Read Taming the Star Runner for Free Online Page B

just wanted out of there.
    â€œSure. You guys will have plenty of time to get together this weekend.”
    I bet, Travis thought sourly in his room, throwing himself across the bed, turning his radio up. He’d never been around a little kid and was positive it was going to be a real pain.
    All the damn radio stations sucked.
    At home, he’d be hanging around the record store, maybe he and Kirk would be planning to pick up some girls…
    He gave up on the radio and slammed in a tape and turned over on his stomach. Motorboat was walking up and down on his back, his happy feet pricking holes in his shirt—he had ruined a lot of Travis’s shirts.
    At home, he’d be cruising to this music, or sitting around the front porch with four or five guys, somebody would be peeling out down the street, whooping out a car window as they passed.
    He lit a cigarette, remembering well enough he’d promised Ken not to smoke in bed, but it wasn’t like he was
sleeping
or something.
    At home there’d be people to talk to, whether it was the most outlandish lies or absolute truths or both in the same sentence…
    Something tickled his nose and he was startled to find it was a tear.
    There was a light knock on his door. Quickly he sat up and brushed his face off.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œTravis, there’s someone here to see you.”
    Travis, completely puzzled, opened his door.
    â€œCasey’s in the front hallway,” Teresa said, and added, “Good God. That cat is huge! Is he, uh, gentle?”
    Travis glanced down. Motorboat’s head was level with his knee.
    â€œYeah,” he said absently. “Sort of.”
    Teresa didn’t seem too reassured, but Travis couldn’t care right now.
    Why would Casey want to see him? He’d thought she had some big meeting to go to.
    She was waiting patiently in the entry hall, and Travis thought suddenly that if she were a boy, with that angular profile and long-distance gaze, she might be sort of good-looking.
    When she turned that gaze on him, however, he could have sworn it was with a mixture of laughter, anger, and contempt. He shifted uneasily in silence, finally saying, “Yeah?”
    â€œAre you an idiot?” she asked, pleasantly, as if she were asking, “Are you a Leo?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI mean, are you brain damaged or what? Ken didn’t mention it, and I didn’t think to ask.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhat did I ask you to do this afternoon?”
    Travis had a sudden flashback: He was eleven years old and absentmindedly made lemonade with six
cups
instead of six
tablespoons
of sugar … Stan had had a really good laugh about that one … What a stupid thing to think about, right now…
    â€œWater the stalls,” he answered. He could tell something horrible was coming, he’d look up and see a freight train on top of him and there wouldn’t be time to move.
    Casey nodded. “So that’s what you did. Watered the stalls.”
    They stood there for a moment under the hall light, and it seemed like all this had happened before, that they had played this scene in a play a dozen times before, he could even tell her next line:
    â€œYou are an idiot.”
    And as Travis realized the mistake he’d made, he couldn’t even argue with her. A slow wave of heat spread upward and he knew he was bright red.
    â€œNow I’ve got ten stalls inches deep in water. Couldn’t you figure out I meant put water in the buckets—not all over the floor? Good golly, kid, are you brainless?”
    Travis thought later he should have slugged her. How could he have stood there and taken that?
    Probably because at the time he agreed with her and couldn’t even get the air to say so.
    â€œI bet,” Casey said slowly, “that when your mama asks you to tie your shoes, you rope them to the bed.”
    Travis stood there a long time after she closed the door behind