Kissing Kate Read Online Free PDF

I’ll keep on trucking, then. Watch out for the smokeys, you hear?”
    I jammed down the button. I couldn’t help myself. “CBs. Not walkie-talkies. Truckers use CBs, okay?”
    “Hokey-dokey,” Ariel said. “But they’re pretty much the same thing, aren’t they? Oops—missed my turn. Over and out, good buddy!”
    I pulled into the driveway of the Babette’s lady, coming to a hard stop. I was annoyed with myself for getting so irritated with Ariel, and I was annoyed with Ariel for being irritating. And I’d finally figured out who she reminded me of: Kimberly Thomas, a girl in my grade who had the same habit of going on and on about irrelevant topics. Kimberly believed in UFOs, for example, and she had a bumper sticker on her Volvo that said, “Ship Happens.” Her research paper in last year’s English class was on alien abductions, which she claimed to have experienced. “See this nose ring?” I once heard her say. “Believe me, it’s not what you think.”
    Ariel and Kimberly had the same lilting speech pattern, the same flower-child way of saying whatever came to their minds. And the same way of sounding so incessantly cheerful that I wanted to scream.
    I turned off the truck and let my head fall back against the headrest. Just because my life sucked didn’t mean everyone else’s did, and Ariel could be cheerful if she wanted to. More power to her. Just, God, let her be cheerful with someone else.
    I took the Babette’s order up to the house. The lady who answered the door pursed her lips.
    “I’ve been waiting and waiting,” she complained, taking the white paper bag I pulled from the carrier.
    “Just be glad you don’t live on Arbor Gate,” I said under my breath.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Nothing. I’m sorry.”
    She sniffed and handed me a twenty-dollar bill, which, after subtracting $18.58 for her order, left me a whopping tip of $1.42.
    I put the money in my bag and turned to go.
    “Young lady?” the woman said. “My change?”
    I looked back, saw that she was serious, and grimly counted out her change. Back in the truck, I shifted into reverse and pulled onto East Wesley. I’d gone only half a mile when Ariel’s voice blared from the walkie-talkie.
    “Breaker, breaker, good buddy. This is Red Rover to Blue Bandit. Over.”
    I snatched the walkie-talkie. I pressed the talk button. “What?”
    “Uh, should I be seeing signs for Stone Mountain? I think maybe I—”
    Static drowned her out. I only caught a couple more words—something about a shortcut, something about I-85—before her signal disappeared completely.
    I wanted to enjoy it. I wanted to put everything out of my mind and to sink into the solitude of the dark Atlanta night. But if Ariel had any sense at all, she’d pull off the highway and turn around. It wouldn’t be long before she’d be back in range.
     
     
     
    At 9:30, I pulled into Darlin’s driveway and cut the motor. Parked in front of me was a pale blue Volvo, and on the bumper was a white bumper sticker. “Ship Happens,” it said in black letters.
    No, I thought. It can’t be. But Ariel’s voice still rang in my head. She’d gotten lost three more times during the course of the night, and the more I replayed her chirpy “Um, Lissa?”s, the more I realized that yes, it could be and almost definitely was. How else could I explain the identical blue Volvo?
    Unless there were hundreds of Kimberly/Ariel clones wheeling across the city in their spaceship-mobiles. My head throbbed in protest. I grabbed my stuff and climbed out of the truck, squaring my shoulders and heading to the house.
    “Come in, come in,” Darlin said when she opened the door. “I hear you’ve had quite a night!”
    A few feet behind her stood Kimberly Thomas. Her face lit up and she said, “Lissa! As in Lissa Lissa, from sophomore English. I thought it was you!”
    I thought it was you, too, I wanted to say. And I wish it weren’t. Instead, I glanced at Kimberly’s burgundy hair and