Dread Locks Read Online Free Page B

How could you not notice that?
    She looked at me for a few seconds, like she was studying me.
    “I’ll tell you a secret,” she said. “Nothing ‘belongs’ to anyone.”
    “I’ve got news for you,” I told her. “Communism went out with the Soviet Union.”
    She rolled her eyes. “It’s not about communism; it’s just reality.”
    “I don’t know what reality’s like where you come from, but in this country, you can’t just walk into people’s houses whenever you like. You can’t take people’s things without asking permission. That’s reality.”
    She crossed her arms. “Okay—so you’re telling me that the shirt you’re wearing belongs to you?”
    I looked down at it. Just a blue T-shirt. “Yes,” I said. “It’s mine.”
    I saw an eyebrow rise over the rim of her shades. “You have it now—but someday it’ll tear, or you’ll outgrow it. Then it will either go to someone else or end up in the dump, buried beneath a ton of dirt.”
    “Maybe not,” I said. “Maybe I’ll keep it my whole life.”
    “And then what?”
    “And then what, what?”
    “And then you die, and even if you take that shirt with you, it still ends up buried beneath a ton of dirt.”
    Suddenly I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t see her eyes. “I don’t think I like this conversation.”
    “All I’m saying is that, unless you’re immortal, nothing can really belong to you. The best you can hope for is to hold something for a while, but in the end you’ve got to give it back.”
    “I don’t see what that has to do with Julie Robinson’s mirror.”
    She waved her ice-cream spoon at me to make her point. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? It’s not Julie’s mirror. The idea of personal property is a myth!”
    “Yeah?” I said, getting mad. “Well, sometimes myths are important. Sometimes myths are real.”
    That gave her pause for thought. She put her ice-cream spoon down gently on the table.
    “So they are, Baby Baer,” she said. “So they are.”
    And then she said something that I won’t forget until there’s nothing left of me but a pile of dust.
    “Did you ever have a premonition? A feeling that something terrible was going to happen?”
    “S-sometimes,” I said. Actually, I always get the feeling that something terrible is going to happen, but usually it doesn’t.
    Then she leaned in close to me. “I’ve got a secret for you,” she whispered with an unpleasant grin on her face. “Something terrible is going to happen. Something terrible... and something wonderful.”

6

    INTERESTING TIMES
    I left Tara’s place that day feeling weird and a little bit light-headed from being with her. She had that effect on you. Nothing terrible or wonderful happened over the next couple of days, so I figured Tara had just said it to be mysterious and interesting—although she didn’t need to say anything to seem mysterious and interesting to me.
    During lunch on Wednesday, Tara sat by herself at a table across the cafeteria. Her eyes roved over the other kids eating lunch, and occasionally she stopped to stare through her sunglasses at a select few. I could tell that whoever she stared at suddenly got that creepy sensation they were being watched, then they’d look around to see who it was. When they realized it was Tara, they either got completely self-conscious, or they tried to act cool. But as soon as they responded in any way, Tara lost interest in them and zeroed in on her next target.
    I couldn’t see her eyes behind her shades, but I got the feeling that she was doing some kind of mental calculation about the people she was studying. She was making connections, putting together the pieces.
    Finally, she looked in the direction of Ernest, the captain of the football team. He sat with Melanie at the center table. Ernest and Melanie always sat together there, as if to advertise the fact that they were a couple.
    This time Tara didn’t turn away when Ernest noticed her. I watched