Read Online Back Talk by Saxon Bennett - Free Book Online Page A

door. Liz opened the door to the attic.
    Anne took it in. The attic ran the length of the house with a high vaulted ceiling. It had finished walls and a wood floor. There was an old cloth couch on one wall and piles of records and tapes along with clothes strewn everywhere. At one end of the room was a stereo system shoved into what had once been bookcases. Anne thought the room must have been someone’s hideaway. Next to the bookcases was an enormous desk that had a variety of computer equipment, some in pieces, others in perhaps working order.
    It looked like a mad scientist lived up there. The rest of the large room was filled with something that looked like a kidney-shaped swimming pool made out of wood. She could hear something scraping around in it. It was about four feet high on one end and almost six feet on the other. It reminded Anne of a large-scale architectural model and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what the hell it was.
    “Hilton?” Liz called out.
    Lyle Lovett was blaring on the stereo and Hilton’s head and 49
    All content of this eBook is copyrighted.

    body came flying up on the edge of the pool-like thing on a skateboard.
    “Hilton,” Liz screamed again.
    Hilton popped up on the other side. “I didn’t do it.” Seconds later she came up on the other side. “I don’t know where it is.”
    Another swoop and she said, “And yes, I am busy.”
    “Hilton, it’s Anne. I think I destroyed the Web site.”
    “Anne?” Hilton seemed momentarily suspended in the air. She dropped the skateboard and disappeared into the bottom of the wooden structure. There was a loud crash. The skateboard resumed its course up the other side with so much force that it flew into the rafters and stuck there.
    “Hilton, are you all right?” Anne asked.
    Hilton groaned.
    Anne was about to go see when Liz grabbed her arm. “Wait, put this on,” she said and handed her a silver hard hat.
    “What for?”
    Liz pointed to the rafters, which were filled with an assortment of errant skateboards.
    “Got it,” Anne said. She put the hard hat on. It appeared that if one fell in this strange contraption you might send the skateboard into the attic rafters never to been seen again.
    Liz and Anne climbed a short set of wooden stairs that led to a small deck where they could see Hilton lying flat on her back in the middle of the wooden structure.
    “Are you all right?” Liz asked.
    “Yeah, I just got the wind knocked out of me. Damn, I liked that skateboard,” Hilton said, looking up at the ceiling.
    “It’ll come back down eventually,” Liz said diplomatically.
    “What is this thing, exactly?” Anne asked.
    “It’s a skate bowl. You enter from up here and you can ride the edges of the bowl. They used to do it all the time in California but they used drained swimming pools. Hilton had this one built along those same principles,” Liz said.
    “Oh, shit! Watch out.” Hilton jumped to her feet and turned 50
    All content of this eBook is copyrighted.

    her gaze to the rafters. The impact of the skateboard hitting the rafters must have loosened the other errant boards and four skateboards came careening down.
    “You see, you lost one and gained four,” Liz said.
    Hilton surveyed her riches. “You’re right. I really liked this one,” she said, studying the design on the bottom. It was a flying dinosaur swooping over a primordial jungle.
    Anne watched and waited for what she’d said to sink in.
    “Did you say something about the Web site?”
    “I wanted to put in a message board and so I bypassed the password.”
    “Did the message pop up mentioning termination of the program?”
    “Uh, yes. That’s not a very nice trick,” Anne said.
    “How long ago?”
    “About twenty minutes.”
    Hilton took off her helmet and appeared lost in thought for a moment. She was wearing only boxer shorts and a sports bra.
    Hilton had a teenage boy’s body, Anne thought, only with breasts.
    Her arms and back had