The Ugly Kids Read online

fence and hurrying past the tiny front yard into the house.

  She breathed a sigh of relief as the familiar bubbling noise of her fish tanks greeted her. There were several tanks in the tiny home she shared with her father. Her father enjoyed having the fish around as long as Lily kept them clean and fed the fish, so she was permitted to pursue her obsession without objection. He wasn’t home from his accounting office just yet though, so Lily had the house to herself.

  She passed the piranha tank, the shelf of small globes that held beta fish, and the tanks where she bred snails and bottom feeders just to keep her fish tanks clean before she reached the couch and collapsed on it. She stretched out her legs, heaved a sigh, and started relaxing to the familiar sound of bubbling.

  She smiled down at the orange, black, and white clown fish that was kept on the coffee table.

  “Hi Alice,” she said fondly.

  Alice just hovered there, but that was something fish did when they were content anyway. Lily wasn’t sure if Alice was a boy or a girl, but it was fun to pretend. She had long ago run out of neutral names like Robin or Sandy. Now she just named them whatever looked like might fit them. She was certain they wouldn’t mind. She had never met a gender-confused fish before.

  Bonk, bonk, bonk!

  Lily froze.

  Bonk, bonk, bonk! it came again.

  Slowly, very slowly, Lily’s eyes turned toward the window.

  There, perched precariously on her windowsill, was Gohber, grinning at her like some eerie fanged ghoul. His canines were strangely longer than the rest of his teeth, and his grin was so large, the corners of his mouth nearly crossed over his eyes. She felt like she was looking at a very disturbing cartoon or a Halloween mask.

  Lily leaped out of the couch and yanked the shade down so hard that the entire thing crashed to the floor, narrowly missing a tank full of hundreds of tiny neon fish that was perched on an end table.

  Gohber was still squatting there, grinning at her.

  Lily untied the heavy curtains and threw them into place over the window. She was breathing hard now, and her heart was pounding. The kid had found her?! How?! Had he followed her without her noticing?! Was he going to murder her?!

  The front door banged open, and the blood drained from Lily’s face.

  She picked up a little fish net. It wasn’t the best weapon, but Lily figured she could poke him in the eyes with the wire handle...or something.

  Cautiously, she crept forward, the fish net clutched in front of her.

  “I’m warning you,” she called out. “Get out of the house now, or I’ll—”

  “Lily?”

  A pale, stubbled face poked out of the doorway and regarded Lily with watery blue eyes behind thick glasses with thick black frames. Those eyes were wide in astonishment. He was balding, and the comb-over didn’t quite hide it. He was one of the few men taller than Lily, but he was rail-thin and often sickly looking. Probably because he fretted about most things and only picked at his food.

  Lily quickly dropped the net.

  “Dad! Sorry, I...there’s this boy from school. He was following me.”

  Her father frowned, concerned, and stepped into the room, ducking under the door frame and dropping his briefcase under the shelves of beta fish.

  “A boy?” he asked.

  Lily nodded. “I thought I lost him, but—”

  “Sit down, Lily,” her father interrupted, patting the back of the couch. “I’ve been putting it off a while. It just didn’t seem as easy with your mother gone off somewhere, but there’s a talk I’ve been meaning to have with you. About boys and girls...”

  Lily stared at him, then covered her face with hands that were like enormous slabs.

  “Dad, the school gave me the talk years ago!” she protested. “And they’ve repeated it every year since, just in case it wasn’t embarrassing enough the first time around!”

  “Oh,” blinked her father, looking tremendously relieved. “Good, good. Things have certainly changed since my day. As long as you know.”

  He breathed deeply, rubbed his stick-thin hands together, and forced a smile. “So how about Chinese food tonight?”

  Lily glanced at the window. She opened her mouth to tell her father about Gohber again, but then shut it. She didn’t need more of his fatherly dating advice...or as he called it, “courting.” In his day. Also, in the neighborhood he had grown up in, there had never been such a thing as “stalking.” There had just been a few “aggressive” boys.

  “Yeah, okay,” she said, plopping back onto the couch. Its springs squeaked under her weight.

  Not long after that, Lily’s father got in his car and drove off to pick it up.

  Lily had waved him off from the front door as an excuse to check the street. Gohber wasn’t in sight, and the sidewalks were quiet.

  Furtively, she ducked back inside and threw open the curtains. He wasn’t there either.

  She let out a sigh of relief and plopped back into the couch, just listening to the sound of bubbling aquariums. Gohber had given up. She didn’t have to see the creepy little kid for a whole day.

  She looked down at the coffee table. “Kind of strange, wasn’t that, Ali—”

  Alice wasn’t in her bowl.

  Lily sat up and leaned downward, peering through the glass and into the little castle the clown fish sometimes hid in. Not there. Not stuck in the filter either. Or behind the fake plants.

  “Alice?”

  “Is that what it’s called? Alice is delicious!”

  Lily let out a scream and spun around, knocking the empty bowl onto the carpet and spilling water everywhere.

  Peering over the top of the couch was Gohber, grinning widely at her. He waved. “Hi, Lily!”

  “Y-you ate my fish?!” Lily demanded.

  Gohber looked uncertainly at her. “Not all of it. I saved half for Lily.”

  He held up the tail-end of the now deceased clown fish.

  “That fish was not for eating!” Lily shouted. “It was a pet! And what are you doing in my house?!”

  Gohber looked down at the fish tail, then hid it behind his back.

  “I wanted to...’hang out?’” he paused, thinking. “Yes. Hang out is the right word.” He beamed proudly at remembering it.

  Lily stared at him in shock, then shouted, “YOU HAVE TO BE INVITED FIRST! GET OUT!”

  “Oh.”

  Gohber’s face fell. “Can I hang out with Lily?” he asked hopefully.

  “NO! How did you find me anyway?!”

  “I followed Lily’s scent.”

  “Well then follow it back where you came from! Leave!”

  Gohber’s face somehow fell further. Lily almost swore it was made of rubber the way it stretched.

  He plodded to the front door, squishing across the wet carpet with his enormous bare feet. He pulled open the door.

  As if the knob had somehow turned red hot, he let out a yelp and slammed it shut again.

  Lily scowled. She wouldn’t have minded if Gohber had been on the other side of the door when he slammed it, but...there he was back in her home.

  “Get—” Lily started to say, but the expression on Gohber’s face stopped her.

  The boy was terrified. His face was sickly looking and pale now, some of the tan gone. He was shaking.

  “Lily! Hide! Quick! Hide!”

  “What are you talking abou—”

  “HIDE!”

  Lily waddled back into the kitchen and fished around in the drawer of odds and ends that she and her father kept there. As Gohber freaked out in the living room, she pushed aside bits of string, old twist ties, a pair of scissors, forgotten keys that they were nervous about throwing away, a few screws and a screwdriver, an unused bicycle lock, and a couple cans of fish food.

  Finally, in the back of the drawer, her hand closed around the little canister she had been looking for. Her father had said it was only for use in emergencies. Well, she decided, a strange boy following her home and breaking into h
er home definitely qualified.

  It was only in case Gohber went completely insane on her. She was planning to pick up Gohber and put him outside, but you never knew who would try to kill you these days, and Gohber was anything but normal.

  There was a loud CRASH from the living room, and Lily huffed her way back out there.

  “What did you do?” Lily demanded.

  Gohber was standing with his back pressed tightly against the front door, his fingers clawing at the door frame, and his feet stretched far in front of him, like he intended to hold up the door. His elastic face was contorted into an expression of terror.

  “Lily! Hide! Lily has to hide!”

  “I’m not hiding in my own—”

  CRASH!

  Something behind Gohber slammed into the door, throwing the strange boy to the floor.

  Lily’s eyes widened. That hadn’t been her father. Her father was less capable of violence than Lily herself. It simply didn’t happen. Besides, he would have used his key. The door opened outwards.

  Lily placed herself in the doorway instead, pressing against the door.

  “What is outside?” she demanded of Gohber. “What did you do?!”

  “N-n-n-nothing,” Gohber stuttered, pacing and tearing at his hair. “They found me!”

  There was another crash from the other side of the door, and even Lily was almost thrown forward. The door splintered. She wasn’t sure how long it would hold.

  “Then let them find you and go away!” Lily shouted at him. “Your friend is wrecking my—”

  The last word turned into a scream as the door finally exploded behind her, and Lily was thrown onto the carpet next to Gohber.

  Lily struggled to sit up and push her hair out of her eyes.

  There was silence for a moment, then, “Me see food?”

  “NO! No, no,