The Secret Bedroom Read Online Free PDF Page B

Marci’s eyes, trying to read her thoughts.
    Was she sincere? Was she really inviting Lea to join her sorority? To become part of her group?
    Lea had always wanted to belong, really belong, but wherever she went, she had always been the outsider, the shy outsider.
    â€œI—I didn’t know there were sororities at Shadyside,” Lea stammered.
    â€œOf course there are.” Marci smiled. “We’re meeting after school tomorrow in Room four-oh-nine. Please come, Lea.” She held Lea’s shoulder again briefly. “I really would like to make it up to you for last weekend. I just feel so guilty.”
    Lea pulled away from Marci angrily. “Hey, I’m not stupid!” she snapped, glaring at her. “This school
is
only three stories high. There is no Room four-oh-nine!”
    Marci threw back her head and laughed.
“Never mind!”
she cried in a mocking voice. She turned and hurried away, still laughing to herself.
    â€œWhat a dumb joke,” Lea tried to call after her, but her voice choked in her throat, and the words didn’t come out.
    Lea slammed her fist angrily against her locker. The pain ran up her arm to her shoulder. “Ow.”
    At least Marci’s stupid joke didn’t work.
    At least Lea was smart enough to remember how many floors there were at Shadyside.

    Yeah, I’m real smart, Lea told herself bitterly. Real smart …
    She checked to make sure she had secured her lock, then glumly began to trudge down the long hall toward the front entrance.
    Why does Marci want to
torture
me? she wondered.
    Why does she hate me so much?
    She can
have
Don. Really. I’m not interested in him. I hope the two of them are very happy.
    Let them just leave me alone to live my lonely life.
    As she stepped out the door, she raised her eyes to the sky. It was gray and threatening rain, and she felt the gusty autumn wind whip up and sting her face. Looking down at the bottom of the steps, she saw Marci on the sidewalk talking to a cluster of girls.
    When Lea stepped off the steps, they instantly stopped talking and glanced over at her. Then they all started to laugh.
    Marci was telling them about me, Lea realized.
    Anger she had never felt before rose up through her body.
    I’ve got to get back at Marci, Lea thought, frightened by her own vehemence.
    I’ve
got
to get back at her.

L ea pushed Stop on the remote control, then pushed Rewind. The VCR clicked obediently and began to rewind the movie.
    It was Saturday night and she was home alone, stretched out on the couch in the den, having just watched
Ghost
for the third time in as many months, or maybe the fourth. She had lost track.
    Patrick Swayze is a real babe, she thought, stretching sleepily. He can come haunt me anytime.
    Yawning, Lea glanced up at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room beside the cartons of unpacked books. “Two-fifteen?”
    She had momentarily forgotten that the clock didn’t work. It was just another piece of “valuable” junk her dad had bought at a garage sale, intending to fix it when he had the chance.
    She smiled, thinking about her dad. In his job as an electronics company recruiter, he did nothing with hishands, except maybe push papers back and forth across a desk. But when he got home, his hands were constantly busy with projects, building, examining, repairing everything, as if they had to make up for all the time they spent in repose during the day.
    Her mother, Lea knew, had the same energy, the same drive to fix things up, to make things better, to improve the world by painting it or wallpapering it.
    By the time they’re finished with this old dump, Lea thought, it’ll look like a real home.
    But then, of course, it’ll be time to move.
    When I get married, I’m going to settle into one place and never move, she told herself, smiling at the thought. Maybe I’ll just dig a hole in the ground, a soft, comfy hole, just big