Don't Look Behind You (Don't Look Series Book 1) by Emily Kazmierski (summer reads .txt) 📗

the corridor, making me and everyone else lingering before their next class scurry toward their next period.

I slide into my seat in art class as the tardy bell is ringing. Mr. Baugh catches my eye from the front of the room and gives me a look.

“Sorry,” I mouth. I feel bad for being late because I like this class, and I like Mr. Baugh. He seems genuinely kind and interested in his students, unlike some of the other teachers. Besides, art class gives me an excuse to take more photos. In the past two weeks I’ve taken hundreds of new ones, so much that they’re clogging up the storage space on my phone.

At the front of the room, Mr. Baugh reminds us to keep up with our reading before telling us to split up into pairs to work on our semester projects.

Noah grins at me. “We still need to get together to work on our project.”

“How about Sunday? We could meet at the diner in town.”

He shakes his head. “I’m babysitting my younger sister and brother that day.”

A flare of frustration goes through me. Why is it so hard to find a time to get together to work on our project? And if I’m being honest, I’d like to get to know Noah better, too.

“That’s okay,” I say. “I used to babysit all the time. Little kids like me.”

Noah’s wide brown eyes study me. “You sure? They’re kind of a handful. I can’t promise you won’t end up dressed like a firefighting princess. Or holding a lizard.”

“I like lizards.”

He laughs at the hesitance in my voice. “Okay, Sunday it is. I’ll text you my address.”

I’m relieved, not only because Aunt Karen has made her displeasure at having random people in her space clear, but also because the idea of inviting friends over to the old house feels wrong somehow. How can I expect Noah to be at ease there when I never am? Worrying my lip, I wonder if the place will ever feel like a home, or if it will always feel like simply a place to hide.

Aunt Karen is gone on one of her mysterious long walks. She goes practically every evening after dinner, but she won’t say where. I feel kind of bad. Suddenly becoming a guardian when you were childless before has to take some adjusting. She needs some space; I get that.

Still can’t say I like it when she’s gone, though. The creaks and groans the old house makes creep me out. The drone of the AC sounds more like cultic chanting the more I focus on it. And the grove of eucalyptus trees out back? I shudder to think what could be hiding in there.

Which is why when the girls from drama club showed up, I was so on edge I slammed the door in their faces to a chorus of Hey and Aren’t you going to invite us in? I took a second to breathe before I opened it again.

Once I recover from my shock at being visited at Aunt Karen’s house, I slip out the front door. “What are you guys doing here?” I ask, crossing my arms, deciding that looks too aggressive, and uncrossing them again.

Fiona’s mouth pulls down. “Sorry, should we have texted first or?”

“My house is chaos—Mom’s having the kitchen remodeled,” Viv says.

“My mom doesn’t know how to butt out,” Marisa adds. “She thinks my friends are her friends, so it’s better if we don’t spend time there.”

“Last time we were at Marisa’s place her mom tried to watch Clueless with us, but she kept ranting about how awful their acting was,” Viv starts to grin and Marisa swats at her with a Shh. Viv is not put off. She mimics Marisa’s mom, clutching the fake black pearls she’s wearing and using a nasal voice. “Like, Oh my God, you know not to scrunch up your entire face when you fake cry, right?”

I turn to Fiona, waiting for her excuse. She gives a playful shrug. “I came to see your aunt Karen. She’s cool.”

Inside, a door slams.

“Is she home, by the way?” Fiona looks past me, her brown skin already glistening in the stale air. “Can we come in? It’s kind of stifling out here.” She takes a step toward the door, but I block her.

“No! Sorry. Aunt Karen doesn’t like having people over. I think it’s because she needs to detox after dealing with customers all day at the grocery store. Sorry, again.”

The girl shakes her head. “It’s fine. We should have texted. We’ll go.”

“No! Please don’t. Do you want some lemonade?”

“Absolutely we do,” Viv says, quoting a character from The Office.

“Nice one, Jim,” Fiona says, thumbing at Viv.

“I think it would have been really fun to play Angela. She’s so catty all the time. I could really get into that,” Marisa says.

I don’t know how this happened, me standing on the front porch discussing an old sitcom with friends from my new school, but here I am. The word reverberates through my brain. I have friends. At my new school. A small smile flits over my lips.

“So, lemonade?” Viv prompts.

I start, promising to bring it right out. In the kitchen, I remember that Aunt Karen doesn’t cook, so there aren’t any lemons. Or sugar, aside from the sugar replacement stuff she uses in her morning coffee. She must not sleep well, because she doesn’t speak until she’s had at least two cups of the pitch black tar she brews.

Ha! I’m in luck.

There’s a can of lemonade concentrate in the freezer. It’s crusted over with freezer burn, but it should be fine.

By the time I step out on to the porch with a pitcher and four glasses, all three of my friends look like they’ve been in a sauna—they’re panting with the heat and dripping sweat. They pretty much have, it’s so ungodly hot out here.

“You know, let’s go in the house, okay?”

“Oh thank god,” Marisa says, fanning herself with her hand.

“You sure your aunt won’t mind?” Fiona