Free No Passengers Beyond This Point by Gennifer Choldenko Page A

won’t buy junk food.
    While India was gone, Maddy opened Mommy’s jewelry box. She took the ring out.
    The next week Mommy said her engagement ring was gone.
    Mommy said maybe Maddy put it back when I didn’t see. But then why was it gone after that? Mommy talked to Maddy and Maddy’s mom about it. Maddy’s mom said I was “a fanciful child.”
    Maddy has another name for me. She calls me Demon Child.
    Mommy got her ring back after that. A few weeks later it appeared in her jewelry box again. Then Mommy told India and me we aren’t allowed to talk about it anymore. We just hate each other in the quiet now.
    Bing got more facts about Falling Bird too. He found out that this mom lady is a rental. He thinks there are rental dads and rental dogs too. Bing said it will be hard for India to leave Falling Bird. He also said her cat doesn’t like her very much. Bing said Finn is figuring out how the whole place works. Finn has to know stuff. He’s like me!
    Bing said it wasn’t so bad here. It was fun to see all the good things about his life on the big screen.
    He said we might want to stay.
    But I don’t want to change moms for good.

CHAPTER 12
    THE RUMBLING
    W hen I wake up, the sun is shining through the window, and I can smell waffles and hot chocolate. I stay tucked into the soft sheets, basking in the coziness, until my cool mom comes in.
    “Good morning, India. Did you sleep okay?” she asks.
    I don’t answer. I don’t have to. My cool mom totally gets how I feel. She doesn’t say much and she hasn’t mentioned one single rule either. Moms are okay when they keep their mouths shut. My cool mom gets stuff like this. She totally does.
    “It’s been great getting to know you,” she says. “I like how enthusiastic you are about everything.”
    “Really? My real mom says I have a bad attitude and I’m not enthusiastic about anything.”
    “You just like different things than she does.”
    “How do you know me so well?”
    “Sparky gives us a lot of information. And I kind of get you. You remind me of me when I was your age.”
    I scoot myself up, propping my back with the biggest pillow like we’re going to have a girlfriend talk—the kind I never have with my real mom.
    But a rumbling begins low in the building like somebody turned on a forced air heater down on the first floor. It’s a slight vibration that builds to a shaking motion as if I’m standing next to the tracks when a train flies by.
    “What is that?” I ask as the bed begins to rock like a cradle, but I’m not a baby and I don’t like it.
    A tree limb cracks outside the window.
    My cool mom is standing with a stupid expression on her face waving good-bye. Good-bye? Where is she going?
    “Hey!” I scream as the splintering grows louder and the bed begins to split apart in a jagged line down the middle.
    “Help!” I shriek as I try to get a grip on the slipping, sliding bed covers. I grab the side of the bed, the wall, the pillow, something permanent, but it all slides through my fingers. Everything is in motion.
    Why doesn’t my cool mom do something?
    She’s standing there watching, twiddling her fingers in a twinkling wave, as my whole body gets sucked down through darkness, a black hole, a tunnel. My hand hits the side, bends my fingers back, my ankle bone bonks the wall, and a sharp pain pierces my foot as I speed downward unable to stop myself.
    Instinctively I roll up in a cannonball, my arms protecting my head. Now I’m spinning faster and faster. My legs are tucked tightly, I’m gripping my ankles. I can’t see anything but endless black and black and black as I hurl down. Ohmygod maybe I’m blind. I will get sunglasses. I want to be the kind of blind person who wears sunglasses, I think as I spin down and down, until at last I see a perfect circle of light that slowly grows. My world flashes light for one blinding second, before I hit hard.

CHAPTER 13
    AN ELEVATOR UP
    B efore I leave my dream home, my dad guy has