Summerlost by Ally Condie Read Free Book Online Page B

put straws in our chocolate milk and went in to sit next to him.
    Harley came up on the screen. She was still in the box, wearing the white silk dress they’d buried her in when she was unconscious. Harley’s long dark hair spread out on the satin pillow under her head. Her makeup was still perfect—plum lipstick, mascara, eyeliner that seemed to have sparkles in it. She beat her hands against the top of the coffin. “Celeste!” she said. “Let me out! You know this isn’t fair to Rowan!”
    (Rowan was the man that Celeste and Harley both loved. He was the reason Celeste had put Harley underground. Celeste wanted Rowan all to herself.)
    â€œDo you think that this time they’ll tell us how she goes to the bathroom?” Miles asked.
    â€œBe quiet,” I said. “You have to listen.”
    We thought today might be the day she would get out.
    It wasn’t.
    But they couldn’t leave her there forever.

19.
    That night at work none of the Hellfarts came by and I sold thirty-three programs, which made me so pleased that I bought myself a lemon tart at the end of the night when they went on sale for half price.
    Miles waited up so he could tell me that he had sucked his way through an entire Fireball. “Mom saw,” he said. “So it’s documented.”
    â€œWhat will you do with your life now?”
    â€œUncle Nick told me that when he was my age he could put one Fireball in each cheek,” Miles said. “And suck on them until they were both gone.”
    â€œThat’s insanity,” I said.
    â€œIt’s awesome,” Miles said.
    I ate Leo’s mom’s lasagna for dinner.
    And when I went upstairs, there was something on my windowsill again.
    It was a purple toothbrush. It wasn’t in a package but the bristles weren’t dirty.
    Just like the screwdriver, the toothbrush was about the size and weight of something that Ben would have liked.
    A dark shape flew past the window.
    Maybe the birds are bringing them
, I thought, as the breeze moved through the room.
Sometimes Mom opens the windows in the evenings to let the air in.
    I imagined the birds landing, black and swooped, on the windowsill. Looking around my room without me there to say,
Go away.
    The birds were like ghosts. Coming and going.
    I’d never seen a ghost.
    But some people believed they saw Lisette Chamberlain’s ghost in the tunnels.
    I had a weird thought.
What if Lisette Chamberlain’s ghost is leaving things?
    I slowly turned around and looked at the door of the room I’d chosen. Purple. Purple was Lisette’s favorite color. And I had chosen this room, even though purple was not
my
favorite color.
    And our initials were the same, but in reverse. Cedar Lee, Lisette Chamberlain.
    CL-LC.
    You’ve been hanging out in too many cemeteries
, I told myself.
Giving too many tours about people who are gone. And watching too many shows about people being buried alive
.
    Birds or ghosts. Neither one made it easy to sleep.
    But when I did, my brain kept dreaming about things I should save up for with my money from work. What if I boughtboxes and boxes of Fireballs for Miles? What if I bought an entire set of silver spoons for Ben to flip back and forth? Or a brand-new baseball mitt for my father? I didn’t dream about anything for my mom. Or forme.

ACT II

1.
    One of the Hellfarts got a job selling concessions a few days later.
    His name was Cory.
    All the girls our age liked him except for me. Maddy and Samantha laughed at everything he said, even though nothing he said was funny.
    â€œI need the money to get shocks for my bike,” Cory told everyone when he first started. “This is the only place in town that will hire kids our age.”
    It was like he had to make sure we knew he was too cool for this job.
    Cory had connections, according to Maddy.
    â€œHis dad knows
everyone
,” she said.
    When Cory walked by, I made
vrrt-vrrt
sounds,