Read Online Past Perfect by Leila Sales - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Leila Sales
Tags: Fiction, General, Romance, Contemporary, Mystery & Detective, Juvenile Fiction, Social Issues, Traditional British, Friendship, Dating & Sex, Adolescence
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So that’s why we didn’t have Civil War uniforms yet.
But Tawny was right that we had to do something . We couldn’t afford to wait two weeks while Patience embroidered Confederate jackets.
As I was riding my bike home from Essex on Tuesday, I stopped by my favorite junk shop to see if anything cool had come in recently. You might think that because I spend all my time with antique goods they would no longer interest me, but I love junk shops; there’s always the chance I might find a treasure buried in all the old crap.
As I coasted to a stop in front of the store, I saw an employee struggling out the door with a big trash bag filled with some sort of electronic gear. “What’s in there?” I asked.
“Bunch of broken phones,” the guy said, letting me peer inside the bag. “Rotary, touch-tone, whatever. They don’t work anymore. The boss thought we could sell ’em as paper-71
LEILA SALES
weights or something, but they were just takin’ up space, so we’re trashin’ ’em.”
I waited until he’d shuffled back into the junk shop, then I called Tawny. “Get down here,” I said as soon as she answered her phone. “Bring your car. I have an idea.” Tawny and I sent emergency text messages telling everyone to meet outside Reenactmentland promptly at five thirty the next morning. Going there at night was too risky; the Civil Warriors might stay late, plotting strategy or just hanging out.
Very, very early morning seemed safer.
I woke up at five a.m., feeling weirdly awake and pumped for the day. I put on my PUMAs and cute jeans and even ran a brush through my hair, all of which is a lot of effort in the middle of the night, but there was a small chance I might run into Dan at Reenactmentland, in which case I thought I should look like a person who wore real clothes instead of pajamas. I even found myself wanting to run into Dan while we were on our Telephone Mission, which was, as Fiona would have said, very Benedict Arnold of me, since if Dan were there, he would stop us because he was the enemy .
Also, he wasn’t going to be there. He was going to be asleep. Get a grip, Glaser.
I ran downstairs and let myself out, locking the front door behind me as quietly as I could. Fiona was waiting in her con-72
PAST PERFECT
vertible a little ways down the block, so my parents wouldn’t hear her.
“Hi,” I whispered, climbing into the passenger seat.
She grunted. “This plan sucks.”
“It’s going to be awesome.”
“I hate it. And I hate you for coming up with it. And I hate myself for voting for you to be second-in-command.” Fiona hates a lot of things. Mostly mornings.
We drove in silence for a few minutes. I don’t know how this is possible, but Fiona seemed to be driving with her eyes entirely closed. Finally she rubbed them and looked at me like she was actually seeing me.
“Why are you dressed like that?”
“Like what? Fi, I’m wearing jeans and sneakers.”
“You’re wearing your cute jeans and cute sneakers. God, Chelsea, is this because Ezra is going to be there? And at five thirty in the goddamn morning you want him to see you in your goddamn PUMAs and realize that he was a fool to let you go?’”
“No,” I said, even though this had, in fact, been my plan for the past two months, every day that Ezra and I had class together. “How crazy do you think I am? Anyway, Ezra won’t be there. He’s even worse at mornings than you are.” I said this and had a sudden flashback to the morning I woke up in Ezra’s bed. We weren’t allowed to spend the night together—“Not while you’re living under my roof,” 73
LEILA SALES
my dad had said—so I had only this one memory, from March, when my parents were out of town at a historical interpreters convention in Philadelphia. (Yes, there are conventions for historical
So that’s why we didn’t have Civil War uniforms yet.
But Tawny was right that we had to do something . We couldn’t afford to wait two weeks while Patience embroidered Confederate jackets.
As I was riding my bike home from Essex on Tuesday, I stopped by my favorite junk shop to see if anything cool had come in recently. You might think that because I spend all my time with antique goods they would no longer interest me, but I love junk shops; there’s always the chance I might find a treasure buried in all the old crap.
As I coasted to a stop in front of the store, I saw an employee struggling out the door with a big trash bag filled with some sort of electronic gear. “What’s in there?” I asked.
“Bunch of broken phones,” the guy said, letting me peer inside the bag. “Rotary, touch-tone, whatever. They don’t work anymore. The boss thought we could sell ’em as paper-71
LEILA SALES
weights or something, but they were just takin’ up space, so we’re trashin’ ’em.”
I waited until he’d shuffled back into the junk shop, then I called Tawny. “Get down here,” I said as soon as she answered her phone. “Bring your car. I have an idea.” Tawny and I sent emergency text messages telling everyone to meet outside Reenactmentland promptly at five thirty the next morning. Going there at night was too risky; the Civil Warriors might stay late, plotting strategy or just hanging out.
Very, very early morning seemed safer.
I woke up at five a.m., feeling weirdly awake and pumped for the day. I put on my PUMAs and cute jeans and even ran a brush through my hair, all of which is a lot of effort in the middle of the night, but there was a small chance I might run into Dan at Reenactmentland, in which case I thought I should look like a person who wore real clothes instead of pajamas. I even found myself wanting to run into Dan while we were on our Telephone Mission, which was, as Fiona would have said, very Benedict Arnold of me, since if Dan were there, he would stop us because he was the enemy .
Also, he wasn’t going to be there. He was going to be asleep. Get a grip, Glaser.
I ran downstairs and let myself out, locking the front door behind me as quietly as I could. Fiona was waiting in her con-72
PAST PERFECT
vertible a little ways down the block, so my parents wouldn’t hear her.
“Hi,” I whispered, climbing into the passenger seat.
She grunted. “This plan sucks.”
“It’s going to be awesome.”
“I hate it. And I hate you for coming up with it. And I hate myself for voting for you to be second-in-command.” Fiona hates a lot of things. Mostly mornings.
We drove in silence for a few minutes. I don’t know how this is possible, but Fiona seemed to be driving with her eyes entirely closed. Finally she rubbed them and looked at me like she was actually seeing me.
“Why are you dressed like that?”
“Like what? Fi, I’m wearing jeans and sneakers.”
“You’re wearing your cute jeans and cute sneakers. God, Chelsea, is this because Ezra is going to be there? And at five thirty in the goddamn morning you want him to see you in your goddamn PUMAs and realize that he was a fool to let you go?’”
“No,” I said, even though this had, in fact, been my plan for the past two months, every day that Ezra and I had class together. “How crazy do you think I am? Anyway, Ezra won’t be there. He’s even worse at mornings than you are.” I said this and had a sudden flashback to the morning I woke up in Ezra’s bed. We weren’t allowed to spend the night together—“Not while you’re living under my roof,” 73
LEILA SALES
my dad had said—so I had only this one memory, from March, when my parents were out of town at a historical interpreters convention in Philadelphia. (Yes, there are conventions for historical
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