The Dysasters (The Dysasters #1)(70)

FOSTER


Foster was going to kill the chickens. All of them. Dead. With a groan she rolled onto her belly and covered her head with her pillow. It felt like all she’d done was collapse into bed, close her eyes, take a deep breath, and then it was morning. And she knew it was morning not because of the sun. Oh, no. Foster had blackout curtains to keep that early-rising bastard firmly on the outside of the house. She knew it was morning because of the squawking, or crowing, or whatever word described the god-awful noise that had woken her up.

“Fucking chickens,” she moaned, tossing her pillow onto the floor and sitting up. With a yawn, she stretched her arms overhead and squinted at the glowing red numbers on her alarm clock. Eight twenty-three. It wasn’t that early. At least, not now that she’d adjusted her schedule so that she and Sabine could hang out before Sabine went off to class while Finn fed the menagerie, which would be in about thirty minutes.

Foster flipped off her alarm clock before it started blaring at her, and shuffled out her door and around the corner to her bathroom. She squirted a blob of toothpaste onto her toothbrush, weighing whether or not thirty minutes was enough time to get rid of toothpaste mouth. Toothpaste mouth ruined vegan scones, and they were really the best part of Sabine coming over nearly every morning.

No, she wasn’t being honest. Sabine was the best part of Sabine coming over. She liked their new routine. It pushed her one step closer to feeling like she was truly at home and part of a family. And that’s all she wanted. It was simple, really, just wanting to belong. But so much time had passed and so many bad things had happened since she’d truly felt at home on her rooftop or having s’more nights with Cora that Foster had begun to wonder if it had all been an illusion. That maybe she’d made the feeling up. Maybe she’d only convinced herself that she belonged. But all the days at Strawberry Fields with Tate and now Sabine and Finn had brought with them that fuzzy warm rush of comfort and home, like she’d just been on a long trip and was only a few miles away from her front door.

Foster stuck the toothbrush into her mouth.

September was a month of Foster firsts: first best friend, who she refused to call bestie no matter how many times Sabine insisted; first “boyfriend-ish dating guy” type person; first time float flying; first time living without someone over the age of twenty-one; and first time having to possibly save the lives of two people who were also mutant freaks and who had some kind of water ability.

She spit, gargled, and then spit again.

She’d leave that last first until the very final possible moment. Those two wouldn’t be eighteen for another two days, and maybe there wouldn’t be any freak water event and there would be no reason to go around saving two fellow teenagers. Yep, she’d let it go. Remove it from her mind. Poof. Gone. A problem for Future Foster.

Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that Present Foster couldn’t wait half an hour for vegan scones.

She trotted down the hall, peeking into Tate’s room before heading downstairs. Sure enough, he was gone. Bed was made and everything neatly in its place like it magically reset itself every morning. If only Foster could get a little bit of that magic. She practically hopped down the stairs, finally feeling energized as the dark of her room slipped off of her like a skin and the sunlight, casting fun house–mirror shapes along the floor and walls, kissed each patch of her bare flesh.

“Eggs,” she said with a chipper sort of finality. “I’ll make eggs before Sabine gets here and has a chance to look at me all vegan and disapproving about my life choices.” She rushed into the kitchen and grabbed a bowl from the cabinet before stuffing her feet into her tennis shoes. “And this has nothing to do with those chickens who woke me up,” she said to whichever deity might be listening. It wasn’t spite. It was her stomach.

On her way to the coop Foster paused, flailing her hands, and the bowl, above her head in an attempt to get Tate’s attention from across the vast pasture. It was no use. He was out there with those, she cringed, horses. Or at least that’s what everyone kept calling them. She sighed and continued her short trek to the chickens’ living quarters. To Foster, those two mares would always be dinosaurs and the people who rode them would always be crazy.

Foster stopped short of the coop with its pale gray siding, cheery white shutters, and fully fenced-in yard area where the chickens could chicken about without fear of being eaten by some wild animal. It was a perfect playhouse-sized version of the main house, which is exactly what Finn had intended when he’d built it. And it was nice. Really nice. Like, nicer than the vast majority of the motels she and Cora had stayed at. But those hadn’t been filled with chickens.

“Hi. Hello. Hi,” Foster said, bending over and ever so quietly tiptoeing to the small and open front door of the coop. Gingerly, she waved at the hens sitting sleepily in their nesting boxes. “How’s it going?” Foster set down the bowl and rubbed her sweaty palms on the butt of her shorts. “So I’m just going to grab this right here maybe.” She tentatively reached into the chicken coop.

“Bwak!” The chicken fluttered its wings and seemed to puff to twice its original size.

Foster yanked her hand back before the chicken had the chance to peck her to death. “Sorry, ma’am. Sorry.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and crouched into a squat. “It’s just that you happen to be sitting on something that I need.”