Drop Dead Gorgeous Read online

  “But why—”

  “Beats me.” I groaned. “My mom is going to kill me about the smashed trunk. She loves this car like it’s another kid.”

  Morgan crossed her arms in front of her and stared straight ahead through the windshield. The afternoon sun was lowering behind the trees, and long shadows rolled over the car as we drove. “I’m . . . still shaking,” she said, hugging herself.

  “Me too,” I confessed. “An insane nut like that can do anything. I guess we were lucky.

  “Hey, where am I dropping you?” I asked, trying to change the subject. “I don’t know where you live.”

  She pointed. “You can drop me at that corner. I promised I’d see a friend.”

  I pulled to the corner. She leaned forward and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “Well . . . it’s been exciting,” she said. And she slid out of the car.

  I watched her stride along the sidewalk. She has such a sexy walk. I wanted to run after her and grab her and start all over again. Crazy. I know. It was like I was hypnotized or something.

  She turned a corner, and I quickly snapped out of it. And remembered Cal and the baseball bat and how he wrecked my mom’s car and threatened me.

  Didn’t I warn you? That’s what he’d said. Like he was the law or something. How could shy, quiet Delia have such an insane, out-of-his-mind stepbrother?

  “No more,” I murmured to myself. “Delia has got to call off Cal. She has got to talk to him. He’s totally deranged.”

  I squealed into a sharp U-turn and headed toward Delia’s house.

  Her brother, Duke, opened the front door. He’s a strange dude, very lanky with long tangles of hay-colored hair. His clothes kind of hang on him. His sleeves are too long. He always makes me think of a scarecrow.

  Duke is ten years older than Delia. I’ve never really talked with him. He has a quiet voice that dribbles down his stubbly chin. I can never hear half of what he says.

  “Is Delia home?”

  He nodded and stepped back so I could enter the front hall. The entryway was dark, except for red evening sunlight slanting through a wide living room window. The walls were bare. No paintings or artwork of any kind.

  I heard classical music playing from the back of the house. It was deep and creepy, low organ music, like from a horror movie.

  Duke had a shuffling walk. His shoes scraped the floor noisily. He nodded his head with each step. He gestured with one hand into the living room.

  Delia sat on a small gray couch, her back to me. She was reading a book on a Kindle. Her ringlets of dark hair shone in the light from the screen.

  She turned and uttered a surprised cry as I appeared. Her smile spread over her pale, pretty face. “Winks? What a nice surprise.”

  She closed the Kindle cover and patted the couch cushion beside her. “Don’t just stand there. Come here.”

  I came around to the front of the couch and dropped down beside her. I opened my mouth to talk, but she threw her arms around me and pulled me close and started kissing me.

  She made loud breathing sounds as she kissed me, her eyes closed. She’s kind of passionate, I guess. I mean, I know she’s very emotional.

  She wore a tight pale blue sweater over white tennis shorts. Her whole body was so light and thin, like a delicate bird. I always felt like a big elephant next to her. Seriously. I was afraid I might go to hug her and crush her.

  I pulled back. “Listen, Delia, we have to talk.”

  Her dark eyes went wide. She studied my face, as if trying to read what was on my mind. “Winks—your lip is bleeding,” she said. She touched my mouth gently with one hand. “Your lips . . . they’re swollen. Are you okay?”

  From kissing Morgan, I realized. It was so intense . . .

  “I . . . uh . . . guess they’re just dry,” I said.

  She started to stand up. “I can get you some ChapStick.”

  I grabbed her arm and pulled her back down beside me. “No. Listen. I have to talk to you, Delia.”

  She tugged at a ringlet of hair that had become tangled. Her eyes were locked on mine.

  “You have got to tell Cal to lay off,” I said. “Your crazy stepbrother is following me everywhere. He’s out of control, Delia. He’s totally wacked out. And he’s dangerous.”

  She shut her eyes for a moment, breaking the connection between us. Her face twisted in confusion. “Excuse me? What are you talking about, Winks?”

  “I’m talking about Cal. Your psycho stepbrother.”

  She grabbed my arm. “Are you totally losing it? I don’t have a stepbrother.”

  Part Three

  19

  Liam Narrates

  “The Phillips screwdriver? Is that the pointy one?” Zane asked. He rummaged around in the toolbox on the floor of my garage.

  I nodded. “Yeah. The pointy one.” I set the drone engine down beside the frame.

  “I can’t find it,” Zane said, turning to me.

  I rolled my eyes. I walked over and picked up the Phillips screwdriver. It was right on top. “You know, it’s a good thing you’re funny, Zane. Or else you’d be useless.”

  Zane snickered. “Nicest thing you ever said about me.”

  I pushed him out of my way. “It wasn’t a compliment. Can you at least read the instructions? Do we install the camera first or the engine first?”

  Zane scratched his dark hair. “Where are the instructions?”

  “Are you joking? They’re in your shirt pocket,” I said.

  He pulled out the instruction sheet and unfolded it. “I can’t read it. It’s upside down,” he said.

  He laughed at his own joke.

  This drone was taking forever to put together. And it came out of a kit, so it shouldn’t have taken much time at all. But my two helpers—Zane and Winks—weren’t exactly mechanical geniuses. Shoelaces were almost too complicated for them. They both wore Velcro. Seriously.

  It was getting dark. The afternoon sun was fading. One of the ceiling lights in the garage was out, and a dark shadow spread over us. I knew Mom would be calling me in for dinner soon.

  Zane’s eyes ran down the page of instructions. “Camera comes before motor,” he said. He raised his gaze to me. “Do you really think this is going to work? You’ll be taking pictures from this thing?”

  “Video,” I said. “It’s a video camera. It’s going to be totally cool. Let me see the diagram. I’m not sure where the camera gets installed.” I reached for the sheet of paper.

  “Is this legal?” Zane asked.

  I squinted at him. “Legal? Is what legal?”

  “Flying your own drone. Don’t you need a permit or something?”

  “You mean like a driver’s license?” I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “If everyone had a drone, there’d be a thousand crashes a day,” Zane said.

  “Probably,” I replied. “I don’t know. I didn’t look it up. My uncle Bill sent this to me, so it must be okay.”

  “But what if—”

  I clapped my hand over Zane’s mouth. “Stop asking questions. You’re not helping me. If you just ask me a bunch of questions, we’ll never be able to fly this thing.”

  He tried to bite my hand. I swiped it away and turned from him. I studied the instruction sheet.

  “Hey, look. A squirrel,” Zane said. He pointed out the open garage door.

  A fat brown squirrel stood on its hind legs on the edge of the driveway. “So what?” I said. “Haven’t you seen a squirrel before?”

  Zane’s eyes flashed. “Do you know why a squirrel hides his nuts?”

  I groaned. “Zane—you’ve told me that joke a hundred times. And I laughed the first fifty times. Do you think you could give it a rest?”

  He laughed. “Maybe I have a new punch line.”

  “No. You don’t,” I said. “Even if you do, I don’t want to hear it.”

  I studied the drone-parts chart. The brushless motor fit into a motor mount near the back. I dug in the box till I found the
parts to the motor mount.

  Zane’s phone beeped. He pulled it out and stared at the screen. “A text from Julie.”

  “Does she want to come be my helper?” I asked. “She’d be better than you.” I shook my head. “Anyone would be better.”

  Zane sighed. He stared thoughtfully at the phone screen. “She’s giving me a hard time,” he murmured. He ran a hand tensely through his dark hair.

  I lowered the motor-mount parts to the floor. “About what?”

  “About Winks,” Zane said. He kept his eyes on his phone. Like he was embarrassed to face me or something.

  I snickered. “What did Winks do? Act like Winks?”

  Zane slid the phone into his pocket. “She wants me to talk to him. She wants me to tell him he isn’t being fair to Delia. He has to be honest with her.”

  I couldn’t keep the surprise off my face. “Julie wants you to have a serious heart-to-heart with Winks? Isn’t that girls’ stuff?”

  Zane didn’t laugh. He sighed again. “Julie thinks Delia is going to get hurt. You know how she is.”

  “Yeah. Crazy.”

  “Crazy about Winks,” Zane said. “Seriously. She’s so into him, it’s unreal. Like she thinks they’re going to get married or something.”

  “She’s only known him a couple of months,” I said.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Zane said. “Julie thinks—”

  “Winks should stick with Delia,” I told him, “and leave Morgan for you and me.” I laughed, but he didn’t. For a comedian, he was always serious.

  “I have to talk to him,” Zane said. “I promised Julie.”

  “And tell him what?”

  “If he doesn’t care about Delia, he should tell her. You know. Break up with her.”

  I shook my head. “Winks will just laugh and probably gut-punch you. He won’t even answer you. That’s the way he rolls. You know that.”

  Zane pulled out his phone again. “I’m going to call Winks right now. Julie will just stay in my face till I do it.”

  I rolled my eyes again. “I’ll just clean up. Thanks for all your help. I sure get a lot done when you’re around. Maybe you could come tomorrow and we could stare at the instruction sheet again all afternoon.”

  “Do you know what they say about sarcasm?” Zane asked.

  “No. What do they say?”

  “Gee,” he said in a smarmy voice, “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “LOL,” I said. “LOL, Zane. Remind me to laugh later.”

  I picked up the motor-mount parts and dropped them back into the box. Then I started to shove tools back into the toolbox.

  Zane leaned against the garage wall and phoned Winks. I clanked some wrenches together and tried to make a racket so he couldn’t hear well. He deserved it. He didn’t even try to be helpful.

  He waved at me to be quiet, but I didn’t stop.

  “Listen, Winks, can you hear me?” he shouted into the phone. “Want to hang out tomorrow night? You know. The weekend starts on Thursday, right?”

  I heard Winks’s reply. For some reason, Zane had put his phone on speaker. Maybe he thought he could hear better that way.

  “I can’t,” Winks told him. “I babysit for my cousin Spencer every Thursday night.”

  “Oh, right.” Zane thought for a moment. “Well, maybe I could stop by?”

  “Not a good idea,” Winks said. “My aunt and uncle are totally tense people. They won’t want me having guests. It’s like they start shaking if a fly gets into the house.”

  “What are you saying, Winks? That I’m like an insect?”

  “No. I just mean they don’t like surprises,” Winks replied. “It would freak them out. Seriously.”

  “Okay, okay,” Zane said. “Catch you later.” Then he added, “Hey, have you seen Morgan?”

  “In my dreams,” Winks replied.

  Zane clicked off. He frowned at the phone, then slid it back into his pocket.

  “Guess your heart-to-heart will have to wait,” I said.

  “How did I get to be the guy, anyway?” Zane grumbled.

  “You just are. You’re the dude,” I said. “I know you’ll get Winks straightened out. He’s—”

  But my thought was cut short when I saw something in the garage window.

  A face. A guy’s face. Staring in. A guy with spiked white-blond hair and weird silvery eyes.

  “Hey—!” I shouted.

  Zane spun around. He saw the guy, too. Zane uttered a startled cry.

  The weird eyes gazed in at us.

  Zane and I froze for a moment. I shouted again. “Hey—who are you?”

  He stared. Then we both took off. Our sneakers slapped the concrete floor as we bolted out of the garage. Then we spun to the side.

  “Hey—come back!” we screamed.

  The guy ran full-speed to the back of the yard, leaning forward as he ran, his arms swinging. Zane and I watched him hurtle over the wooden fence.

  “Come back! Hey—!”

  We were breathing hard as we reached the fence. I hoisted myself up and searched in both directions.

  Gone. The guy had vanished.

  20

  Winks Continues the Story

  Four-year-olds have a lot of energy, especially around bedtime. Spencer is a great kid. But I can never get him to bed before nine. I lie and tell his parents he was asleep by seven thirty, otherwise they’d freak out.

  He has wavy brown hair and big gray-blue eyes, pink cheeks I like to pinch, and a goofy smile that shows a lot of square little baby teeth. He’s tall for his age. At least, that’s what my aunt and uncle tell me. I mean, I can’t tell. Spencer is the only four-year-old I know.

  I guess he’s tall. I know he’s strong. He likes to punch me in the stomach, and I really feel it. He likes to climb on me, too. It’s like he thinks I’m a mountain or something. We have a lot of wrestling matches that end up with me on my back on the floor, helpless beneath him.

  Yes, I always let him win.

  But at nine o’clock I’ve got homework to do. And I’ve got Delia texting me every five minutes. I told her I was babysitting. She knows I babysit for Spencer every Thursday night. So why doesn’t she give me a break?

  I was sitting in the middle of the couch with a pile of picture books on the coffee table in front of me. Spencer was climbing me, messing up my hair, poking a finger in my nose. He thinks he’s a riot, and I kind of agree.

  “Be a robot,” he said. “Winks, go ahead. Robot. Do the robot.”

  He likes when I stagger around the living room stiff-legged and move like a robot. Then he imitates me, and we both do a robot dance until we fall down laughing.

  “No robot. Too late for the robot,” I said. I patted the couch cushion beside me. “Sit down. It’s bedtime. Let’s read a bedtime book.”

  “No books!” he cried. “No books.” He swung his arm and knocked the pile of books off the coffee table. “Do the robot.”

  I ignored him and picked up a book from the floor. “Here’s a good one. Let’s read it,” I said. “Come on, Spencer. Time to read a book.”

  He eyed it like it was a bowl of spinach. “I don’t like that book.” He crossed his skinny arms in front of him.

  “Yes, you do. I read it to you last week. Frog and Toad, remember? You made me read it three times?”

  “Well, I’m tired of it. What’s the difference between a frog and a toad anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I patted the cushion again. “Let’s read the book and find out.”

  “No. No books,” Spencer growled. “Can I have a cookie?”

  I brought my face close to his. “Will you go to bed if I give you a cookie?”

  “Two cookies,” he said with a straight face.

  “And you’ll go to bed?”

  “And a juice box. And two books.”

  Spencer could be a four-year-old lawyer. He’s a great negotiator.

  I talked him down to a cookie, some juice, and Frog a
nd Toad. And he was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.

  I wished I could spend more time with Frog and Toad, but I had A Tale of Two Cities to read, and I was two chapters behind the rest of the class. That called for a lot of faking it during class discussions. Luckily, I’m seriously good at faking it.

  I was fumbling through the book, trying to find my place, when my phone chimed. Of course, it was a text from Delia:

  R u still there? Want to come over when u r done?

  I started to reply—when the doorbell rang. The sound startled me. I’d never heard it before. I was always alone with Spencer on Thursday nights.

  I closed my book and climbed to my feet. Zane, I realized. I told Zane not to come, but he showed up anyway.

  I crossed to the front entryway and pulled open the front door. “Listen, Zane—” I started.

  But then I stopped and let out a little cry of surprise. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

  21

  Winks Continues

  A pleased smile spread over Morgan’s lips. Under the porch light, her coppery hair glowed as if on fire. She squeezed my hand. “Are you surprised?”

  “Well . . . yeah.” Surprised wasn’t the word. I could feel my heart beating fast in my chest. I couldn’t stop staring at her face in the bright circle of light, like a spotlight.

  She laughed. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

  I realized I was blocking the door, just standing there like some kind of water buffalo, frozen by those jewel-like green eyes. “Hey, come in.” I managed to back out of her way.

  She followed me into the living room. “Lots of toys. Looks like you were having fun,” she said. She stepped over a Lego castle Spencer and I had built.

  “He doesn’t understand about cleaning up afterward,” I said. “It’s just not a concept to him.”

  “Or you either,” she joked, gazing around the cluttered mess of blocks and toys and puzzles.

  I sat on one edge of the couch and slid a bunch of books onto the floor so she could join me. She settled closer than I’d imagined. She wore a soft-looking pale green sweater over jeans shredded at the knees.

  She clasped her hands in her lap, and for the first time, I noticed that she had a tiny tattoo on the back of each hand. A blue bird with its wings spread. How had I missed those before?