102 Days of Lying About Lauren by Maura Jortner

Author:Maura Jortner [Jortner, Maura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2023-06-20T00:00:00+00:00

12

The house groaned again, and something slammed.

“Help me!” Cat exclaimed.

We’d lost electricity so I couldn’t see her.

“Wh-where are you?” I sputtered. It had gone seriously dark and everything around me moaned. It sounded like the house was mad that the wind was treating it so bad. I knew what it meant. That wind was fierce, and I hadn’t been out in it when there was ice falling from the sky.

“Hang in there, house,” I said softly.

“Help!” Cat cried.

“The lights went out,” Tanner said.

Oh, good. He was now on board the Let’s state the obvious boat. Because of course that was what had happened. That was what happened during storms. The apartment Mama and I lived in lost electricity every time the wind blew a little funny. Chelsea at school had told me she never lost electricity and neither did her neighbors. I knew she lived in the part of town with actual houses, so maybe that was it. But Mama and I lost power all the time.

At least it made me brave now.

“I’m coming,” I said to Cat. I slid my foot along the access route, moving toward her voice.

“Here,” she said, and a shaft of light shone out. She had fallen, slipped on something, maybe, but she had a phone and she was pushing herself to standing again. Great.

Tanner stayed where he was, but I was almost to Cat now, and I could see what had happened. When she fell, a big piece of plastic—part of a ghost, I think—had crashed over and was blocking her path. The good news was that it was plastic and I would probably be able to move it. Cat flashed the beam of light so I could see where I was going, and I had that part of a ghost away in a second. It wasn’t heavy, as I’d suspected, but the fact that I could move it made me breathe a sigh of relief anyway.

Here’s the thing: where there’s good news there’s often bad news, and we were about to discover some serious bad news.

“All set,” I said, and I rubbed my hands together like I had everything under control.

The wind pushed against the house and the house rocked back and forth. Cat handed me her phone with a quick “Here, take this,” and I wasn’t sure why she did that until she put her hand on the wall like she had to concentrate on keeping her balance. It made sense. One hand to hold her cane. One hand on the wall. I grabbed the wall too, and aimed the beam of light around so we could see.

Something went Riiiipp, and with my next breath, I got a mouthful of dust. I looked up and saw stuff coming down. Small stuff, sure, but no one wants dust and pieces of whatnot cascading on their head or flying into their mouth. Another bang! and crash! Rain hit me in the face and the wind whipped my ponytail back and forth.

Wait. Rain? I was inside.

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