Part 2: Does not make me rush, does not make me wait
The second thing that really changed me profoundly, after you’ve read my long and invariably uninteresting story about the first, was far more important than simply being left at a bookstore.
Like all the interesting things that happen to me, it was happening to my brother first. I suppose other people might be annoyed that their sibling was center stage, while I was upstaged every time, but Smoke fascinates me, and I’ll spend a lot of time just sitting about being fascinated. This isn’t really the best way to live, and I’m like a lenky bit off, but who cares.
A week before my fifteenth birthday, Smoke decided to disappear again. At least I think this is when, he’s like mysterious about his plans.
Mother was getting things set for my birthday, not much since I don’t have many friends, just her friend’s daughters Franka and Hollis Chadwick and my cousin Ginny. Our apartment has a party room that Mother uses for socializing, then decorated in green and blue streamers. The party was also on for Mother’s friends, so she was taking extra care.
Two days before my birthday, Ginny and I went out to a horror film at the Emerald City Theater, a masterpiece in decapitations and inventive slicing. When we got back to my apartment on the underground, it was already midnight, so I went up and took a shower to go to bed. I had just left the shower, much relaxed after the horror film, when I heard the elevator door in the foyer opening. It was then midnight, so I looked out of my door, positioned as to seeing the foyer fortunately, praying to Bog I’d not see a vicious murderer with a rusty britva. I looked just barely in time to see the doors close with that barely discernible swish, Smoke’s face framed in the silver box.
I had never seen Smoke on leaving before, and I immediately felt myself pulling after him, the excitement of following slowly defeating the estrangement of staying. I wondered ceaselessly where he had gone.
Pulling some clean clothes on, I then being only in a towel, I stuffed some clothes and money in a bag and crept out to the stairway. The stairway was there in case the elevator broke, or a fire began, or my mother decided to diet. I ran as fast as I could down until I reached the door to the parking floor, hurling myself against the red metal entrance. Breathless, I opened the solid door just in time to see Smoke’s cruiser whizz off in a fog the edge into the crystal clear city lights.
I slouched uselessly against the closing door, cursing myself for being so stupid. Of course he would never let me just hop in with him. He would probably be angry I followed. On top of that, I had just ran out of my own apartment down four flights of stairs, pounding all the way. I’d be surprised If I hadn’t woken Mother up. I looked longingly at Smoke’s trailing lights, moving slower than you’d think in the midnight traffic.
I hung my head, yet at the same time saw something strange: Mother had left the keys in the speeder, dangling invitingly from the ignition. I shuffled over slowly, glancing around for anyone. But our building is mostly occupied by old ladies, I being only desperate for transportation at midnight, when none were sure to be up. I pulled the door up on Mother’s speeder, thanking Bog in all glory for his help. I had never driven before officially, but Franka Chadwick had shown me how, us both whizzing along at her aunt Max’s cranky Release all summer. I ran my hands along the controls, flipping the ignition and pulling the speeder in the general direction that Smoke had gone.
I had never felt more liberated in my life.
For the first Part, read Like Brilliant.
For The third, Lenky Belief in Bars
For the Forth, Careful Cunning and On
For the fifth, R Flat Minor.
For the Sixth, Double Feature Fighting.
For the Seventh, When or Not, Make it Great
Nodeshell rescued title, YAY.