Race to Refuge Read Online Free PDF Page A

chest, I tried to look as if I couldn’t be less interested in taking my middle school kid sister to her orthodontist appointment.
    The blonde woman exchanged glances with the other woman in the office, a woman with large red-framed glasses and a ponytail, and then back at me. “Let me make sure that you’re an authorized person to pick her up. Your parents would have had to sign a form at the beginning of the year that you were authorized for us to release your sister to you.”
    My breath caught in my throat. Because there was no way that my parents would sign something like that. Why would they when I wasn’t even driving on my own yet?
    But the woman with the ponytail said to the blonde lady, “Hey, I’ve been in this situation myself. The nerve of the doctor’s office to charge for missed visits! We should charge them for making us wait so long in their office. Our time is just as valuable as theirs. I’ll buzz her on the intercom. What’s her name again?”
    I told her and she picked up a phone, punching some numbers. “Mrs. Thomas? Could you send Ginny Parsons to the office, please? She has an appointment. Thank you.”
    I tried to keep my face from showing the relief I felt.
    The blonde woman was looking pretty sour that I’d gotten my way. “You’ll need to sign your name here to authorize her being released. I don’t suppose you know your sister’s student ID?”
    Was she kidding? I was doing well to know my student ID. Was this the kind of stuff Mom and Dad were expected to know? No wonder they kept forgetting everything … there was no room left in their brains. Then I remembered the last time I saw Mom and Dad. I immediately took out my phone to look at Twitter and to forget my parents.
    Twitter was full of messages about zombies. I scanned them fast to see if any of them were from people I knew or from our area. Which was when I saw something about the state house being attacked by ‘people who appeared to be suffering from a strange virus.’ And the state house was just a few blocks away.
    Ginny cautiously entered the office, a large backpack on her back. It’s not a place middle school kids really like hanging out. She had a look on her face that said that she thought she had forgotten something and maybe was in trouble. Then, when she saw me, her expression changed to total surprise.
    “Ty? What’s going on? What are you doing here?” she asked. She was small for her age and wasn’t much into fashion. With the pink tee shirt she’d picked up at the beach last year, the denim shorts she was wearing, and her blonde hair pulled back into a braid, she could be an elementary school kid. It was just the braces that showed she must be older.
    I briskly started moving her to the door. “Ginny, it’s okay. We’ve got to get you to your orthodontist appointment.”
    I used a commanding voice that I was surprised I even had. But it worked because she hurried along beside me out the door. “What’s going on?” she whispered to me as we quickly left.
    I grabbed her arm and started running as soon as we hit the door. “Ginny, do me a favor and ditch that backpack. It’s just going to take up room. Actually, even better, just dump the stuff out of it and let’s keep the backpack.”
    “What?” she kept jogging along beside me, but now I could see she was really concerned about me. “What are you talking about? I’ll get in trouble. That’s all my books for school and my homework.”
    “Not needed anymore,” I said a little breathlessly. The sirens were closer now and I squinted to see through the trees toward the direction of the state house. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard what sounded like cops yelling. I bet the school was going to go on lockdown at any time.
    “What?” she asked again. Now there were tears in her voice as she was seriously getting worried.
    I grabbed the backpack from her, unzipped the top, and dumped everything out in about five seconds. Then I grabbed