Fins 4 Ur Sins Read Online Free PDF

I stop to breathe in
slowly.
    Careful,
Ellie.
    It’s a mind game where I have to
override every natural instinct to suck in air as hard and as deep as I can. I
open my mouth to call out to Beth, but I can’t form the words. Bent over, I
reach out, pinching the back of her school blouse.
    She spins around and is right up
there against me. Asking, asking, what’s wrong?
    My ears roar with static.
    She pats my back and then smooths
the hair from my face. Her eyes are dark green with worry.
    I point to my throat, my chest
and my hand shakes. Fear drenches me in a cold, cold sweat in the humid heat of
summer. I shiver and wave my arms around in desperation.
    She drops her backpack and then whips
out an asthma puffer from her bag. “Breathe it in,” she instructs. “Suck it
deep, El.”
    I’ve never used a puffer before,
but I grab it from her hand and then pump the spray into my mouth. And again,
another spray fills my throat and another deep breath in.
    Gradually, I discover I’m
breathing again. My lungs are loose once more, but . . . something is terribly
wrong. I can feel it within me. The tearing sensation is all aflutter now. I’m
sure ribs aren’t meant to squeeze this badly. It’s not like a lung crackle with
a normal cough. This is bones moving; splitting.
    She rubs my back. “Easy now.”
    I wince at another slash in my
chest, tears streaming from my eyes. Plus, Bethany doesn’t have asthma.
“Where’d you get it from?” I rasp.
    She frowns and hesitates with the
phone in her hand. A full thirty seconds pass with nothing but the sounds of
cars driving along the busy road.
    “Beth?”
    “It’s not important, but I found
it.”
    Gross. I scrunch up my
face. “You gave me someone’s used puffer?”
    She sighs. “Don’t look at me like
that. It saved your life, didn’t it? It was new in a box. I sprayed it a few
times for fun, then put it back.”
    Again the
sounds of traffic. I have the feeling there’s something she’s not
telling me. I’m jack of that.
    “Do you want to go back home?”
she asks. “How do you feel? I’m not putting your life at risk by doing this. If
you can’t breathe—”
    “I’m fine. I need to find out
what’s going on. I can’t remember what happened that night. Something’s wrong
with me, Beth.” A high-pitched distress rings in my voice. “I just know it. I
can’t explain why.”
    She studies me, and then nods as
though her thoughts crystallise. “As long as you’re all right
to continue?”
    I nod, breathing slowly.
    She turns to the safety of the
grassy verge, pushes buttons on the screen of her phone and then holds it up to
her ear. “Hi, we need a cab for two at Abbey Road, next to the bus stop,
heading toward Oyster Point. How long? OK, thanks.” She hangs up.
    “How much cash you got?” I reach
into the small pocket of my backpack and then hold out a fifty dollar note.
“Need more?”
    “A twenty.” She shakes her head. “I’ll get Cal to drop us back. Save your money.”
    “I’ll pay the way there. I
actually have money for a change.”
    She grins. “Cool.”
    “Where’d you find the puffer?” I
ask.
    Silence.
    “Beth,” I prod gently.
    She sighs. “Mr. Sawly gave it to
me after maths class. He said it fell out of my bag.” She shrugs. “I never put
it in there in the first place. You know I don’t have asthma. No one else was
around, and I meant to hand it in to the office, but I forgot, what with
thinking of going to see Cal and all.”
    “And if you hadn’t had it on
you—”
    Bethany fishes out the puffer
again, and her eyes are earnest. “You’re right. Keep it on you. I don’t need
it. Not like you.”
    “Thanks.” The silver metal and
blue plastic feels cold in my hand and winks in the sunlight. I’d died, but how
had that changed me? Am I truly alive? Is this what happened to my lungs when I
jumped and drowned?
    I hope her cousin has more
answers for me.

9
     
     
    CAL DRIVES US over to Oyster Point in an old