Wuthering High by Cara Lockwood

Author:Cara Lockwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2006-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Dish duty is even more disgusting than I could have imagined and I have a very active imagination. There is something really revolting about half-eaten food, and the fact is most of the plates are far from clean. The food is terrible and it looks even worse half-eaten. I’m put at the rinser station, where I’m supposed to rinse off the dishes with a spray nozzle of superhot water. I’ve got on rubber gloves, but they do little good. I wash dishes for a solid hour and my hands feel red and raw and blistery.

Okay, Mom and Dad. I’ve learned my lesson, okay? My room is haunted by a temperamental ghost. I’m being stalked by a guy who thinks he’s Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. And now I am elbow-deep in the most disgusting, gray, food-blob–filled, rank water ever.

I get it. I’ve done some bad things, and this is karmic payback. And I am really, truly, absolutely sorry.

“Whose idea was it to have that séance?” Samir asks as he scrapes off some unknown food particles from a pan in the sink next to mine.

“Your girlfriend’s, as I recall,” Hana says.

“I’m not his girlfriend,” barks Blade, who is towel drying dishes and putting them into the large carts where they’re stored.

“Quiet over there!” a Guardian barks at us.

If I ever get home, I think, I’m never going to complain about doing dishes again. Dishes at home = loading dishwasher, and it takes ten minutes. Dishwashing here = scalding-hot water, weird, smelly grayish water with food floating in it, hands so wrinkled they’re like prunes, and it takes hours. I am going to vomit.

It is true that I’ve led a spoiled life. I realize that now. I do. Please. Someone save me.

God doesn’t answer my prayer. But he does send me Ryan Kent.

He steps up and puts his tray on the conveyer belt near my rinse station.

I pray that my hair isn’t quite flattened to my head with sweat, which is what it feels like. The scalding-hot water has melted all my makeup, I’m sure, and has given my hair the frizz of a Brillo pad.

“Ms. Fashion Police,” he says, a look of incredulity on his face. “I can’t believe you’re on dish duty! What on earth did you do?”

Do I tell him the truth? Yeah, my room is haunted and my crazy Wiccan witch roommate convinced me to do a séance with a Ouija board to try to commune with the dead. You know, because we’re insane, hard-core occult nerds. Oh, and by the way, please take my virginity?

“I tried to escape,” I lie. Well, technically, it’s not exactly a lie. I did try to escape once. It’s just not the reason I’m doing dishes.

“You did!” he exclaims. “Wow. I’m impressed. What route did you take?”

“The woods,” I say.

“Really? Despite the Kate Shaw legend? You’re braver than I am.”

Um, yeah, I think, nodding, even though I didn’t know about that before I tried the woods on my first night. Still, no point in letting Ryan know that.

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