Read So Yesterday for Free Online Page A

looked at Jen in disbelief. "Not quite. I was
more focused on the running away."
    "Well, sure. The running away was a
priority." She grinned. "The running away was cool."
    My face may have indicated disagreement.
    "Come on, Hunter. You don't mind a little
running, do you?"
    "I don't mind running, Jen. I do mind running for my life. Next time we break into some
place, let's just—"
    "What? Take a vote first?"
    I took a deep breath, letting the sway of the taxi calm
me.
    "Let's just not." Then another groan.
"I had a picture of the shoes."

"Damn," she agreed.
    We were silent for a moment, thinking of that perfect
balance of understated style, slow-burning desirability, and coffee-spitting,
jaw-dropping eye candy that was the shoes.
    "They can't be as good as we remember," I
said.
    "Nice try. They were."
    "Crap." I checked my pockets again. Still
empty. "No phone, no shoes, no Mandy. This is a total disaster."
    "Not quite, Hunter."
    Jen held up what looked like my phone, except it was
the wrong color.
    Of course. It was Mandy's. She had the same model as I
did (but with the red translucent clip-on cover). She was a fierce Early
Adopter, and, like me, she used the phone for business. Just the day before,
I'd phoned her my picture of Jen's shoelaces.
    "Well, that's something."
    Jen nodded. There's a lot you can find out from
someone's phone.
    She began to poke her way through the menu, squinting
at the glowing screen. The little beeps gave me a creepy feeling, like going
through someone's pockets.
    "Shouldn't we call the police or something?"
    "And tell them what?" Jen said. "That
Mandy missed an appointment? Don't you watch cop shows? She's an adult. She
can't be a missing person for twenty-four hours."
    "But we found her phone. Isn't that
suspicious?"
    "Maybe she dropped it."
    "But what about the guy who chased us? What about
the shoes?"
    "Yeah, we could tell the cops about that. About
how we broke into an abandoned building and saw the world's most amazing shoes.
And then a crazy bald guy appeared, and we ran away. That story should do
wonders for our credibility."
    I was silent for a moment, out of arguments but still
not comfortable. "Jen, Mandy's my friend."
    She turned to me, thought for a moment, then nodded.
    "You're right. We should try the cops. But if
they do listen to us, they'll take Mandy's phone away."
    "So?"
    Jen turned back to the little screen. "Maybe she
took some pictures."
    ************************************
    We stopped the cab, paid for it, and found a coffee
shop of the musty-living-room variety: old couches, high-speed Internet access,
and strong coffee, which came in cups the size of bowls.
    Even before we walked through the door, I noticed
Jen's bracelet sparkling.
    "What's that?"
    She smiled. "It's a Wi-Fi detector. You know, so
you don't have to boot up your computer to see if there's wireless in the
house."
    I gave the Nod. I'd seen them in magazines, useful for
detecting which coffee shops and hotels offered wireless service, but wearing
the gadget as jewelry was pure Innovator.
    We claimed a couch and huddled over Mandy's phone, our
heads almost touching to align our eyes to the pixels of its little screen. Not
really designed for two viewers, that phone, but I wasn't complaining. That
close, I could smell Jen's hair stuff, a hint of vanilla cutting through the
musty couch and ground coffee. Her shoulder was warm against mine.
    "Something wrong?" she asked.
    "Uh, no." Memo to self: It's uncool to be
overwhelmed by casual contact.
    I brought up the camera
software, my fingers gliding over the cruelly familiar interface. (Maybe the
Finlanders would send me another one.) The menu showed five pictures, displayed
in the order they were taken. One thumb click later, a fuzzy orange face filled
the screen.
    "That's Mandy's cat, Muffin.
He eats cockroaches."
    "Useful beast."
    Next click a young Latina
woman appeared, smiling and fending off the camera, breakfast in the lower
third of the