The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady Read Online Free Page B

but Suzi answered it. Mom, Dad, Granddad. And now she really had to go, she said, or she’d be late for school. Nice meeting you!
    “Oh, yes. I’ve seen your granddad. Working in the yard.”
    Wait. So Nance already knew where she lived and that she had a granddad. But old people did get confused. Maybe she was just asking to make sure.
    Nance suddenly reached out and grasped her wrist. “What’s his name?”
    “Granddad’s?”
    Nance nodded briskly. Her eyes, shaded by the hat, stared up at Suzi unblinkingly. Why was Nance holding her wrist this way? Should she blow her whistle?
    But Suzi was way taller and stronger than Nance. She backed up, and Nance let go. For a second she couldn’t remember his name. He was Granddad. “Umm. Wilson. Wilson Spriggs.”
    “That’s what I thought.” Nance let out a hissing little breath.
    Wait another minute. What was all this about? Did she have a crush on Granddad? Was that it? Suzi couldn’t wait to tell her friend Mykaila. A crazy old woman had a crush on Gramps! She was stalking Granddad! All adults were insane!
    “And your grandmother?”
    Suzi didn’t get why Nance kept asking about her family, but she couldn’t think of a good reason not to answer, so she did. “My step-grandmother. She died two years ago.” Suzi didn’t like thinking about that—the hot day of the funeral, sitting under that blue tent in folding chairs and watching her mother crying and hugging people. Suzi’s mother had never known her real mother, but she always told people that she’d loved Verna Tommy like a mother. Suzi’d held somebody’s baby, called Dee Dee, four months old, and gazed into Dee Dee’s face whenever she felt like crying, ’cause who could feel sad when they looked at a baby’s face? Would Dee Dee even remember that day and how Suzi held her?
    Nance was staring off down the street, like she was spacing out, not like she was actually looking at something, and she didn’t say sorry about your grandmother, like people usually did, but oh well.
    Suzi said again that she had to go, nice meeting you, blah, blah, blah, and Nance suddenly turned to her. “Every time I see you, I think, there goes a smart, beautiful girl with a great future ahead of her. You’ve just got that air about you.”
    “Wow. Thanks!” Suzi was used to old people remarking that she was smart and beautiful—and she never minded hearing it again—but she especially liked the bright future part. She planned on becoming a famous soccer goalie, and thought about telling Nance that she was going to statewide Olympic Development Program soccer camp in July, but, for God’s sake, she really had to go.
    She said good-bye and ran all the way home, as fast as she could run in flip-flops, and by the time she got home, where her mother wasout in the yard, hands on hips, waiting for her, she’d mostly forgotten about Nance, but she was in a good mood the rest of the day.
    * * *
    Suzi’s life went by in a blur of soccer practice; soccer games; school; homework; texting Mykaila and Sienna and Sierra and ignoring texts from Davis; pretending to ignore Dylan B.; fighting with her sister, Ava; and the dog-walking thing, of course, took up just a tiny fraction of her day, and it was the most boring part, something she protested about having to do, but mostly on principle. It was a relief being alone, watching Parson sniff the same bushes with the same intensity, not taking her cell phone with her even though her mother wanted her to, not having anyone expecting great things from her, or even little things. And she found she looked forward to meeting Nance, the dog lady, whom she ran into now nearly every time she walked Parson, and who always asked her questions and seemed so pleased with the most mundane information.
    Nance wanted to know all about her family, so Suzi told Nance that her father worked at Florida Testing and Assessment, and her mother, right now anyway, was a stay-at-home mom; and Nance nodded