Read Online Shucked by Megg Jensen - Free Book Online Page B

has sworn me to secrecy. And really, I shouldn't be the one to tell
Tabitha the truth. Maggie should, but she won't. It's absolutely ridiculous. I
hate lying to Tabitha."
    "She's
almost sixteen. Hasn't this gone on long enough?" He let out a long sigh.
    My
hands formed into fists. Great. What did they know that they weren't telling
me? I fought the urge to run down there and demand answers. But then they'd
know I was spying and I didn't want to give up my only advantage in this house.
    "I
agree, but we're bound to secrecy." Mimi stood up and started doing
dishes. This was even stranger. Mimi never did dishes when guests were over.
She said it was rude and only reserved for family.
    "Okay,
well, I'm going to head home. I just wanted to make sure Tabitha got home okay.
She seems like a good kid. I'm glad I'll finally get to know her."
    Me? Why
would he want to get to know me? If Mimi trusted him, then he probably wasn't a
child molester. Did I remind him of my mom? That was even creepier. I sat up,
wrapping my arms around my legs. Everything was changing too fast and it was
all too strange. Was it so wrong to want to go back to normal? Living in the
jungle seemed to make a lot more sense than anything here.
    I
tiptoed over to the bed, grabbed my dogu off the shelf, and crawled under the
covers with it, snuggling into the warm fleece sheets Mimi had put on the bed
while I was at school. The nights were getting chilly. She always thought of
everything.
    I
glanced at the clock, telling myself I had plenty of time to take a little nap
before dinner.
    ***
    I woke up in the middle of the night,
drenched from a cold sweat, still clutching the dogu in my hand. Light powder
covered my palm. “What a crummy reproduction,” I whispered to myself as I set
the doll on the nightstand. “It’s falling apart already.”
    Moonlight filtered through the
curtains and my iPhone told me it was around two-thirty.
    “Thanks for waking me up for dinner,”
I grumbled in the general direction of Mimi and Gramps’ bedroom.
    I sat up in bed, pushing back the
quilt. Mimi said it was the same one my mom used when she was my age. It
definitely looked like it, all torn and moth-eaten. I wish she’d just buy me a
new blanket or a comforter. I was tired of my mom’s hand-me-downs. Her junky
sweats, her old blankets, and her old boyfriend happened to be my math teacher.
    Rubbing my eyes, I looked around the
room and realized that I was wide awake. No sleepiness pushing down on my
eyelids.
    I grabbed my iPhone and typed dogu
into Google. “Huh, not too many hits.” I scrolled down the page with my thumb,
clicking on Wikipedia.
    “So they’re either goddesses or
aliens. Huh. Mimi was right.” I looked mine over by the glow of my cell’s
screen. Short, fat, wide hips, alien eyes like goggles. But mine had
something the others didn’t. It was completely intact. According to the
article, very few of them still had both arms and legs. It was a common problem
in archaeology. Few items remained whole after thousands of years buried in the
dirt, much less from the regular use in daily life.
    The article also went on to talk
about the purpose of the dogu, or at least what they speculated it was used
for. No one really knew without written records. A common theory held the dogu
was used in fertility rites. Ew! At least the ushabti were replacements for the
dead in Egypt. That I could handle. But a doll that increased fertility? That
was something I didn’t need.
    “So my mom sent me a fertility doll.
Creepy.” I rolled my eyes. We’d never spent any time in Japan. Korea, China,
Tibet, yes, but other than a few layovers, my feet had never touched Japanese
soil. So why this figure? It’s not like it had any meaning for me, other than
being kinda cute.
    I put my iPhone back on its charger
and rolled over. My mom hadn’t ever made much sense. Why would she start now?

 
    Chapter Twelve
     
    Too much sleep wasn't ever a good
thing. I woke up groggy in the