Dead Air by Michelle Schusterman

Author:Michelle Schusterman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2015-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE DAWN OF DOCTOR PAIN

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Phone call?

Hi, Grandma,

Everything’s great. Really busy, though. Maybe we can talk next week.

Kat

I slept for five solid hours.

It was one of those dead-to-the-world sleeps, too. Facedown, arms tucked under the pillows, left leg hanging off the side of the bed. When I woke up, the comforter’s stitch pattern was imprinted on my cheek.

I felt about as awesome as I looked.

After a scalding hot shower, I pulled on jeans and the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes T-shirt Grandma had given me for my last birthday. I rummaged through my bathroom- supplies travel bag and found a pack of rubber bands before giving my reflection a critical once-over. My hair was settling into the new cut, but it was still a little uneven—slightly shorter in the back than in the front. I gathered what I could up into a supershort ponytail that stuck out like a bristly makeup brush, then used a few barrettes to keep the stray pieces in place.

“Nice,” I told my reflection. The Thing hovered in my peripheral vision, shaking its head disapprovingly. I turned my back on it and walked out of the bathroom.

When I stepped off the elevator and into the lobby, Hailey waved from the doorway as if she’d been waiting for hours.

“Kat!” she hollered. “We’ve been looking for you all day! Want to come get some dinner?”

“Sounds great!” My spirits lifted when I stepped outside and found Jamie standing near the entrance, studying his cell phone. He looked up and his face broke into a smile.

“Hey! I was wondering what happened to you,” he said. “Everything okay with your dad?”

“Yup!” I said, maybe a little too cheerfully. “I ended up taking a nap.”

“Your dad and Jess went to do a follow-up interview with the tour guide, and everyone else is editing and stuff. We were going to walk down the boardwalk and look for a pizza place Hailey swears she saw yesterday.” Jamie glanced at my bare arms. “Do you want to get a jacket?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

We set off down the boardwalk, the cold, salty wind whipping my face and arms. The ponytail and barrettes were a good call, I decided.

“Are you sure you’re not cold?” Jamie asked again. I shook my head vigorously, spreading my arms out wide. My T-shirt billowed around me like ship sails, and Hailey giggled. We talked about Crimptown for the rest of the walk, and by the time Hailey spotted the pizza place, I’d gone over the entire story about Lidia and Sonja in excruciating detail.

While we worked our way through an enormous pizza with ham and extra cheese, I outlined my theory about Roland for Hailey—that he’d fired Emily just because he was jealous that she was in love with Sam, but when the ratings spiked, he realized it was a great way to get publicity. So he set Carlos up by publishing that fake exposé in his name, then found some way to scare off Bernice.

“And now he’s

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