Read Online 100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith - Free Book Online Page B

Castellan’s fire and said to Julia, “My neighbor used to fight bulls in Mexico.”
    â€œDid he ever lose?” Julia asked.
    I shrugged and shook my head. “I never asked him that.”
    Mr. Castellan didn’t see us watching him. I noticed a while ago that Manuel Castellan walked like a bullfighter. He moved his legs like a gaited horse and held his chin just a bit higher than most men do.
    A guy who moved like he did would never lose to a bull, I thought.
    Sometimes his trash fires stunk pretty bad, depending on the types of atoms the bullfighter was freeing. This night, the smoke smelled of cinnamon and orange peel.
    We went into the backyard.
    â€œSo your father actually made up The Lazarus Door just because of you?” Julia said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIt must be cool to have a dad who’s a famous writer, and to know that parts of you are in actual books,” she said.
    Books are the knackeries to what is real.
    â€œToo many parts of me,” I said.
    I caught her glancing at me, smiling with her mouth closed.
    â€œSometimes it’s like I’ve been trapped inside his book.”
    Julia said, “Oh.”
    â€œBesides, it’s just the same as having a dad who does anything else,” I said.
    Laika’s crate sat on the concrete deck between the patio and our pool. My dog lay curled up inside it, watching me.
    Laika has a real issue with guilt.
    I swung the little crate door shut and trapped her inside.
    â€œHah!” Julia said, “ Sputnik 2 .”
    â€œMost people don’t get it,” I said.
    â€œThe space dog.”
    â€œThe dog they killed.”
    â€œMaybe that’s why she’s attracted to dead things,” Julia said.
    I nodded. “You’re probably right. You can’t just name a dog Laika and then expect her to not be morbidly fascinated by decay. The name carries an awful lot of baggage.”
    â€œSpace garbage.”
    Julia walked to the edge of the pool. I watched her. While the bullfighter walked like a gaited horse, Julia Bishop glided like a cat.
    â€œThis is a nice pool.”
    â€œI swim a lot. If baseball and swimming weren’t at the same time, I’d probably be on swim. I’m pretty good. So’s Cade. Maybe sometime you could, uh . . . come . . . swimming.”
    I didn’t know that I honestly wanted her to. Just saying it made me feel flustered, worried, and more than a little turned on, thinking about how our unclothed bodies might actually be connected by all those sticky molecules of warm pool water.

    â€œLet me see your back again,” Julia said.
    â€œNo. I don’t want to.”
    â€œOh, come on. I think it’s the coolest thing ever, and I already saw it anyway.” She said, “I loved that book. Meeting you is like a miracle.”
    I shook my head.
    Julia went on. “What would you say if I told you I took a picture of your Lazarus Door mark with my phone while you were lying on the floor?”
    My face went straight.
    â€œI would say that’s probably the meanest thing anyone’s ever done to me.”
    Julia pulled her phone from the back pocket of her shorts and handed it to me. It was warm.
    She said, “You can look at my pictures. I didn’t do it. I was only messing with you, Finn.”
    I gave Julia back her phone, turned around, and looked at the moon as I pulled my tank top up over my shoulders so she could see it.

    The Lazarus Door mark.
    The little things in my father’s novel were called Lazarus Doors because you actually had to die to come through them—one atom at a time.
    There was even a song people in the book sang, and soon everyone all over the messed-up, invaded, and cannibalized planet began to hear the song constantly in their heads. At first, some people thought they were receiving messages, that the song itself was the Voice of God.
    The song went like this:
    When the little door