0215543001348293036 vaughn piper oshea m.j. Read Online Free PDF Page B

small talk, even with my own family. When I was younger, I’d stayed quiet mostly because of my uncontrollable stutter. People heard me stumble and trip over my words, and they got impatient, assumed I was slow or stupid. No one ever wanted to let me finish. They cut in and tried to complete my sentences or dismissed me as an idiot out of hand. But I wasn’t stupid.
    Not even close. It just took me a bit longer to process things. I had to sift through the words in my head until I found the right ones, the ones that would roll off my tongue with the least amount of difficulty.
    But I’d dealt with so much crap in school, from both my classmates and teachers, I’d eventually learned to keep my mouth shut unless it was absolutely necessary. When I did speak, it was always slowly, to try to keep the stuttering down to a minimum. I’d never been able to rid myself of it completely, not even with years of speech therapy and the confidence-building activities my parents had forced me into, like karate and Cub Scouts. I hadn’t liked the Scouts at all, but I’d loved the karate. I never had to say much in that class, and in spite of my aversion to being touched by strangers, I’d excelled. That is, until one of the boys from my middle school enrolled and made it his life’s mission to torment me in any way he could. It drove me to quit eventually, and my parents hadn’t been able to talk me into joining another dojo. Once the experience had been tainted for me, there was no going back.
    The sound of Rue’s voice pulled me out of my memories.
    Wait, what was that? Did he just ask me something? I cleared my throat and tried to focus. “Y-yes?”
    “You write from home, right? You don’t have an outside job?” I felt my eyebrows draw together in confusion. How did he know what I did? I hadn’t told anyone except the land—ah, so that was probably it. My landlord must’ve told him. But why? What could it
    [25]

    Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

    matter to him what I did for a living? “Yeah, I… I write sci-fi. And fantasy.”
    “That’s great!” Rue said with so much cheer I actually flinched.
    “See, I’m kind of in a tight spot, and I was wondering if you—” A thin wail interrupted his words. My eyes jerked to the smiling pink car on the floor at his feet. The noise was coming from inside, growing louder and more agitated with every passing second. It reminded me of the cat that used to sit on our backyard fence yowling in the middle of the night when I still lived with my parents. But that didn’t make much sense. People didn’t normally bring their pets along on social visits, right? Besides, it didn’t sound like an animal exactly. It sounded like… Oh, no….
    Sweat broke out on my forehead and palms as Rue sighed and reached down to the pink car. He tugged at the bottom, and as the material bunched, I realized it was some type of cover for one of those infant car seats with a handle. Nestled inside was a tiny, red-faced baby dressed entirely in pink, from the bow on her wispy hair to the soles of her miniature shoes. She was wearing one of those little one-piece outfits with an incongruous, grinning Jolly Roger on the front.
    Underneath, the words “Arr! Swab me poop deck!” stood out in bold, black font.
    “What’s the matter, sweetie pie?” Rue cooed, nestling the baby in the crook of his arm. He looked up and gave me an apologetic smile.
    “Sorry, I was sure she’d stay asleep.”
    I couldn’t take my eyes from the pink bundle in his arms. The baby had quieted when Rue picked her up, though her expression could only be described as disgruntled. I edged a little further away on my chair. Being around babies had always unnerved me, even back when I was a kid. They were loud. Smelly. Weird-looking. I tried to restrain a shudder. It wasn’t that babies scared me, necessarily, but I’d admit to a certain amount of… anxiety.
    “So, actually,” Rue said, apparently oblivious to my growing