The Fruit of My Lipstick by Shelley Adina Page B

any more in case he changed his mind or I woke up.
    When the ferry docked, I discovered that Lissa had done a little advance research. “We’re going to do a one-hour tour,” she told us as the deck shuddered under our feet with the gentle impact. “On Segways.”
    “What?” Carly’s voice spiked. “Those rolling wheelie things? I thought those died.”
    “Those personal mobile machines, you mean. And they never died,” Jeremy corrected her. “They use them at Pixar to get around the campus. Cool!”
    A Vespa I might be able to handle. But a platform between two wheels? Was she kidding?
    A college student named Megan met us at the dock. “This way, people. We’ll run through the features of your Segway, get you helmeted up, and we’ll be on our way in half an hour.”
    The breeze on my face felt cool, but the sun made up for it as I pulled my helmet on and tried to listen to Megan’s instructions. If she thought we’d be driving these things in half an hour, she was pretty optimistic. With the eight of us lined up in a row, she ran through the controls and safety features. Then it was time to get on.
    I stepped onto the platform and waited for it to do something.
    “Turn it on with the key, then lean forward to go ahead, and lean back to reverse,” Megan told us for the third time. “Easy does it. Everybody go forward five or six feet, then back.”
    “Yikes!” I said as the thing rolled forward. Instinctively I jerked back, and it reversed under me, picking up speed.
    “Gillian, straighten up and it’ll stop,” Lucas called.
    Easy for him. He rolled forward and back like he’d been doing it since birth. Lissa jerked one way, then the other, as incompetent as me. Ha. Misery loves company.
    “Take a few minutes to practice, and then we’ll go over the basics of turning,” Megan called, rolling smartly out of Jeremy’s way as he tried to avoid a collision with Shani.
    “Whose idea was this, anyway?” I heard Lissa mumble as she rolled past at a snail’s pace. At least she was rolling. I still couldn’t get it to go forward without jerking. Learning to drive a clutch had been easier than this.
    “Gillian,” Lucas said, motoring up to me, “don’t look at the controls. Look at where you want to go, and lean toward your goal.”
    Guhhhh
. I got off the thing, moved it around so it finally pointed away from people, and tried again. I lifted my gaze to the end of the practice lot and before I could even take a nerve-choked breath, I found myself rolling smoothly toward the road.
    “Whoa!”
    “Now straighten, and back up to where you were,” Lucas suggested.
    With a glance over my shoulder to make sure I didn’t kill anything, I did it. I actually did it.
    After mastering that, learning to make turns with the controls on the left-hand twist grip wasn’t so bad. And before fifteen more minutes had passed, even Lissa and Carly had stopped running into things and had made it to the end of the lot and back without injury to themselves or anyone else.
    “We’re off,” Megan called. “Try not to lose sight of me, and stick to the roads only. You’ve got off-road tires, but no four-wheeling on these things, all right?”
    We rolled out of the parking lot at a dizzying pace that someone doing a fast walk could probably keep up with—but hey, at least we were moving. We strung out along the road in twos and threes, gaining confidence with each minute. Jeremy leaned forward and opened it up so that he kept pace with Megan. I thought he looked a little out of control, but I had enough to do with my own machine. Megan would have to rescue him if he wound up flat on his face in the weeds.
    Lissa, Carly, and Shani were just ahead of Lucas and me, keeping a tight little formation that was probably more fear than design. With a firm grip on the handles, the wind in my face, and Lucas beside me, I began to relax and enjoy myself. The rain of the week before had made fresh green grass come bursting out