Will You Be My Friend? by P.J. Night Read Free Book Online

to glance into another mirror, Beth spotted one of the girls blowing out candles at a birthday party. She stood at a table crowded with kids and leaned over to reach the cake.
    My birthday party! she thought. I remember that cake. I remember that purple dress I was wearing. I loved that dress. I remember feeling so loved, so happy that everyone was there for me.
    Beth watched herself blow out the candles. Curls of black smoke rose from the charred wicks. She got an instant sense memory and could smell the smoke right then, right there in her living room, in the middle of the night.
    How can this be?
    Looking down into a mirror on the floor, Beth stared wide-eyed as she saw herself step out of the main entrance to a hospital. She grasped someone’s hand, but she couldn’t see enough of the person to clearly make out whose it was.
    I remember leaving the hospital, but I don’t remember being sick. Is that my mom holding my hand. Could this be right after my accident?
    Beth shook her head and rubbed her eyes.
    How can I remember these things? I have no memories before this year, yet I am recalling all these things perfectly. I actually remember experiencing them, and not just vague memories, but feelings, smells, and sounds. This is impossible!
    As if reacting to her thoughts, the images in the mirrors decided to take impossible to the next level. One by one the girls in the mirrors stepped out of the glass, like two-dimensional paper dolls come to life.
    Beth backed away. Every nerve in her body told her to run, yet something kept her from bolting. A strange curiosity mingled with her fear, coupled with the overwhelming desire for answers, as if somehow these walking mirror people might be the key to unlocking her hidden past.
    The girls stepped clumsily toward Beth. Several popped up from the mirrors on the floor, breaking free from the surface of their glass prisons, like swimmers stepping from silver ponds.
    â€œWho are you?” Beth screamed. “What is happening?”
    Moving as if they were connected as one being, the mirror girls each raised a hand and pointed at Beth.
    â€œMe?” she asked. “You are all me?”
    The girls drew their arms back toward their bodies, and each girl embraced herself in a hug. Then suddenly every mirror girl in the room toppled over, smashing to the floor, exploding in a shower of glass slivers.
    Beth stared down in horror at the pile of broken glass in the center of her living room.

CHAPTER 6
    Beth opened her eyes. She was in her bed, in her room.
    Another strange dream.
    She propped herself up on one elbow and turned toward her dresser. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she gasped. The image in the mirror did exactly the same thing.
    That’s a real mirror in the real world, she thought, trying to calm down, not a crazy mirror from the crazy world in your dreams.
    Dreams. Now that her dream had ended, Beth could not summon a single memory from her past, not even those that were so vivid in the dreams. She recalled the weirdness with the mirrors and had a vague sensation of having remembered specifics from her life, but now they were gone. As if they only existed in her dreams.
    She glanced at her alarm clock.
    Saturday morning, 7:33 a.m. She might as well get up. She only had one shot to get into the Glenside Middle School records, and she still didn’t really have a plan. All she knew was that she had to get into that school.
    Beth showered, got dressed, and made herself some breakfast. At eight thirty Joan left. Before she did, she made Beth repeat what she’d promised to her mom as well: She wouldn’t go anywhere. She wouldn’t even open the door. Not for any reason.
    As Beth munched on a piece of toast, she considered her options.
    I’m twelve years old, just like all the other seventh graders who attend the school. I could be going there on a Saturday because I left an important book there, or because I have a special