Read The Secret Hour for Free Online Page B

every hour.”
    “Sorry, I missed the feathers on you.”
    Jonathan grinned. He looked sleepy. His eyes never quite opened all the way, but they twinkled when he smiled. “Hey, if I don’t get enough calories, I’m the one who’s fainting.” He opened the second sandwich and took a huge bite, as if talking this much had put him behind schedule.
    “That reminds me,” Jessica said, “thanks for saving me. That would have been a smooth move, falling on my face in front of the whole school my first week here.”
    “You could always blame the Bixby water.”
    Jessica’s fork halted a few inches from her mouth. “You don’t like it either?”
    “I moved here more than two years ago, and I still can’t drink it.” Jonathan shuddered.
    Jessica felt the fist of nerves in her stomach unclench a bit. She had started to think that everyone else in town had been born and bred here and that she was the first outsider they’d ever seen. But Jonathan was another stranger to this strange place.
    “Where’d you move here from?” she asked.
    “Philadelphia. Well, just outside, anyway.”
    “I’m from Chicago.”
    “So I heard.”
    “Oh, right. Everyone knows everything about the new girl.”
    He smiled, shrugged. “Not everything.”
    Jessica smiled back at Jonathan. They ate quietly for a while, ignoring the roar of the cafeteria around them. Her taco salad really was good, now that she paid attention to it. Maybe having a house dad wasn’t so bad. And Jonathan’s quiet feasting on his sandwiches was somehow reassuring. Jessica felt comfortable in a way she hadn’t since coming to Bixby. She felt… normal.
    “So, Jonathan,” she said after a few minutes. “Can I ask you something?”
    “Sure.”
    “When you first got here, did you think Bixby was kind of weird?”
    Jonathan chewed thoughtfully.
    “I
still
think Bixby’s weird,” he said. “And not kind of—very. It’s not just the water. Or the snake pit or all the other funny rumors. It’s…”
    “What?”
    “It’s just that Bixby is really… psychosomatic.”
    “It’s
what
?” she asked. “Doesn’t that mean ‘all in your head’ or something?”
    “Yeah. Like when you feel sick, but your body’s really okay. Your mind has the power to
make
you sick. That’s Bixby all over: psychosomatic. The kind of place that gives you strange dreams.”
    Jessica almost choked on a forkful of taco salad.
    “Did I say something?” Jonathan asked.
    “Mm-mm,” she managed, clearing her throat. “People keep saying stuff that makes no…” Jess paused. “That makes too much sense.”
    Jonathan looked at her carefully, his brown eyes narrowing even further.
    “Okay, I guess this might sound a little nuts,” Jessica admitted. “But it sometimes seems like people here in Bixby know what’s going on inside my head. Or I guess one person does, anyway. There’s this girl—half the time she talks crazy, but the other half it’s like she’s reading my mind.”
    Jessica realized that Jonathan had stopped eating. He was looking at her intently.
    “Do I sound insane?” she asked.
    He shrugged. “I had this friend back in Philadelphia, Julio, who would go and see this psychic every time he had five bucks to blow. She was an old woman who lived in a storefront downtown, complete with a purple neon hand in the window.”
    Jessica laughed. “We had palm readers like that in Chicago.”
    “But she didn’t read palms or look in a crystal ball,” Jonathan said. “She just talked.”
    “Was she really psychic?”
    Jonathan shook his head. “I doubt it.”
    “You don’t believe in that stuff?”
    “Well, not as far as she goes.” Jonathan took a bite but kept talking. “I went with Julio once to watch, and I think I figured out how it worked. The woman would say weird, random things, one after another, until something rang a bell with Julio and his eyes would light up. She’d keep pushing in that direction, and he’d start talking and telling