Tweaked Read Online Free PDF Page A

backs for another minute, then I turn in the opposite direction and begin to walk fast. It isn’t the way to Jade’s place, but there’s no way I’m about to go in the same direction as them. Feeling like I’m about to heave, I turn to the gutter. I break into a cold sweat. My mind is racing, and I don’t remember how I even end up in front of Jade’s apartment building. I stand there for several minutes trying to collect myself. It’s not that I’m afraid of being beat up, although the thought of Harris and his smashed fingers doesn’t help. It’s more the idea that they’d been watching me that creeps me out. They know where I work. What else do they know about me?
    Finally I make it up the stairs and to the door of Jade’s apartment. She invites me in. I remove my wet shoes in the hall even though the carpet is threadbare.Despite the distraction of almost being pounded out, it strikes me again how little her family owns. The exception is medical equipment and they own plenty of that: breathing apparatus of different types lies scattered about and bottles of prescription medicines are lined up next to the sink. The door to the bedroom where Mrs. Scott is sleeping is slightly ajar. Jade and her sister Holly share the foldout couch.
    â€œAre you okay, Gordie?” she asks.
    I realize that I’m shivering. “Oh, yeah. I’m just wet. It’s really coming down.”
    â€œHmm, well, sit down and let me make you some tea. And some toast. I’m sorry we don’t have anything left from dinner. I’ve already made Holly a sandwich for lunch tomorrow with the leftover chicken.”
    I do my best to smile. “Tea is fine. I’m really not hungry.” The truth is I’m not sure that I could keep anything down.
    Jade is helping Holly make a piñata for a school project, running strips of newspaper through a lumpy paste, slapping them around a balloon. “It’s going to be a peacock,” Holly informs me as I sit in the chair across from her. “Jade got me a rainbow feather duster for the tail. Do you want to help?”
    I sit at the table, trying to focus on sounding interested. It’s hard to go from having my health threatened by a couple of hoods to the calm domestic scenein front of me without showing a little stress. I do manage to say, “I’m much better at model airplanes, but sure, I guess I can give it a try.”
    Holly sings quietly while we work. Jade starts the kettle boiling, a small television set murmurs in the corner, and despite the door being almost closed, Mrs. Scott’s oxygen machine hums softly in the background. It’s a new sound to me, but it eventually becomes part of the comfortable busy scene in the apartment.
    Holly suddenly accuses me of not tearing my strips thin enough. “It’s going to be all bumpy and not round.”
    I look at my work. She is absolutely right. The strips I’ve added are gargantuan lumps. I try to tear a thinner strip, but I’m still shaking so badly inside that I seem to have lost the ability to control my fingers. “I’ll tell you what, I’m going to drink my tea and warm up before I do any more.”
    Jade sets the tea on the table before me.
    Once the body of the peacock is finished, they balance it on a saucer to dry. Jade tells Holly to take a bath and get ready for bed. She promises they’ll finish the neck and head the following day after school. “I’m sorry,” she says when Holly is gone. “There’s not much privacy around here. Maybe next time we can go out. It’s just a little too soon to leave her alone.” She motions toward the bedroom.
    â€œIt’s no big deal,” I tell her, glad for the moment that I don’t have to go out.
    And then I think of something, although I don’t say it out loud. My family used to be something like this. Before the stealing and the lying, the