barnes that she’d heard from Kathy Hawkins that Aja should be back in school on Monday, just not in Billard’s class.”
    “Who the hell is Kathy Hawkins?”
    “Our counselor’s nine-year-old daughter.”
    “You couldn’t find a better source than that?”
    “Kathy’s solid. Remember, it takes at least a decade of living to learn how to lie properly. Besides, Macy knows Kathy well—she’s her babysitter.” Janet paused. “Cheer up. You should be happy with the news.”
    “I am, I just, I don’t know.” I paused to wipe the sweat off my brow. The camper had air-conditioning but I didn’t want to push the repair job we’d done on the radiator. I added, “I’d just like to know why Billard took such an immediate disliking to Aja.”
    “Billard’s explosive. Aja didn’t sass her or anything like that?”
    “Not even remotely. It makes no sense.”
    “You’re thinking about what you saw. The two may have met before Monday morning.”
    “I doubt it. Aja just moved here.”
    “According to my sources she’s been here two months.”
    “Really? Why’d she miss the first two weeks of school?”
    “I don’t know why she decided to sign up at all.”
    “We’re doing it again. We keep talking about my love life. What