Front Lines by Michael Grant Read Free Book Online Page A

starts and lightens the mood enough that Strand feels free to dip into Rio’s popcorn, and she retaliates by stealing a chocolate-covered almond from him.
    She risks a glance at him. He is quite handsome in profile. He has a good, strong chin, a straight nose, and the sort of lips Jenou describes as “kissable,” which for Jenou covers a lot of ground.
    They settle in finally for the main feature, announced with a blare of trumpets and pounding drums. It’s a love story with Tyrone Power and Joan Fontaine, a love story but a war story as well. It’s hard to get away from the war.
    No wonder I feel swept up.
    Just around the part where Tyrone regains his sight, Strand takes Rio’s hand.
    He’s holding my hand!
    He looks at her as if to ask permission, and Rio, with her heart pounding so hard she is surprised anyone can hear the last scene of the movie, smiles queasily and squeezes his strong fingers and wonders whether he can feel her callouses and whether he is shocked and whetherhis heart is pounding too.
    He walks her home after the movie. They take their time, not wanting the night to end. Rio learns that Strand enjoys taking photographs. He learns that she likes riding horses. He has his pilot’s license and wants to grow up to fly, maybe for the post office carrying air mail, after the war. She admits she hasn’t really thought much about her future.
    No vows are spoken. No promises are made. He does not kiss her, but had he tried she’d have let him. And that fact, too, joins so many other facts in making her wonder whether something very profound has changed in the world around her.
    They hold hands as they walk and talk and Rio’s feet never touch the ground.
    â€œSo?” her mother asks as Rio literally twirls in through the front door. “I suppose you had a good time?”
    â€œI suppose I did,” Rio says, smiling and making no effort to hide her very, very good mood. She glances at the phone on the little table at the bottom of the stairs and considers calling Jenou. But of course Jenou will demand details—every last detail—and there is no privacy to be had talking in the hallway. Jenou can wait. Besides, Rio wants to make sense of her feelings on her own for now.
    She climbs the stairs to her room, falls back on her bed, bounces once, and pulls her ancient stuffed bear—BarelyBear, or BB for short—to her chest. BB was a fifth birthday present given to Rio by Rachel.
    â€œBB, it’s possible I’m in love,” Rio says in a whisper. “What’s that, you say? It’s only a first date? Don’t be such a prude. You’re a bear, what do you know?”
    The bear does not argue the point. Nor does it object to Rio tracing a small heart onto its furry chest with her finger as her eyes close and she hovers between sleep and waking, between dreams and imagination.
    Rio is not sure whether she is awake or asleep when she hears a woman’s cry.
    She sits up, tosses BB aside, and listens, waiting for a second cry to reveal the source. Nothing. She gets up and opens the door to the hallway, sticks her head out, and listens intently. Nothing. She withdraws back to her room and raises the sash window. Still nothing to be heard but a breeze in the trees and a distant truck engine. She is about to shrug it all off when she notices a glow, an orange glow, that at first glance seems like a single candle in the darkness.
    She blinks, then squints, trying to get some sense of scale in a tableau only faintly touched by moonlight. Not a candle: fire.
    Fire!
    Rio throws on a robe and slippers and rushes out into the hallway intending to rouse her parents, but their dooris closed and no light shows through the cracks. So, as quickly as she can without making noise, Rio descends the stairs, lifts the phone from its cradle, and dials the operator.
    â€œOperator, I believe there’s a fire over on Fitch Street. Please alert the fire