Debts by Tammar Stein Read Free Book Online Page B

let
this
happen to them. He fulfilled his part of the bargain, and if she doesn’t do hers, anything’s possible. So suicide is out. At least for now. She shuts off her mind. Thinking is done for the day. A piece of her always knew this day would come. The best thing to do is get it over with. Be done and over and move on.
    She closes the door and pulls away in a tight U-turn, the tires crunching on the gravel before catching the blacktop and going silent. The radio’s still on, and a weary voice sings to her that we’re all “dust in the wind.” She can feel his eyes on her, those flat pale eyes watching, watching, even as he grows smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. Even after she drives down a hill and around a bend, even as the suburbs and strip malls come into view, she can still feel his eyes on her. She pulls up directions to Greenbrier Park on her phone.
    The Camaro heads there, as if of its own volition.

 
    Keep reading for a special sneak peek at what happens next, in
Spoils
, the newest novel by Tammar Stein.

    Excerpt from
Spoils
by Tammar Stein. Copyright © 2013 by Tammar Stein. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York, in 2013.

Chapter One
    My parents bought me a dolphin when I was twelve, but I made them take her back.
    They led me through the backyard of our huge new house, my mom’s hands over my eyes, my dad’s hands on my shoulders leading me forward; then they stopped in front of the pool, threw their hands in the air, and yelled, “Surprise! She’s yours!” That was during those first few heady years after the win when they were still figuring out what money could buy and what it shouldn’t.
    My breath caught as I watched the dolphin’s sleek steel-gray body fly through the length of our pool. Something awful twisted in the pit of my stomach as I saw this powerful predator trapped in our silly man-made folly. Instead of the giddy, excitedbirthday girl they were expecting, my parents got a full-blown fit. Livid and horrified, I made them call the marine-animal rescue program to come get her. My parents had to talk fast to explain why they had a dolphin in their backyard pool. But since their call also came with an extremely generous donation for the future care of my dolphin, they never got in trouble, even though it was illegal to keep a dolphin in a home pool.
    The rest of the afternoon could best be described as grim. While we waited for the rescue team to arrive, we sat on the patio overlooking the pool with my dolphin swimming in frantic circles like a moth trapped in a glass jar. I couldn’t bring myself to eat my cake—shaped like a dolphin, covered in unappetizing bright-blue icing that was rapidly melting in the sun. A few hours later, the rescue team came and loaded the dolphin into a special carrier lined with a foam mattress fitted for the dolphin’s body and sprayers to keep her sensitive skin from drying out.
    Silently we watched the dolphin get carted away. I could feel my parents’ disappointment and disapproval like a heavy weight. Even my brother and sister thought I was being ridiculously self-righteous. But it wasn’t that I didn’t want my own personal dolphin; I wanted to keep her so badly that I cried myself to sleep after she left.
    I had posters of humpback whales and the Greenpeace ships that fought to save them like other girls my age had posters of movie stars. What ocean-crazy girl wouldn’t adore swimming with her own pet dolphin? I could see why they had gotten confused.
    I was only twelve but I knew she could never be mine. Aninternal compass triggered an alarm that blared:
No! It would be evil to keep her
.
    Which is how five years later, as soon as my sister bursts through the tea shop’s front door, I immediately know something is very wrong. My internal clock is ringing like a bell. As soon as I see her face,