Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
But somewhere in the midst of outrage and sorrow is another feeling. It is warm and it expands out from the core of her belly and fills her chest. It is unfamiliar, so much so it takes her time to recognize what it even means. It is a sense of security that someone else is finally properly in charge of her. She is no longer lost. On the contrary, she is very much found.
2 ALL WRAPPED UP
All the trees in the park have been wrapped from leaf-tip to trunk in canvas.
This is not a prank.
This the work of Christo, an artist with a hardcore fetish for wrapping things that seem too big to wrap. This is an installation of great cultural importance, and so, being interested in all such things, Storm has taken the day off from scholastic activities to inspect it, among other things.
The trees are interesting to look at, but this is clearly a lesser work. A sign nearby details the time Christo wrapped a waterfall, and yet another one depicts the wrapping of the German parliamentary building, the Wrapped Reichstag. Storm figures the moral of the story is you can make anything work for you if you just go big enough with it.
“Super geil,” Sasha is chirping. Sasha is short with dark hair and enthusiastic eyes, and is one of Storm’s classmates. She has come because she has a free morning and also wanted to see the trees. The spectacle has drawn people from all over the city.
“Genau,” Storm agrees, drawing on her cigarette languidly. It’s a nice day. The sun is shining, and she is relaxed. The art is weird, but that’s kind of the point. Her gaze drifts across the crowd…
She stiffens. Her hand sweeps away from her mouth and she thrusts the butt end of the cigarette toward her friend with a curt, “Hold this.”
Sasha takes it, not because she’s a smoker, but because the words came so urgently and firmly that her brain snaps into autopilot. She finds herself standing there with the lit cigarette perched between the tips of her fingers, vaguely confused while Storm scans the park.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I thought I saw someone. It’s fine.” Storm reaches out for the cigarette, which is returned from Sasha’s awkward grip to the more comfortable place between her fingers. She’s been jumpy lately. Things are playing on her mind.
“Thank you,” she says, gesturing with the smoke.
“I thought I spoke to you about the smoking.”
A not quite yet entirely familiar but very distinct voice emanates from behind her.
“Goddammit!” Storm swings around, looking up into the face of the school’s disciplinarian.
Heat and fear flash through her, followed by a sudden chill even though it is a bright and sunny day. How does Jane seem taller now than she did before? How does she loom so large in this wide open space? Storm feels her bottom heat up, as if an invisible burner has been deployed at the mere sight of this woman.
Jane’s question is crisp and pointed. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” The riposte is swift and automatic.
The chill in the air becomes absolutely frosty as Jane’s eyes run up and down the length of Storm with consideration. “You’re right. I clearly am needed at work.” She checks her watch briefly. “I will see you in my office at 2 pm. And put that out.”
Storm hesitates a moment before dropping the cigarette on the ground and stepping on the burnt end. “Happy now?”
“Pick that up.” Jane frowns.
“You wanted me to put it out, what am I supposed to do?”
She’s braver out here with a myriad of strangers, assuming Jane doesn’t want to make a scene among this kind of a crowd.
“Pick it up. Put it in an ashtray. Stop being feral.”
Sasha lets out a small giggle at that last comment.
With that parting shot, and having made an appointment in a few short hours that she clearly expects to be observed, Jane turns and walks away, disappearing into the crowd of art appreciators.
Storm walks in the opposite direction to find an ashtray, muttering under her breath. “See me in your office at two? I don’t fucking think so.”
Having caught up, Sasha now looks worried. “Was that…”
“Yeah.”
“She…”
“Uh huh.”
“And you’re not going to go?”
“Hell fucking no, I’m not going to go. I went once, and once was enough. I’ve learned my lesson,” she states, ironically not having learned any kind of lesson at all.
“Are you going to go back to school?”
Storm shakes her head. “Yeah, nah.”
Sasha does not know what this means, but soon works it out from context when they go and play mini-golf instead.
Storm has entirely forgotten about the interaction with Jane by the time evening comes. She takes the tram from the city back to the suburbs which adjoin the countryside and wanders inside her host family’s house. She’s missed dinner, but that’s not unusual. That’s what chocolate is for.