The Summoning Read Online Free PDF Page B

came down the two steps between us and laid her fingers on my arm. “Are you okay? You’re all white.”
    “I j-j-just thought I h-h-heard something.”
    “Why is she talking like that?” Tori asked Liz.
    “It’s called a stutter.” Liz squeezed my arm. “It’s okay. My brother stutters, too.”
    “Your brother is
five
, Liz. Lots of little kids do it. Not teenagers.” Tori peered down at me. “Are you slow?”
    “What?”
    “You know, do you ride the looong bus—” she pulled her hands apart, then brought them together again “—or the short one.”
    Liz flushed. “Tori, that’s not—”
    “Well, she talks like a little kid, and she looks like one so…”
    “I have a speech impediment,” I said, enunciating carefully, as if she were the slow one. “I’m working to overcome it.”
    “You’re doing great,” Liz chirped. “You said that whole sentence without stuttering.”
    “Girls?” Mrs. Talbot peered around the hall doorway below. “You know you aren’t supposed to fool around on the stairs. Someone could get hurt. Class is in ten minutes. Chloe, we’re still waiting for notes from your teachers, so you won’t be in class today. When you’re dressed, we’ll discuss your schedule.”
    ***
    Lyle House liked schedules the way a boot camp likes discipline.
    We rose at 7:30. Ate, showered, dressed, and were in class by 9:00, where we did independent work assigned by our regular teachers, supervised by the tutor, Ms. Wang. Break at 10:30 for a snack—nutritious, of course. Back to class. Break for lunch at noon. Back to class from 1:00 until 4:30 with a twenty-minute break at 2:30. At some point during classes—the timing would vary—we’d have our individual hour-long therapy session with Dr. Gill; my first would be after lunch today. From 4:30 until 6:00, we had free time … kind of. In addition to classes and therapy, we had chores. A lot of chores from the looks of the list. These had to be done during our free time before and after dinner. Plus we had to squeeze in thirty minutes of physical activity every day. Then after a snack, it was off to bed at 9:00, lights-out at 10:00.
    Nutritious snacks? Therapy sessions? Chore lists? Mandatory exercises? Nine o’clock bedtime?
    Boot camp was starting to look good.
    I didn’t belong here. I really didn’t.
    ***
    After our talk, a phone call sent Mrs. Talbot scurrying off, calling back promises to return with my job list. Oh joy.
    I sat in the living room trying to think, but the unrelenting cheerfulness was like a bright light shining in my eyes, making it hard to concentrate. A few days of yellow paint and daisies and I’d turn into a happy zombie, like Liz.
    I felt a pang of shame. Liz had made me feel welcome and been quick to defend me against her friend. If being cheerful was a mental illness, it wasn’t such a bad one to have—certainly better than seeing burned-up people.
    I rubbed the back of my neck and closed my eyes.
    Lyle House wasn’t so bad, really. Better than padded rooms and endless hallways filled with
real
zombies, shambling mental patients so doped up they couldn’t be bothered to get dressed, much less bathe. Maybe it was the illusion of home that bothered me. Maybe, in some ways, I’d be happier with ugly couches and white walls and bars on the windows, so there’d be no false promises. Yet just because I couldn’t see any bars didn’t mean it was as open as it seemed. It couldn’t be.
    I walked to the front window. Closed, despite the sunny day. There was a hole where there’d probably been a latch for opening it. I looked out. Lots of trees, a quiet street, more older houses on big lots. No electric fences. No sign on the lawn proclaiming LYLE HOUSE FOR CRAZY KIDS. All very ordinary, but I suspected if I grabbed a chair and smashed the window, an alarm would sound.
    So where was the alarm?
    I stepped into the hall, glanced at the front door, and saw it, blinking away. No attempt to hide it. A