Chapter 2

When we finished packing up and were ready to head home, I tried to get into the car.

Poppy gripped the door and blocked me.

“Nora, you’re drenched in sweat. You’ll make the whole car stink. You’re not getting in.”

Mom frowned.

“It’s only two miles. Nora, just walk home. Stop acting like a child.”

“That settles it. I’ll give you ten points when you get home.”

The car sped away.

I stood on the side of the road beneath the blazing sun, sweat still pouring down my forehead.

My whole body felt like it was burning.

Relatives drove past one after another.

They stopped to talk to me.

But none of them dared give me a ride.

“Nora, it’s not that I don’t want to take you. If Poppy sees you, she’ll make a scene again.”

“With that point system of yours, getting a ride now could cost you another three hundred points. It’s not worth it.”

I nodded.

I didn’t even have the strength to say, “Okay.”

By the time I finally reached our apartment building, I discovered that the elevator was under maintenance.

Holding onto the railing, my legs shaking so badly I could barely stand, I dragged myself all the way up to our apartment on the twenty-eighth floor.

The second I opened the door, a party popper exploded beside my ear.

Streamers and confetti covered my face.

Poppy screamed excitedly.

“I won the bet!”

“Look at Nora! She’s drenched in sweat. She really walked up twenty-eight floors!”

Mom affectionately ruffled her hair.

“You little troublemaker. You deliberately put up that maintenance sign? What if someone really needed the elevator and you delayed them?”

Poppy lifted her chin smugly.

“No one else is as stupid as Nora. Who actually sees a maintenance sign and climbs all those stairs?”

She smiled sweetly.

Her eyes were completely innocent.

Mom and Dad had given her everything she wanted since she was little.

To her, maybe this really was nothing more than a harmless prank.

But my head was spinning harder.

Everything in front of me had doubled.

I gently pushed her aside.

“I need to lie down.”

Poppy stomped behind me.

“What kind of attitude is that? Mom, take fifty points off!”

“I was going to give you ten points for climbing twenty-eight floors, but look at you. You never appreciate anything.”

My steps faltered.

So pushing myself to the edge of collapse was worth ten points.

And one second later, having the wrong attitude toward Poppy cost me fifty.

I didn’t want to argue anymore.

I opened my bedroom door and pulled back the blanket, intending to sleep.

A dog suddenly leaped up from my bed.

Its teeth sank hard into my leg.

The pain shocked some clarity back into me.

I desperately kicked the dog away and stumbled out of the room.

“Why is there a dog in my bedroom?”

Poppy widened her eyes innocently.

“I found him on the way home.”

“He’s so cute! I hid him in your bed because I wanted to surprise you!”

“Well, you’re awake now, right? Go give him a bath and I won’t deduct those fifty points.”

She carried the dog out of my room and started bringing it toward me.

A memory suddenly came rushing back.

I’d been bitten by a dog when I was little.

The experience had left me deeply traumatized.

Even hearing a dog bark made me instinctively afraid.

And now she’d hidden a stray dog she’d picked up off the street in my bed.

Then she expected me to bathe it.

I backed away step by step.

Blood was still seeping from the wound on my leg.

The dog smelled it.

It started barking wildly, struggled free from Poppy’s arms, and charged straight at me.

Terror overwhelmed me.

My vision went black.

Then I lost consciousness.