Read Online Bumped by Megan McCafferty - Free Book Online

Lib I’m not who he thinks I am, nor is my sister. I must coax the words out of my throat. I can’t let fear stop me. Being scared means that I trust my own feelings more than I trust God, and that’s just disrespectful.
    “Where are you in your cycle? Oh, WHO CARES? Let’s get you two BUMPING right away. We don’t want another trimester to go by with a FLAT TUMMY. And not to put any pressure on you or anything, but it would be just BREEDY if you could deliver the goods by next March. The Jaydens have an interest in zodiacology. Remember how I negotiated that bonus for delivering a Pisces? Another stroke of BRILLLLLLIANCE!”
    I clear my throat. “Excuse me,” I say more firmly, but he talks right over me.
    “Let me put you in the mood! I’ve got his most recent Tocin ad right here! Prepare to be dazzled! Are you ready to be dazzled?”
    “But I’m not Mel—”
    “I mean it! You must prepare yourself right now!”
    Lib disappears and in the very next moment . . .
    “Behold the most BEAUTIFUL sight you have ever seen!”
    “But—ohhhhh . . .”
    This is a transcendent understatement.
    “That flowing, golden hair . . .” Lib raves from a reduced screen in the corner. “Those soulful brown eyes . . .”
    I am basking in the true light of the Alpha and Omega.
    “No need for a dose of Tocin to OPEN YOU UP to this one! Look at him!”
    I do.
    And
    I
    am
    reborn.

I THINK HARMONY MISSES GOODSIDE ALREADY. SHE’S BEYOND wanked this morning. I mean, for her . Yesterday she couldn’t wait to go out and faith hard in the face of nonbelievers at the Mallplex. But today she’s content to stay in while I’m at school.
    When Harmony first told me that she’d changed her mind about tagging along, I was for seriously relieved because I didn’t know how I was going to break the news that she could in no way come with me to school today. We’re all supposed to stop stressing about opposing belief systems because we’re more, like, mature now and stuff. But guess what? The Churchies still freak everyone out. Not too long ago some Churchies from a local settlement took over Palmer Square and asked me, Malia, and Shoko if we had God when all we wanted to do was buy retro froyo. Then we all joked about how their godfreakiness could infect us and turn us from totally normal to totally not. And for days, even weeks afterward, the three of us laughed about it, like, “Ha. I’m going to burn in hell. Ha. Ha. Ha.” But the jokes are never really all that funny.
    Letting Harmony come to school with me on a regular day would be bad enough, but today it would be terminal. It’s a big day for me with the Pro/Am vote and all. Ventura Vida poses enough of a challenge as it is. I don’t need my secret identical twin stalking around the halls asking everyone if they have God.
    Harmony was so calm and focused yesterday, remarkably so considering how jarring it must have been to leave Goodside behind. Since I found her on her knees in the common room this morning, however, she’s been acting kind of blinky. It’s possible she always wakes up like this. Maybe she’s got undiagnosed ADHD and she needs to self-medicate by, like, milking a cow or something to calm down. But I have a feeling she’s unnerved by something, or rather, someone else entirely.
    “Hey. Did Zen say something . . . ?”
    For all I know, he could’ve brought up our ridiculous “contract” and tried to persuade Harmony to proxy pregg on my behalf. When she doesn’t answer I repeat the question, assuming she can’t hear me over the cracklesnap of bubbling batter in a frying pan I didn’t even know we owned.
    “Who?” Harmony asks, without turning away from the stove.
    “Zen.”
    “Zen?”
    “Yes, Zen,” I say, growing impatient, “The boy you met yesterday . . .”
    She turns, a flicker of recognition crossing her face as she comes toward me with a steaming pancake balanced on a spatula. “Oh, Zen ,” she says in an airy, distracted