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    Graffiti
    Graffiti
    Graffiti
    Ebook60 pages48 minutes

    Graffiti

    By J. Fallenstein

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Legend has it that couples who paint their names on the bridge at midnight will stay together forever, but those who break their promises will be cursed. Lucia doesn't believe in curses, but she has to wonder when couples around town have freak accidents after splitting up. Now her friend is going through a breakup and someone—or something—is threatening her. Can Lucia get to the bottom of it before someone gets hurt . . .or worse?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLerner Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2017
    ISBN9781512434897
    Graffiti
    Author

    J. Fallenstein

    J. Fallenstein likes to scare herself by asking "what if?" She sometimes writes scary stories that answer that question. You can find her at midnight in Minnesota wide awake wondering what that noise was.

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      Book preview

      Graffiti - J. Fallenstein

      true

      chapter 1

      Sunday

      I stare out into the mist from my place in the old rocker on the porch of the duplex, rubbing my thumb and pointer finger over the eagle pendant on the chain at my neck. Just across the highway, the brick frame of the old railroad bridge looks kind of artsy against the white, overcast sky. I should know: I’ve been staring at it for two weeks now, ever since Mom and I moved here to Middleton. Middle-of-Nowhereton is more like it.

      The thing is, I hate bridges. When your dad is driving his truck across a freeway bridge and it collapses below him, you tend to not trust them. And now there’s one right in my front yard. Good thing it’s shut down. I let the eagle pendant, the only real thing I have left of Dad, drop to my chest.

      He’s been gone for almost a year now, and I’ve done everything I can to try and move on. But to be honest, I think I’m getting more and more nervous—more obsessive—as the time passes. Everything at home reminded me and my mom of Dad: our house, the front garden that he landscaped so perfectly, and, worst of all, the construction of the new bridge. Needless to say, we needed a change, so two weeks ago, Mom transferred airline hubs and here we are. Aunt Jane owns this duplex, so now it’s Mom and me on one side and Aunt Jane on the other. Kasey, my cousin, also moved in with our aunt a few years ago, after her mom died and her dad kind of checked out of being a parent. Then Kasey’s friend Patricia moved in too. Kasey told me Patricia got kicked out of her house and had no place to go, so it was nice of Aunt Jane to take her in as well.

      I rock back and forth and sip my chai. Even though I only saw Kasey two or three times a year before we moved here, we have a lot in common. Given everything she’s been through, Kasey is one of the few people who, when she says to me, I know how you feel, really does understand.

      Unlike, say, my old school counselor, who categorized me as lacking emotional wholeness in the file I probably wasn’t supposed to read. Or as obsessive, though that may be somewhat true because after Dad’s accident all I drew or wrote about was bridges. So I know that the bridge in my front yard, for instance, is an old-fashioned arch bridge constructed primarily from large, square bricks. There are iron rails on the top for the safety of pedestrians as well as three massive arches. The bridge that killed Dad was an eight-lane steel-truss arch bridge. Of course, there aren’t many people who want to talk for more than, oh, a nanosecond about bridges, so I tend to keep that information to myself.

      Now that I live here, it’s too bad Kasey is so focused on working and saving money so she can start taking business classes. She went to summer school and got her GED, and now she works at the coffee shop in the mornings and delivers pizzas at night. So at Middleton High I’m Lucia Klug, Six-Foot-Tall Friendless Freak. (I’m actually only five-eleven and three-quarters, but people tend to round up.)

      I would hang out with Patricia at school, but she and her boyfriend, Tony, are practically inseparable. Anyway, Patricia’s nice enough, but she and connected-at-the-hip Tony are both seniors, two grades above me, and have their own group of friends.

      Lucia! Mom calls from inside the duplex.

      I pull myself out of the rocking chair and go inside.

      I’m doing a three-day to Tokyo. I’ll be back Thursday. She’s got her flight-attendant suit on. She wipes down the counter, the fridge, and then the sink before adding, "Aunt Jane will be back from her trip tomorrow night. You’ll be okay alone? You can see if Kasey will

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