Gone (Parallel Trilogy, Book 1) (18 page)

Her lips turned up into a fake smile, then quickly went into a straight line. “Okay.”

She turned back around in her seat and I stared at the back of her head. Why would she care what I gave Connor?

Chapter Twenty

That afternoon at track practice I tried to act like nothing unusual had taken place between Connor and me, but when he caught my eye, he winked at me. My face flushed with pleasure. For some reason I looked at Lori and saw her glaring at me. Quickly turning away, I wondered why she made me feel like I had done something wrong.

As practice came to an end I headed toward the locker room. A moment later I heard footsteps catching up to me. I glanced behind me and saw Lori. Cringing, I tried to go faster without being too obvious.

“Morgan, wait up,” she called after me.

I didn’t think I could exactly ignore her, so I slowed down and let her catch up.

“Hey Lori,” I said, as she fell into step beside me. “How’s it going?”

“Good. What about you?”

“Good.”

“So, what’s going on with you and Connor?” she asked as we walked through the door to the girl’s locker room.

Wow, no beating around the bush for her. But something about the way she asked made me wonder if she secretly liked him. “Nothing’s going on. I barely even know him.” I laughed, but it came out sounding forced, which it was.

“Uh, huh,” she said.

Though Lori had been friendly to me at first, I wondered if that had been an act. She certainly didn’t seem friendly now. It was becoming apparent that she was the type of person who was only friendly when things were going her way.

“That’s not what it looked like to me,” she continued.

“What do you mean?” I asked, picturing Connor winking at me. A grin appeared on my face as I thought about it and I tried to force it away, but Lori had seen it.

A crease formed between her eyebrows. “I’m not blind, you know. I saw him wink at you.”

I was getting tired of this conversation and trying to pretend that Connor didn’t notice me. After all, I hadn’t done anything wrong. “So?”

Her eyebrows shot up, like no one had ever responded to her like that before. I suddenly wondered if I had made a mistake, but I couldn’t bring myself to apologize. In fact, I found myself getting agitated by the look on her face. The look that said she was in charge and everyone knew it.

“Is there a problem, Lori?” My heart pounded as the words left my mouth.

“You’d better watch yourself,
new girl
.” Then she spun around and walked away.

I watched her go, beginning to regret confronting her. Maybe I should have denied everything. Why am I making things difficult for myself when I’ll be gone in a matter of weeks? But what can she actually do to me? I reasoned. She’s just a teenage girl, a student. She can’t do anything to hurt me.

After changing into my school clothes, I grabbed my backpack and started the walk home. As I walked, I hoped that Connor would pull up next to me and offer me a ride. Every time I heard a car approach my heart skipped a beat in anticipation, but every car drove by without stopping.

Thirty minutes later I reached my house. When I walked in I thought about Lori and remembered Connor telling me that her dad was the head of the local F.A.T squad. I went online and looked it up. I found a recent article and began reading. As I read about the F.A.T squad and what they did, I began to regret even more that I’d been so hostile toward her. I reread the article to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood any of it.

Federally Assisted Thinning or F.A.T squads are responsible for going to the home of those who have been deemed overweight. The leader of these squads may use their discretion to decide if the individual will be taken to a F.A.T center or whether the individual will be allowed to lose the weight in his/her home. In some parts of the country, F.A.T squad leaders, along with the local F.A.T committee, can adjust the government guidelines for acceptable weight limits within plus or minus five percent of the national guidelines. This is to allow for regional differences and needs.

There have been a number of protests regarding the amount of power F.A.T squad leaders have displayed. There have been reported incidences of F.A.T squad leaders showing up at people’s homes unannounced and demanding on-the-spot weigh-ins. This is partly to combat fraudulent weigh-ins where individuals have found ways to disguise their actual weight. Many people support such surprise weigh-ins, but the majority of people polled prefer a more orderly process. These surprise weigh-ins are reportedly rare, though lately more people have claimed to know of such incidences.

“Holy crap,” I shouted, startling Goldie, who was lying on the floor near my feet. Lori’s father could just show up at my house, weigh me or anyone in my family, and decide we weighed too much. Now I wished I had looked up this information yesterday, when I’d first heard of F.A.T squads. I was certain I would have responded differently to Lori. Though I could start acting nice to her, I knew she probably wouldn’t buy it.

Now I understood why she’d been so surprised when I’d talked to her the way I did. She really could hurt me. Or my family.

Chapter Twenty-One

When I walked into class the next day I saw Lori sitting in her usual spot. The chair next to her was empty, so I slid into the seat.

“Hi, Lori,” I said, a smile on my face.

She scowled at me, then began looking through her notebook.

Though I’d never been a suck up before, the previous night I had been unable to fall asleep for worrying that someone else in my family, in addition to Dad, would be taken away to a F.A.T center, and had decided I would do what I could to get on Lori’s good side.

“Hey,” I said, swallowing my pride. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”

Lori looked at me, but didn’t say anything.

“I mean, I’m sorry I was rude to you. I wasn’t, that is, my stomach was hurting which made me a little grumpy.”

“So are you saying Connor didn’t wink at you?” she asked, one eyebrow raised in question.

Clearly, she wasn’t about to let that go. I knew I would have to make something up to make her feel better. To distract myself from the sucking up I was about to do, I squeezed my hand into a fist, which made my nails bite into the tender flesh of my palm. “Honestly, Lori, I don’t know,” I lied. “I think the sun was just in his eyes. I mean, I don’t know why he would be winking at me.”

“Yeah,” she said, looking me up and down. “I don’t know why he would either.” Then she smiled smugly as she turned back to her notes.

Blood rushed to my face at the insult and I pressed my fist into my thigh, trying to keep from swinging it into her face. Instead, I turned away and took a deep breath to calm myself. As I turned back to face the front, in my peripheral vision I saw Lori glancing at me. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed she was smiling, and I was certain it wasn’t a friendly smile.

My heart pounded as I realized how stupid I had been. First I had offended her, then I had tried to kiss up to her, making myself look weak. And it hadn’t even helped. I could tell she despised me for some reason known only to her. Well, I consoled myself, I had done what I could. If she still wanted to hate me, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I just hoped she wouldn’t cause trouble for me or my family. We were under enough strain as it was, with Dad gone. We’d already had to sell our house and start over. I didn’t know if Mom could take much more.

When the teacher had us stand for the pledge, she asked me to stand in front and lead it. Nervous to have Lori watching me now that I knew her father had the power to destroy my family, I really had to focus to say the right words.

“I pledge to always follow the rules and to take care of my body,” I said, forcing the lie out of my mouth. “I will strive to put the good of all above the desires of one. A healthy me is a healthy world.”

As I sat in my seat, I marveled at the difference a week and a half could make. Less than two weeks before I’d been living my life in a normal world and now here I was, standing in front of a group of strangers, reciting a promise to follow the rules and eat healthy.

I have got to figure out how I’m going to get home, I thought, as the teacher droned on. I decided when I got home I would use Google Earth to see if I could find the hut in the forest. Of course that wouldn’t necessarily help me find the tunnel, but it couldn’t hurt.

When class was over I gathered my books and shoved them into my backpack, then stood.

“Hey, Morgan,” Lori said.

I turned in her direction, wondering what she would say. She hadn’t spoken to me once, or even looked at me, during the whole class. In fact, she had been texting under her desk most of the time.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“See you at track.”

Then she winked at me. My mouth fell open, but I quickly closed it as I watched her sashay away.

What was that all about? I suddenly felt anxious that she was either planning something or just trying to get on my nerves. Which was working, by the way.

As I attended the rest of my classes I tried to pay attention, but my mind kept imagining all the terrible things Lori might do to me or my family. By the time school was over and track practice was about to begin, I was a nervous wreck.

My hands shook as I tied my shoes.

“How’s it going, Morgan?”

My head whipped up, my eyes wide. “Oh, Anne. It’s only you.” My pounding heart slowed to normal.

“What’s wrong?” Anne asked, sitting on the bench next to me. “Who did you think it would be?”

I wasn’t sure if I should say anything. Though Connor was the one who had told me that Lori’s father was head of the F.A.T squad, and though the way he’d said it made me think he didn’t approve, I didn’t know if his sister felt the same way. I decided I shouldn’t say anything about Lori, just in case.

Instead of answering Anne’s question, I laughed. “You just startled me, that’s all.” I stood up. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

She smiled and we walked out to the field together. Having her walk with me made me feel better; especially when I saw Lori watching us. I saw Connor too. He was stretching out near some of his friends. Though I wanted him to notice me, I desperately hoped he would ignore me while Lori was around.

When we reached the rest of the team, I ignored Lori’s stare, sat on the ground, and began stretching. Anne stretched out next to me. When I reached out to touch my toes, I noticed Anne did the same, but she turned her head in my direction and whispered, “What’s Lori’s problem?”

“What do you mean?” I whispered back, deciding to play dumb.

“Don’t look yet, but she keeps looking at you or us, and she looks pissed.”

I sat up straight, preparing to stretch to the front, and glanced in Lori’s direction. Sure enough, she was glaring directly at me. She didn’t seem like she was even trying to hide it, like she didn’t care if everyone noticed the way she was looking at me. A chill climbed up my spine and I quickly reached out in front of me.

“Okay team,” the couch shouted. “Run four laps and then meet back here.”

We all jumped up and began running around the track. Anne ran alongside me.

“Did you see her face?” she asked.

Lori was ahead of us, which I liked since I could keep her in sight.

“Yeah,” I said, not wanting to elaborate.

“Why do you think she looks so mad? Did something happen?”

Though Anne could talk easily while running, I wasn’t used to it and it was a struggle to run and talk at the same time. Not only that, I was hesitant to say anything about Lori that could come back and bite me. “I don’t know,” I panted.

“I just think it’s weird,” Anne said.

“Hey girls,” Connor said as he ran up beside us.

At his sudden appearance, my heart pounded harder than it already was, and it wasn’t just because I was afraid Lori would see him talking to me. I flashed a smile in his direction, but didn’t speak, afraid I would pass out if I tried to talk while my heart was beating so hard.

As we went around the curve in the track, I saw Lori glance our way. Then she did a double-take, this time watching us for a moment before turning her head and staring forward.

Crap
. I had hoped she wouldn’t notice Connor talking to me. Maybe she would just think he was talking to his sister. But I knew that was too much to hope for.

We finished our laps and began practicing our events. I was on the relay team, along with Lori, so I wouldn’t be able to avoid her. In fact, it was my job to hand the baton to her as part of the relay. We got into position and the coach blew the whistle to start the relay. I was the second girl on our team of four. As the girl before me approached, I started running, like I was supposed to, and she handed the baton off to me without any problems.

I ran as hard as I could, and as I approached Lori she began running, but as I was about to hand her the baton, she sped up just enough that I couldn’t reach her. Stretching out my hand, I held out the baton, but her hand was just out of reach. Finally, she slowed just enough so we could make the hand off, but as soon as her hand wrapped around the baton, and before I let go, she yanked it, making me lose my footing. I threw my arms out in front of me to break my fall, but still hit the ground hard, badly scraping both of my knees and as well as my hands.

Though it really hurt and I was bleeding, I wanted to chase her down and confront her. I knew she had done it on purpose, but I knew I couldn’t prove it. All day I’d been scared of what she was going to do to me, but now that she had done it, I wasn’t scared. I was just mad. Why was I acting like she could do anything to me anyway? Why would her father do anything to my family just because she didn’t like me?

As I looked at the blood seeping from the cuts on my hands and knees, I decided that I wouldn’t let her bully me anymore. She might be used to other kids being afraid of her, but I was different. I knew that the way this world worked wasn’t right and I wasn’t about to let her control me and force me to behave the way
she
wanted me to behave.