Read Online A Quarrel Called: Stewards Of The Plane Book 1 by Shannon Wendtland - Free Book Online Page B

little and looked to see Mr. Smith, back arched, facing some
threat from the direction of Mr. Thompson’s house. He was making a heck of a
racket, his hackles starting to rise and his tail puffed up. I started to get
worried for him, the scrappy bugger, until I saw a winged shadow swoop into the
dim light from the top of Thompson’s garage, claws extended. It was the owl
from the other night. And before I could even get out of my chair, it snatched
Mr. Smith with its claws and flapped its wings in mighty strokes, trying to
carry the cat away for, what I could only assume, would be its dinner.
    But Mr. Smith put up a fight, and before long, the owl was
forced to let the cat drop at least twelve feet to the ground below, where it
twisted in midair to land squarely on its paws. Then it dove into the nearby
sewer opening.
    The owl hooted and continued on its flight, coming in my
direction, barely skimming past my window to land on the edge of the roof over
my room. I could hear its claws scraping on the shingles; I noticed that I was
gripping the edge of my desk with white knuckles and my heart was pounding in
my ears. Screw this , there was no way I was going to
listen to this EVP crap in the dark. I shut down the computer and turned on my
TV. Best thing for a case of the heebie-jeebies: a couple hours of mindless
cartoons.

 

16. G.
    Sitting still was killing me, and working at The Blossom
wasn’t much better, since it was midweek and business was kind of slow. I was
agitated; I just wanted to get out and do something, anything. It was weird,
because usually I prefer to just sit back and people watch. But I reminded
myself of my vow when I moved in with Dad – no freshman punk was going to make
me look like an idiot on the first day of PT for ROTC… and all I wanted to do
was get out and run; not calisthenics, not lift weights, run.
    Run? Really? Was I motivated to look good for Tara or
something? I considered that seriously for a moment and thought that might be
it, except she didn’t seem to have a problem with me the way I was.
    Except
you haven’t kissed her yet. How long do you think she’s going to sit around and wait for you to get the
cojones to kiss her? My knee was jumping up and down as I sat in the break
room waiting for break to be over. I swear, if I saw me right now, I would
think I was on speed or something. I really did, I wanted to run.
    Except it was so blasted hot. Moving from Ohio to Texas in the summer had been a bad idea. My mom tried to
tell me so, but now I was here. Shit. Dad had that old treadmill in the back of
the spare room; it had boxes and clothes hung on it. Did it still work? Even if
it sucked, I could at least use it inside, in the air conditioning. Or I could
run late at night or early in the morning like all the other suburbanites.
    I took a covert look through the window of the break room
door. No one could see me in here. I dropped to the floor and did twenty rather
miserable pushups. Arms shaking and jaw aching from gritting my teeth, they
made me feel better, less jumpy. Maybe that’s what I could do – whenever I had
a spare moment hanging around here, I could just do some pushups or jumping
jacks or something.
    “Hey G.,” Manny said, pushing the break-room door open with
his backside so he could use his hands to carry a tray of food. “Your
girlfriend’s here.”
    “Thanks,” I said. Is she though? My
girlfriend? I grinned. If she wasn’t already, then maybe I needed to
finally do something about that.

 

17. TARA
    Sugary lemon with a hint of something else—I didn’t know
what kind of flowers smelled like that, but they sure
were pretty. I couldn’t contain my grin. “They’re beautiful!” No one had ever
given me flowers before. OMG.
    G. fidgeted with his keys a little bit. Then he shuffled
from one foot to the other. He met my eyes and then blushed just a little,
though it was hard to tell since his skin was dusky brown to begin with. But I
was pretty sure