The Athena Effect Read Online Free Page B

should have kept my own place.”
    “Don’t say that,” Angie replied. “It’ll only be until she turns eighteen. I’m sure we’ll figure out something to do with her by then.”
    “When’s that?”
    “In October.”
    He groaned, “When I agreed to move in I thought it would just be the two of us.”
    “I know, I know. But what was I supposed to say? I’m her only family.”
    “Yeah, well… as long as she doesn’t try and drag a bunch of punk teenagers over here at all hours.”
    She could hear Angie laugh at the thought, “I seriously doubt it… She seems pretty shy. Apparently my brother and his wife were some kind of weird hermits or something.”
    “She does seem a little strange,” he said.
    “Yeah,” Angie agreed, adding, “Did you get a load of her eyes?”
    Cal looked at herself in the mirror and frowned.
    ~
    The following week consisted of jumping through various bureaucratic hoops and government red-tape to try and get Cal enrolled in school. Since she’d been born at home, and not in a hospital, she officially didn’t exist in the eyes of the state of California. The problem was only compounded by the fact that her aunt had a different last name than her.
    “I’m Jenkins, she’s Mackenzie!” Angie screamed into the phone after being left on hold for the umpteenth time. She finally hung up in frustration, “What a pain in the ass!”
    “I’m sorry,” Cal said, feeling completely helpless.
    Angie looked Cal over with a skeptical eye, “You really need to get some clothes for school.”
    “I have clothes,” Cal said.
    “Trust me honey,” Angie said, “It’s time for some new ones.”
    Cal looked down, “But I don’t have any money.”
    “I’m kinda broke right now too, but once Phil gets a job things will be easier. Maybe this summer I can get you work at the restaurant. You could start out hostessing or something.”
    “What’s hostessing?” asked Cal.
    “It’s when you show people where to sit down in the restaurant.”
    Cal looked confused, “They pay people to do that?”
    Angie laughed; she was getting used to her niece and all of her strange questions. She had to patiently explain how to do the simplest of things, whether it was showing Cal how to work the washing machine, or teaching her not to put metal into the microwave. The girl needed to learn everything from scratch, as if she were a little kid, making Angie feel almost motherly.
    Always a free spirit, Angie had never married or settled down, and everyone seemed to think she was flaky. Having Cal around made her feel like she was finally a grown-up. She started thinking that maybe it wasn’t too late to start a family after all… Phil might even marry her if they had a baby. She smiled to herself imagining it.
    As for Cal, it was as though she had walked through the wardrobe and ended up in Narnia. Everything was new and strange to her, and she was always a bundle of nerves from the unfamiliar noises. Cars whooshed by on the road, electronics buzzed and hummed, and the non-stop sound of sports blared from Phil’s television set.
    After a few days she started to relax a little, settling into the rhythm of her new home.   Angie worked nights as a waitress at a downtown steakhouse, getting in late and sleeping-in most mornings. Cal did her best to keep out of Phil’s way, staying in her room when her aunt wasn’t around.
    After a couple of awkward visits with a counselor, Cal was finally enrolled in school, and she was nervous about going in on her first day. She’d never had any friends her own age, and couldn’t imagine what she would talk about with other students. She got up early, laying out a simple dress her mother had sewn, paired with some hand-me-down shoes the Sherriff had brought by on one of his visits. She went to go take a long, hot shower.
    Her favorite part of living with her aunt was definitely the bathroom. She’d grown up taking quick baths with water boiled on a wood-burning