Read Online February by Gabrielle Lord - Free Book Online Page A

grab my bag. I hadn’t been in there before. I had to get out of there before he worked out why I looked familiar.
    ‘You kids these days, you have it too easy. Gadgets, mobile phones, chat rooms, all kinds of information you can download in seconds, fancy cars the minute you can drive. You don’t have to work for anything,’ he said, looking around at his empty seats and idle screens. ‘Not like I had to. Too damn easy. You kids don’t know anything about how hard life really is.’
    Try living in a drain, pal, I longed to say.
    ‘You’re probably right,’ I said instead. And with that, I got up and left.

16 FEBRUARY

    319 days to go … 

    Boges and I were meeting in a busy, noisy fast food place. We’d decided that it’d be safer than the drain, where two people caught lurking would surely mean questions and, ultimately, trouble.
    Plus, I was thinking that making Boges come to the St Johns dump was bad enough. I really didn’t want him to see the state of my latest living quarters.
    I’d noticed the man from the internet café who’d spoken to me yesterday, but I kept my head turned as he passed.
    Boges appeared, pulled out the opposite chair and plonked his tray down on the table. ‘So what ya got for me ?’ he asked as he unloaded a couple of burgers, some chips and drinks.
    ‘I saw this guy who looks exactly like me,’I said in a rush. I waited for him to sit down, then I leaned in closer. ‘I mean exactly like me. He was staring at me through the fence down at the Central Station basketball courts, and then as soon as I tried to talk to him, he bolted.’
    ‘I don’t blame him,’ said Boges. ‘If I didn’t know you, I’d run, too. Dude, you look feral.’
    I looked past my friend’s head and shoulders to the frosted glass behind him where I could see my reflection. I had to admit that I did look like the sort of guy that any normal person would run away from.
    ‘But Boges,’ I persisted, ‘I’m telling you, he was the spitting image of me. Exactly. The. Same,’ I said slowly to push the point. ‘And he was staring at me, like he knew me, or like he was wondering what I was wondering—why is there a guy in front of me who looks exactly the same as me?’
    ‘You mean he had a bad fake tat on his neck, a bunch of piercings and hair like a rat’s nest?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘So he didn’t look exactly like you.’
    ‘He looked exactly like I used to look,’ I said impatiently. ‘It was crazy. I was completely freaked out. We both were.’
    Boges took a huge mouthful of his burger. ‘You know that they say that everyone has adouble—a doppelganger —and it’s not a good sign if you run into yours …’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Let’s just say it means bad news. Maybe it’s just another of the mysteries of the city. I’ve been working on one of them—the DMO—’
    ‘The what?’ I asked.
    ‘The DMO,’ he repeated, pronouncing it like Dee-mo . ‘The Dangerous Mystery of the Ormonds.’ Boges grinned. ‘I found out more about the riddle of the Sphinx—it’s connected to a different sphinx to the one your dad drew.’
    The only one I knew of was the one he’d drawn—the Great Sphinx of Giza, in Egypt.
    ‘This other sphinx is very different,’ Boges continued, ‘she was some kind of psycho woman who was half lion. She had attitude—the sort of sphinx who stopped people passing by and asked them to solve a riddle, and if they didn’t get it right, she’d kill them. Strangle and devour them.’
    ‘OK, so what about the Roman guy? Where do you think he fits in?’
    Boges shrugged. ‘I’m still working on that. In History I asked Mr Addicot about whether there were any Roman connections with the Sphinx, and apparently Julius Caesar was involved in some business in Egypt around 48 BC.’
    ‘This is the Egyptian Sphinx you’re talking about now, right? Not cat-woman?’
    ‘Right. We’ve got to keep in mind that the drawings don’t actually mean exactly what’s in