Read Online Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter - Free Book Online Page A

get some cans to throw at them, but I’m pretty close to vomiting and besides, Babs might think that pelting these jerks counted as thieving. There are at least six or seven kids arranged in a circle, picking up the jingle and winging it around, and for a few more minutes we keep up this lunatic alteration of waltz and jolt and curtsy. I can’t even kneel anymore, just lie there with my head pressed to the floor hoping my brain will stay inside it.
    If you don’t bother it, it won’t bother you. That’s what Iliana told me after I moved in with her and my sisters. There’d been nothing remotely like BY’s in my old neighborhood and the heads freaked me out to an unspeakable degree. I’d imagine them floating just behind me, gibbering softly together, or those huge clawed chicken feet scraping in pursuit. Through my whole first year living here BY’s scared me so much that I wouldn’t walk within three blocks of the place. My evasive maneuvers were making me late for school—so Iliana marched me into the parking lot, yanked my hair back, and made me stand right between the clacking toes and stare up at BY’s neon belly. You see? Is it doing anything to you? Is it biting you? Or are you just being a baby? We all live with it, so now you better start living with it, too.
    Ah, but if you do bother it, then anything that happens is your own damn fault, of course. That was strongly implied. And as for the part about how sick she was of being stuck with a spoiled Williamsburg princess, that carried just fine through the walls whenever she was on the phone with her friends.
    I’m mulling that over when the spinning stops dead. BY’s is crouching low and a cold night wind scrolls through the gaping door. I’m trying to sit up just as the whole pack of kids comes stomping in. I know almost all of them. They’re all the type who seems compelled to run in packs, like they’ll get vertigo if they ever have to spend ten minutes alone with the cavernous abyss where their minds should be.
    â€œVassa!” Lottery says, spitting with laughter. “Hey, girl, I wondered if that was you. Hope you enjoyed the ride!”
    â€œWant me to show you how much I enjoyed it?” I offer. “I could puke on your shoes.” I make it to my feet just as the store starts rising again; I’m still dizzy enough that the movement sets me tottering. The opera-singer boy—the only one of them I don’t think I’ve seen before—catches my elbow. I shrug him off. He should have expressed his chivalrous impulses by shutting the hell up earlier.
    Lottery’s looking around. “Are you here alone, Vassa? Because it’s mad risky that way. Shopping at BY’s is one of those team sports. Want us to show you how it’s done?”
    â€œOh, I can’t possibly go shopping now,” I snarl. “I’m working.”
    That gets their attention. They snap straight and line up to stare at me. “ Working, ” Lottery drawls skeptically. “As in here?”
    â€œThat would be the case,” I say. I admit an impulse to elaborate on my snarkery, but the fact is that they’re all in distinctly mortal peril and that makes mouthing off seem just a smidge irresponsible. “I would really appreciate it if you would all leave. Okay? It’s a terrible idea to come in here.”
    Lottery mimes hacking her own head off with a sideways hand and then rolls her eyes back. Her brown hair ends in wormy bleached-out braids and she’s wearing these eerie golden contact lenses. I keep looking past her, scanning the shelves for anything whitish and hopping, but the hands are keeping out of sight.
    â€œAw, are you worried about us, Vassa? We shop here all the time. We’ve all done one solo run, even, though once was definitely enough for me! But we have it down. We have what you might call technique. ”
    â€œAnd you shouldn’t be