The One Thing by Marci Lyn Curtis Read Free Book Online Page B

I’d been
particularly engrossed in the Loose Cannons’ website, where I’d learned that the band had performed last night on top of an abandoned building in Bridgeport.
    And I’d missed it.
    The biggest difference between my computer and a sighted person’s computer was that mine was armed with software that converted what was on the screen into speech—like, every link,
every piece of text, every everything. In other words, it had taken me an exhaustingly long time to tab my way through the website using keyboard shortcuts to find...basically nothing.
    Rumor was, clues to the band’s concert times and locations were embedded somewhere in the site, though I’d never been able to unearth one. Today I’d found a short post from the
band, thanking the fans who’d attended the concert—nothing cryptic there. A couple quotes from last week’s newspaper, which had featured the band—ditto. And the link to the
concert’s YouTube video.
    The doorbell rang again.
    I hit the link, and “Lucidity,” the first song in last night’s concert, snaked into my room. With a sigh, I tabbed down to the video’s comment section. Hardcore fans in
the know haunted this spot to brag indecently about having attended the concerts. Today was no exception. There was a post from some superfan who called herself Pink Pistol, boasting that
she’d gotten Mason’s autograph after the performance. Another from Tommy X, who claimed that the concert had been “mind-blowing.” After that were probably a half-dozen posts
from brainless bastards such as myself, begging both Pink Pistol and Tommy X to divulge how they’d found the clue.
    The doorbell rang again.
    I navigated down to Tommy X’s reply: “In order to keep the mystique alive, I can’t disclose the Big Secret. But I’ll tell you this: you have to look beyond the
surface.”
    I leaned back in my chair, exhaling in irritation. I’d spent months combing through the band’s website. Months. I knew it forward and backward. If there were a clue—on the
surface or not—you’d think I would’ve bumped into it long ago.
    The doorbell rang again.
    And again.
    And again.
    I cursed under my breath, jerked to my feet, and stomped to the front door. My manners were always a couple steps behind my mouth, so I swung the door open in all my glory—hair, like a
squirrel had been running through it; pajamas, like a homeless guy had been wearing them for a month straight; expression, like it was teetering on the edge of a four-letter-word—and said,
“I don’t speak English.” Then I slammed the door shut.
    It was quiet for a beat or two, and then I heard a familiar burst of strong Romanian consonants: “Neither do I.”
    I yanked open the door. “Hilda,” I breathed. “I forgot about our session.”
    “Oof,” she said, pushing past me.
    During the first session, right after I’d lost my sight, she’d burst into our house like a hurricane, ordering my parents to relocate furniture, barking at them to reorganize the
kitchen and closets, and urging them to vandalize the cabinets with braille, all of which had been pretty entertaining. After that, though, she’d started in on me, and our relationship had
gone downhill.
    “Put on your shoes and grab your cane,” Hilda said gruffly. “Today we will go outside.”
    “Outside? Why?”
    “To learn.”
    I waved a dismissing hand at her. “I’m pretty happy with the inside, actually.”
    “
Pish.
You cannot stay inside for the rest of your life.”
    Oh, but I could. Inside our house, I was a rockstar. I knew where to walk, which drawer held what, whose footsteps were banging through the entryway. I didn’t even need my cane. But
outside? Well. That was completely different. And I had no desire to take the show on the road.
    “Actually, I’ve become what you might call indoorsy.”
    Hilda grunted. “Outside.”
    This woman could ruin a morning like Hitler could ruin a mustache.
    With a loud sigh, I lumbered to