Read Online Starseed by Liz Gruder - Free Book Online

As quickly, Echidna stood in front of Kaila. Her hair was the same: black, shiny, straight to her chin with bangs framing her black spider-like eyes.
    “You changed,” Echidna noted. She evaluated Kaila’s heeled shoes then put her beautiful face near Kaila’s. “Why would a female choose to wear ladders on her feet? Do they not hurt?”
    “Leave her be,” Jordyn said, stepping between them.
    “No,” Echidna said pushing him aside. “Kaila, explain. Why do females choose to lift their feet unnaturally and hurt the arches in the feet?”
    Kaila looked at Echidna, uncertain if she felt true curiosity or pure animosity.
    “I guess to look pretty?” Kaila replied, feeling stupid. She hadn’t planned on this. She wanted to be alone with Jordyn.
    “You can play the boy-girl game later,” Echidna said impatiently. “But, how does hurting your feet make you pretty? And why do you wear this fake hair and plastic on your head? Aren’t you hot and sweating under this terrible sun?”
    Dimly, through her confusion and racing heart, Kaila was aware that the boy called Toby was talking to Melissa and the girl called Antonia was talking to Pia. Had they heard Echidna’s comment about the wig? Please, no. She didn’t want that all over the whole school. She glanced furtively at Jordyn. Echidna looked at Jordyn and Kaila sensed that the two were talking silently.
    As another veil lifted, Echidna and Jordyn came into sharper focus. Jordyn and Echidna were communing silently just like she had with her dog Lucy last night. She realized then that what she did with animals was what they did with each other.
    “Echidna.” Lucius stepped up. His bushy brown hair covered his ears; he wore dark sunglasses propped over his large nose. “Let me explain. Females wear heels to make their legs look longer and their buttocks more apparent. It is part of the mating process.” No one could miss his mockery. “As far as the wig and plastic, it is a mother’s ways, same as The Bourg thinks she protects us.”
    Everyone quieted. Kaila, sweating with the black plastic binding her scalp and the hot blond wig on top, felt her cheeks grow hot. She was trying to digest and assimilate her newfound knowledge . . . but the comment about the buttocks. She felt acutely embarrassed, warm, nervous, itchy as if she had hives.
    She had never thought about heels that way. Plus, she had just made friends and they would think she was an epic failed loser wearing this retarded wig. Sweat stained the armpits of her new pink blouse a darker pink. She felt more foolish now than she had yesterday being a hick. What had she been thinking? What was the right way to be?
    Then, strangely, beautiful prep Priscilla Snowden turned the corner to the back of the school. She wore a yellow sundress and her platinum hair in a ponytail.
    “Oh hey,” she said. She stared at the hybrids with her lovely blue eyes. They said nothing. “Kaila, look how darling you look today. Love that outfit,” she said. “Hey, Melissa, hey Pia, how you doing?” Her voice sounded melodic.
    The bell rang.
    The air was charged with something like an approaching storm, although the sky was clear. Kaila looked at Jordyn, Echidna, Lucius, Toby, Antonia, and Viktor. Yes, she knew all their names now.
    She had never communicated with Viktor, but something about him frightened her. He had curly hair the color of fire and a short red beard, reminding her of a cross between a Viking warrior and the sky god Zeus. Viktor stared at her with . . . was that loathing? His eyes crackled electric blue, and if she looked closely, his pupils ran a vertical line like a snake’s. He had a charge about him that repelled and made her nauseous and dizzy.
    Priscilla Snowden tossed her head and said like sweet tea, “Feels like bad energy here.”
    Her words no sooner escaped her lips and Viktor, like a thunderbolt, was before Priscilla. The pupils in his eyes split the blue in half in one line as he said,