The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

now.

Thirteen
    I checked my cell phone. It was the next day, and I was on the other side of the planet. I really felt like I’d been torn from my world, even if there was still that lingering emptiness—like I had to wait for the rest of me to catch up.
    If it ever would.
    The train into London was empty, at least where I sat. Wynn insisted on buying a first class ticket on the Heathrow Express, and I realized that most travelers simply opted for less expensive methods of getting into the city. So I felt like I was inside an egg or something; and shifted my attention constantly between the news reporter on the television screen in front of me and the strangeness of the gray and green world that rushed backwards on the other side of the window glass.
    My grandparents had already paid for a room for me and Conner at one of the nicer hotels in the city. It sat overlooking Regent’s Park, just a few hundred yards from the Tube station at Great Portland Street, so it was easy to find, even if I hadn’t ever been there before.
    When I got in to the room, I threw my pack down on the bed. My back was sweating from having carried it in the humid summer heat. The room was nice, I guess, but not really much like the places I’d stayed at in America. It seemed so small, claustrophobic.
    And there was only one enormous bed, covered with a thick comforter and a ridge of pillows, a headboard as high as I stood tall with a circular mirror in its center. I thought, Just great, I get to share a bed with Conner . With a computer desk, an armoire containing a flat-panel TV, a stuffed chair, dressing mirror, and two nightstands, there was hardly any floor at all. I kicked off my shoes—the same Vans I wore the night Freddie Horvath kidnapped me. The guy we killed.
    Quit it, Jack.
    I looked in the bathroom. Equally small. I found that I couldn’t even open the shower door unless the bathroom door was open—or else I had to step over a tub that was nearly three feet deep, just to get a leg up into it.
    Strange.
    I filled a glass of water from the tap. It tasted thick and oily.
    I checked the time zones on my phone. It was still too early to call Conner, and I didn’t want to talk to Stella yet.
    I went to the window.
    There was something about the sky in London that seemed so flat and smothering. I was too used to the hills and rises of California. So the skyline in London made me feel like I was under a lens. But the air seemed so clear, too. It definitely didn’t smell like California.
    The park across from the hotel was surrounded by hedges and a tall fence. What I could see of it looked unnaturally perfect by the standards of home. Everything was manicured, green, alive. I saw groups of runners entering and leaving through the iron gates.
    Good idea.
    I opened my backpack. I was tired enough that I could have gone to sleep, but decided to try and stay awake until nighttime so I could begin to adjust to the time change. I took out my running gear and stripped off my clothes. For just a second, I sat on the edge of the bed and watched myself in the dressing mirror, but then I shook my head—like a wet dog—and laced up my running flats.
    If I could do that, I told myself, I must be getting better.
    The hotel’s lobby was like a terraced cave. I had to walk down a short flight of stairs from the elevator to the crowded main, circular room. Everyone there looked like they were dressed to attend some kind of formal event. So I tried to tell myself that they were all looking at me because nobody would expect to see a tired-looking, skinny kid with uneven hair that hung over his eyes, wearing only running shorts and a holey T-shirt in a place like this.
    Then I realized that without pockets, I didn’t have anywhere to keep my room key. It made me nervous to think about leaving it with anyone. I looked over to the front desk. The guy behind the counter was staring at me, smiling. He seemed to catch on to what I was thinking. I slipped the