Runaway Twin Read Online Free PDF Page A

checking each of you off my list before you leave.”
    Uh-oh. This could be trouble.
    I sat up, watching as the chaperone exited the bus and stood at the bottom of the steps with a clipboard. The first girl to disembark was met by an adult woman. “Hi, Mom,” the girl said. “Good-bye, Miss Lilton.” The chaperone made a checkmark on the paper that was on her clipboard.
    The next girl pointed to a car and said, “There’s my dad.” Miss Lilton checked the name off her list.
    One by one the girls got off and were greeted by adults. I noticed that one girl was still in her seat, sleeping soundly. When she and I were the only ones left, I hurried to the front of the bus, stepped off, and pointed across the parking lot. I said, “There’s my mom, Miss Lilton.” Then, before she could ask my name and look at her list, I added, “You’d better check the seats in the rear of the bus. Somebody’s still asleep back there.”
    Looking flustered, Miss Lilton boarded the bus and headed toward the slumbering girl, while I walked as quickly as I could across the parking lot and around the side of the school. I ducked into a doorway to wait. When the bus pulled away, I peeked around the corner and saw Miss Lilton get in a car and drive off.
    Nobody would be able to track me here. There was not one person in the whole world who knew where I was. That knowledge excited me and made me nervous at the same time. What if I got sick? What if I fell and broke my arm, as I had when I lived with Jerod?
    Stop it, I told myself. You’re where you want to be, doing what you want to do. Don’t spoil it by worrying. Besides, I knew Rita’s phone numbers. If I ever broke a bone or got in other serious trouble, I knew I could call her and she’d come.
    I walked away from the school and kept going until I came to a main street. Looking both ways, I saw a strip mall to my left. There were fast-food restaurants, a gas station, and, only half a block farther, the Dew Drop Inn.
    I ate a chicken sandwich and drank a chocolate milk shake, then went into the lobby of the Dew Drop Inn. “Has Mrs. Webster checked in yet?” I asked. “I’m her daughter.”
    The clerk said nobody named Webster had arrived.
    â€œI’ll go ahead and register then,” I said. “She should be here shortly.”
    â€œDo you have a credit card?” the clerk asked. “A double room is sixty-nine dollars. Or you can get a single room with a cot for forty-nine.”
    â€œThe single’s fine,” I said. “I don’t mind the cot.” I gave him cash, which seemed to surprise him, and he handed me the key to room nine.
    As soon as I got to my room I opened my backpack and checked the map, happy to see that the school bus I’d stowed away on had gone nearly two hundred miles in the direction I needed to go. I was a whole lot closer to Starr than I’d been a few hours earlier, and it hadn’t cost me anything for a ticket.
    I couldn’t afford many nights at fifty bucks a pop, though. It wasn’t even a good motel. Not that I was used to five-star accommodations, but the carpet was worn, the bathroom tile was chipped, and the ancient air conditioner protruding from the window sounded like a NASCAR race. Well, the room would be fine for my purposes. All I needed was a bathroom, a bed, and some privacy; it had all three of those.
    Tomorrow night I’d try to find a YWCA where I could rent a less-expensive room.
    The next morning I asked the motel clerk to direct me to the Greyhound bus terminal. He raised his eyebrows. “I thought your mom was meeting you here.”
    â€œShe called. She got hung up in a business meeting and said for me to catch the bus and she’ll pick me up at the other end.”
    I must have been convincing, because the clerk told me how to find the bus stop. On my way there, I passed a fast-food restaurant; I bought an