Peas and Carrots Read Online Free PDF Page A

girls in the group home. Rich folks always think the rest of us are nasty. How much you want to bet there are cameras up here, to make sure I don’t steal anything?
    Foster Lady stands and beams at me. I look away. I don’t know what she’s waiting for. Am I supposed to say thank you or something?
    “Do you have any questions for me, Dess?” She just looks too eager, too happy to answer anything.
    “Nope.”
    Foster Lady says, “Why don’t I go check on Hope and Austin and give you a few minutes to yourself? Then we’ll talk about the house rules.”
    I shrug. I don’t need but five minutes to put my stuff in a drawer and find a place to put up my sewing kit. But I’m not going to unpack anything yet. As soon as she gets out of my face, I’m going to check on Baby myself.
    “Afterward, I’d like to go over some of what Mrs. Farris told me, and we can talk about your new caseworker—”
    “Mom?”
    Foster Lady’s face lights up. “Oh, good,
Hope,
” she says, and ducks into the bathroom. “Did we wake you? Feeling better?”
    “I was just getting up. I’m fine.” The voice is low and sleep-fogged. I shift to where I can see through the bathroom and into the bedroom on the other side. Foster Lady is all bent over, hugging someone.
    I step back, throat closing. I’m not ready to meet Foster Lady’s “real” kid. I’m not sure how to play this family thing.
    I look away, concentrating on rubbing the weird burning feeling in the middle of my chest. I don’t get this. If Foster Lady’s already got a kid, why’s she got Austin and me? Why’s she got the sick baby? With this big old house, she doesn’t need the money.
    “Come and meet your new foster sister,” Foster Lady says.
    Oh, here we go.
    The girl looks right at me, and her eyes get all wide. She’s darker than Foster Lady and shorter, but thick like her, with a crinkly mess of puffy hair in a sloppy bun. She’s all baby fat and big cow eyes, which I’m about to slap out of her damn head if she doesn’t stop staring at me.
    “What are you looking at?” I snarl at the same time that she blurts out, “Um…I’m Hope. Hi.”

“Um, I’m Hope. Hi,” Hope said, trying to rearrange her face to cover her surprise.
    So this was Austin’s real sister—his birth sister. This girl, with her pale-blue eyes and dragon-lady nails, looked nothing like Austin, whose skin was a sandy brown, whose eyes were a dark hazel, and whose hair was tightly furled golden-brown curls. Hope searched for any trace of resemblance to Austin’s sharp-chinned, round-headed adorableness in the single wary eye, ringed hard with liner, that glared out at her from beneath the sweep of stiff, blond bangs. Half siblings could still look alike, but…no, nothing.
    “This is Dess Matthews.” Mom looped an arm around Hope again, as if she, too, could feel the instant arc of tension. “Dess, we haven’t had foster siblings close to Hope’s age in our family before, but it turns out this is especially good timing, since one of Hope’s best friends just moved out of the country. You can keep each other company for a few weeks.” She beamed at them, and Hope responded with a tepid smile. Mom was being way too enthusiastic. “Dess loves to read, Hope. You two have that in common.”
    Reading? Hope glanced at Dess, at her perfect manicure and skinny jeans.
She likes to read? Probably only
Vogue.
I doubt she’s into weredragons or nanobots and dirigibles.
    The brief, awkward silence continued as the girl studied Hope as well. Hope’s eyes moved from the girl’s cold expression to the black plastic garbage bag she was clutching to the pristine white canvas ballet flats on her feet. She hadn’t expected Austin’s sister to be white and blond—obviously bleached—or that she’d be so much older. Hadn’t Mom said they’d be in the same grade? Maybe Dess had been held back, since she
had
to be older than fifteen. She was much taller and seriously built. Maybe she was