Mothership Read Online Free

yoga except me .
    And that’s when I think something else. Probably the most real, true thought I’ve ever had.
    Oh, shit.

IN WHICH WE PAUSE FOR A BRIEF FLASHBACK
     

     
    “No guns allowed,” Ducky says, reaching his scrawny arm across my face to dip a deep-fried pickle chip into the peanut butter jar. “The whole point is to think of nonviolent forms of torture.”
    I push his hand away and grab for my phone to flip the channel on the TV, finally stopping on an infomercial for the Food Atomizer 9000. “Turn those greasy, fatty snacks into a light, refreshing mist!”
    “Whatever, Gandhi,” I say. “I’m not going to shoot her. I’m going to make her think I’ll shoot her so she wets herself in front of the French club.”
    Ducky ponders this as he crunches down on my newest hormone-inspired concoction. It took several failed efforts, and we lost three bottles of peanut oil, two jars of gherkins, and a few patches of skin in the attempt to get the frying process down,but now every taste bud on my tongue is grateful we persevered. Pickles and peanut butter washed down with butterscotch milk shakes must taste disgusting to anyone who isn’t incubating a fetus, but Ducky insists on eating whatever I do, as part of some solidarity thing.
    “Nope,” he says after he licks the peanut butter off his bottom lip. “No guns.”
    We’ve been playing Most Ingenious Ways to Destroy Britta McVicker, the game that Ducky invented this afternoon to cheer me up. I have to say it’s working pretty well, although my ideas keep leaning toward physical pain and/or public humiliation, whereas Ducky seems intent on working on a strictly psychological level. Like sneaking into Britta’s house every morning to swap out her bra with a series of nearly identical brassieres with infinitesimally larger cup sizes, causing her to believe that her boobs are shrinking. I had no idea what an evil mastermind Ducky was until he busted that one out.
    Playing the game with Ducky, I can almost forget that Britta’s been trying to destroy me for the past two and a half months. Or that she’s coming pretty close to succeeding. She’s always been a bit of an ogre to anyone unfortunate enough to cross her path—she even made Miss Langhoff cry back in second grade with her point by point criticism of her slingbacks—and I’ve had the bad luck to be in her path a lot . (I’m pretty sure that whatever schedule-bots have assigned our teachers for the past eight years have been downloaded with a virus specifically designed to make Elvie’s life miserable, because Britta and I always have at least four classes together.) But lately she’s been particularly gruesome. It’s like, now that she doesn’t have a boyfriend ather beck and call, she’s hell-bent on making the entire human population as unhappy as she is, and I’m the closest victim. Her latest pièce de résistance was having my likeness superimposed as the “before” example in a poster for poor hygiene awareness that was then snapped all over the school. The posters were so effective that the principal is beginning a policy on mandatory showers after gym.
    I swear that pic was taken during my bout with food poisoning last year.
    I sigh as I reach for another pickle chip, and Ducky raises a concerned eyebrow.
    “Yes?” he asks me.
    I shake my head. “I’m just glad it’s almost summer, that’s all.” There’s only one more week of sophomore year left, but honest to God I’m not sure I’m going to make it. “It’ll be nice to be Britta-free for a few months.”
    He thinks on that. “Do you think she’s been more evil lately because she”—he glances down at my stomach—“ knows ?”
    “Nah,” I say quickly, popping the pickle into my mouth. I’ve put on a couple pounds, sure, but I’m not showing yet. I haven’t even reached the end of the first trimester. And Britta’s not exactly Sherlock Holmes. Although, God help me if she ever does find out about this