Free Finding Cassidy by Laura Langston Page A

listen.”
    But Mrs. Perdue was off again, babbling so fast and furious that it was almost impossible to make sense of the words. “I warned you…hope you used protection… that girl taking advantage…in over your head.”
    I grabbed my jacket and purse and fled up the stairs.
    Pete sat in the kitchen eating Oreos. “Want one?” He held up a half-eaten cookie and smiled the killer Perdue smile, with its tiny cheek dimple, that he shared with Jason. Since they had different fathers, I guessed they got the smile and dimple from their mother, but there was no way of knowing. The woman probably hadn’t smiled since 1991.
    I tried to arrange my lips into something that would pass for a grin. “No thanks.” I grabbed a glass of water and listened to the rant coming from downstairs. Every once in a while there’d be a pause, and I knew Jason was presenting his case. I prayed he’d get out in time for me to apologize. I’d never meant for his mother to catch us. Never meant to make an ass of myself at the party, either.
    Cookie bag in hand, Pete followed me out the front door. I tossed down my purse, shrugged on my jacket and sat on the top stair. Pete settled beside me, allwarmth and innocence in Harry Potter pajamas and bare feet. “You’re up early,” I said.
    “The yelling woke me.”
    “Huh.” At the bottom of the stairs was a dirty, old soccer ball. It was losing air, falling in on itself. It looked like I felt.
    “My mom’s pretty mad,” Pete said matter-of-factly.
    I didn’t need a seven-year-old rubbing it in. I massaged my temples and tried to change the subject. “Shouldn’t you be wearing a coat or shoes or something?” The wind had died down overnight, but still, it wasn’t exactly warm. A faint blush of a milky sun rose behind the clouds, and it was too early to say whether sun or clouds would win.
    “Nope.” He sucked the guts out of another Oreo. “I don’t think she likes your bits.” Normally I loved Pete’s bluntness. This morning, not so much.
    “I know.” I took a cookie out of the bag, scraped out the stuffing for Pete and nibbled on the chocolate wafers.
    “’Specially your front ones.”
    I almost smiled. “Yeah, no kidding.”
    “She calls you Princess. She says you’re bad for Jason ‘cause you’re rich and you’re stuck-up.”
    How could I be bad for Jason? I looked up and down the street, willing my father to hurry up. Jason’sneighbourhood wasn’t heavily treed like mine; I’d see Dad coming blocks away.
    “Is that true?”
    Bad for Jason? The woman was so not right. “Which one?” I stalled.
    “The rich one.”
    My eyes were drawn to Mrs. Perdue’s beat-up Subaru in the driveway, the peeling paint on the house across the street, the tree branches from last night’s storm littering the street like trash. In my neighbourhood, branches hardly had time to hit the ground before a lawn service swept them up. “I guess.”
    Pete eyed me like I was a bug in a jar. “What about the stuck-up one? Are you that, too?”
    Jason, where are you? But his mother had him trapped. There were no reassuring footsteps heading my way. I’d probably have to leave without apologizing. “Are you?” Pete repeated. “That stuck-up thing?”
    Quinn thinks so. “Maybe. I guess. Sometimes.”
    “What is ‘stuck-up,’ anyway?”
    Oh, man, his questions were not helping my head. I hesitated. How did you explain “stuck-up” to a seven-year-old? “When you’re mean to people and act like you’re better than they are.”
    Pete considered. “You don’t do that.”
    “I don’t?”
    “Not to me.”
    “I didn’t think so.”
    “And you don’t do it to Jason, either. You make him smile a lot. So I don’t see how you can be bad for him.”
    I’m not, Pete. Your Mom’s lying. Adults do. It sucks.
    “So if you don’t do the stuck-up thing to me or Jason, why do you do it to my mom?”
    I practically groaned. Because she pushes my buttons and makes me say things like,