Watch How We Walk by Jennifer LoveGrove Read Free Book Online Page B

Sunday afternoon, or just Sunday. A blast from a car horn jolts her and her head snaps up to see Lenora waving her in from the window on the passenger side.
    â€” Come on, let’s go!
    She climbs in the back seat and tosses her school bag next to her. Lenora’s vanilla perfume has taken over the air, syrupy and invisible, like how she imagines a Venus flytrap would smell.
    â€” I didn’t know you were picking us up, Dad.
    â€” I was rewiring a house near the high school and we finished up early. Thought I’d give you guys a break from the snow. How was school?
    â€” Fine. The same. Emily opens her Trixie Belden mystery to finish another chapter during the few minutes’ drive home. When they pull into the driveway and park, Emily jumps out first. Lenora opens the passenger door, and as she climbs out, her black hat falls off and into the snow.
    Emily reaches down and snatches it up, then gasps and covers her mouth.
    â€” Your hair!
    Lenora’s hair is a stark, bleached, white-blond bird’s nest on top of head, and the sides of her head are nothing but stubble.
    Their father turns around.
    â€” What the h— He cuts himself off and strides toward Lenora.
    â€” Let me get a look at this!
    Lenora rolls her eyes.
    â€” I dyed it blonder, big deal.
    He grabs her upper arm and pulls her toward the house. Emily has never seen their father’s face so pinched and red before.
    â€” You wash that out right now! You look ridiculous!
    Lenora laughs.
    â€” You can’t wash it out, Dad. It’s peroxide. It’s permanent.
    â€” It had better not be! He is so loud that their mom comes to the front door and peers out. Lenora is smoothing her hair down over the shaved parts so it looks less like a bird’s nest and more like she just woke up.
    â€” Look at what she’s done to herself!
    They all struggle inside, everyone shouting but Emily.
    â€” Everyone dyes their hair! Even sisters at the Hall! So what!
    â€” So what? So you’re grounded until you look respectable again!
    â€” I am not! Mom!
    â€” Jim, just calm down. She sits on the couch and Emily thinks she must be mistaken when she sees her mom actually grin.
    â€” It’s really not that bad.
    â€” See? I told you! Lenora smirks.
    â€” Vivian, be quiet. Lenora, you look like one of those drugged up worldly kids at the mall in the city. You’re grounded until you fix it.
    â€” Don’t tell me to be quiet! The floor seems to shake when her mom bursts up from the couch and stomps toward the kitchen, and Emily puts one palm against the wood panelling, to steady herself during the earthquake her family has become.
    Her dad follows her mom into the kitchen and Lenora, who hasn’t yet taken off her boots or scarf, dashes back outside, with her long coat streaming behind her like the cape of a teenage superhero. Emily looks in the direction of her parents, who are now shouting accusations and blame at each other, and then out the back door at the path her sister is carving through the snow. She knows this is her chance to do what she has been meaning to do. She zips up her jacket and follows her.
    Careful to keep distance between them, Emily ducks first behind the shed, then behind the larger trees, as Lenora storms into the woods that butt against the field behind their house. Since Lenora is wearing her Walkman, Emily is unconcerned about snapping twigs or tromping too hard in the snow, and as the sun gets heavier and sinks lower, it flickers between trees, and Emily has to squint and rush and hide so as not to lose her sister. She feels like a real detective, a younger Trixie Belden. Sometimes she gets close enough that she can hear Lenora sing tunelessly along to whatever worldly song is churning through her Walkman, and Emily draws closer to try to make out some of the lyrics. Maybe it will be about drugs, and her father will be right; Lenora will turn into one of those scary kids who do