Watch Your Step Read Online Free Page B

to ask about what just happened. But she answers his question instead. “Maybe a little. But only because I had to!”
    â€œWhy’d you have to?” I ask.
    â€œFlora? My older sister? She’s out of control! She was so sweet when I first got home, but now? It’s like she’s doing everything she can to get rid of me. Like, she took my favorite stuffed monkey slippers without asking. Then when she gave them back, they were covered in grass stains. And—”
    â€œHey! Dorkus!”
    Gabby’s mouth snaps shut. Her bedroom door swings open. A teenager with long blond hair bursts inside and flies around the room.
    â€œMom and I are going to the mall. I need a jacket. Where’s your denim one? With the crystal buttons? And flower patches? And  . . .”
    The girl, who I assume is Flora, Gabby’s sister, keepsrambling as she opens drawers and flings around clothes, but I stop listening. I focus only on Gabby, who looks down and says nothing. Nothing. Gabby. Who always has something to say.
    â€œAha!” Flora pops out of a closet and holds up the jacket. “Have fun with your books. Oh, and don’t wait on us for lunch. We’ll probably eat out. Later, Geek Girl!”
    Flora leaves. Gabby’s still and silent for another second. Then, carrying her K-Pak, she gets up, closes the door her sister leaves open, and sits back down.
    â€œSo,” she says. “Like I was saying, she got grass stains on my slippers. And who wears slippers, especially beautiful ones like that, outside? Then she ate all of my yogurt-covered raisins, which she hates and knows Mom only buys for me. Then—”
    â€œGabby,” Abe says, and I think he’s going to ask what that was about, why she let Flora just barge in and take her jacket, how come she didn’t go to the mall too. But he returns the favor she paid him instead. By ignoring the incident entirely.
    â€œWhat?” Gabby asks.
    â€œGet to the point,” he says. “What have you been practicing?”
    I only half listen as she talks about glow-in-the-dark contact lenses, X-Ray sunglasses, and other tools she’s been using toget back at her sister. Gabby’s in the Biohazard group at Kilter because of her ability to manipulate her gaze to get anyone to do anything she wants, and it seems she’s been keeping up on those skills while home.
    I’m still half listening when Abe—who for his talent in drawing, painting, and otherwise creating confusing, occasionally scary works of art, is a member of Les Artistes at Kilter—hints at what he’s been up to. Clearly wanting to keep a troublemaking edge, he admits only to working on an outdoor wall mural in the dark of night. When completed, the masterpiece will supposedly turn his entire neighborhood upside down.
    While they’re talking, I focus mostly on Lemon. He folds and unfolds the same square sheet of paper over and over again. He doesn’t pay any attention to Gabby and Abe. The only time he looks up is when there’s a knock on his bedroom door. Then he puts down the paper and stares into the K-Pak camera.
    â€œLater,” he says, right before his third of my K-Pak screen goes dark.
    â€œWhat’s his problem?” Abe asks.
    â€œ He doesn’t have a problem,” Gabby says. “He’s just being Lemon. What’s your excuse?”
    My stomach grumbles, reminding me that I haven’t eaten breakfast. “I should go too, guys. V-chat later?”
    They agree. We say good-bye and hang up. As I climb out of bed and shuffle across the room, I think about Lemon and his strange new hobby. Did something happen? Are his parents giving him a hard time about his old hobby, the one that made them send him to Kilter? The super-exclusive reform school for the worst kids in the country?
    I pause with one hand on the doorknob. It’s so weird to think that that’s what parents—minus