Free The Poison Apples by Lily Archer Page A

the grass and was crouched over on the ground, hacking. Agnes wailed with laughter. The guy in leather pants was shaking his head.
    â€œThanks, anyway,” I whispered, my eyes burning with tears, and jogged back across the lawn toward Kristen.
    It felt like small demon was running around inside my throat, setting fire to my tonsils.
    â€œWhat happened?” Kristen asked.
    I was planning on just giving up and telling her the truth.
    I really was.
    But then That Thing happened again.
    â€œThose cigarettes ,” I said. “That guy had the worst cigarettes.”
    â€œOh, really?”
    â€œYeah. I’m, like, extremely picky about the cigarettes I smoke. And those were really gross. Blech.”
    â€œWhat kind of cigarettes do you normally smoke?”
    â€œUm. This really expensive French kind.”
    I wanted to punch myself in the face.
    â€œI guess we’ll go buy some later,” Kristen decided, and patted a spot on the ground next to her. “Now tell me more about LA.”
    I sighed with relief.
    I had a friend.
    Now I just had to make sure not to compulsively lie to her.
    *   *   *
    â€œLIGHTS OUT!” Agnes bellowed, running up and down the hallway. “LIGHTS OUT, YOU LITTLE SUCKERS!”
    Another big surprise about Putnam Mount McKinsey: It felt a little, just a little, like a prison.
    All freshman and sophomores, Agnes informed us during our orientation meeting, had dinner at 7:00 PM , study period from 8:00 to 10:00 PM , and then lights out at 10:30.
    I couldn’t believe it.
    In LA, I went bed at midnight. At the earliest.
    Alice Bingley-Beckerman and I sat on the edge of our parallel twin beds, waiting for Agnes to knock on our door. Alice was wearing a beautiful black satin nightgown, and her blond hair rippled down her back.
    I was wearing a pair of Pradeep’s old boxer shorts and a tank top.
    We were ignoring each other.
    I felt ugly.
    Even worse, I was starting to get this weird stomachache. I tried to remember another time I’d felt this way, and the only thing I could think of was this summer vacation Pradeep and I took when I was ten. We’d never met our mother’s parents before and so they sent the two of us to Bangalore, India, to meet them. After a sixteen-hour plane trip, we spent two weeks in a tiny, hot house outside of the city, listening to a grandmother we’d never met before lecture us on how we were leading pointless, immoral lives in America. Between lectures, she’d chew dates and spit the pits into the palm of her hand.
    There were also servants we weren’t allowed to touch.
    And one night I was forced to eat goat.
    Anyway, the whole time we were in Bangalore, I had a stomachache. Maybe it goat-induced indigestion, but mostly I think it was homesickness. I missed my mom. I missed my dad. I missed my friends. I missed my dolls. I missed running in and out of the sprinkler in our backyard.
    And the second I got back to LA and was folded into my mother’s warm, rose-scented bosom, the stomachache went away.
    Now I was sitting in a strange little room at this strange little boarding school in Massachusetts, next to a snotty blond girl who was ignoring me, waiting to be checked on by a scary older girl who seemed to be the only parental figure around, and it was that same feeling again. That same stomachache. That same feeling of homesickness.
    And then I realized something even scarier: I wasn’t even sure what I was homesick for .
    I didn’t want to go live with my mother and Pria.
    I definitely didn’t want to go live with my father and Shanti Shruti.
    I was missing something that didn’t exist.
    I was missing the past.
    I was pastsick.
    There was a loud knock on our door.
    â€œYes?” Alice murmured.
    Agnes threw open the door. “Yo,” she said. “Just making sure you’re both here.”
    â€œYo,” I said sadly.
    She peered at me. “You know you