Girl Wonder by Alexa Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

ways, feeling more secure the deeper I went. It was the bottom I feared most—who knew what lurked in the mud?
    Treading water, I watched my dad and brother set up the nets. Then, they too stripped down to their bathing suits and dove into the bay. Over and over, my father tossed James Henry backward off his shoulders. My brother shrieked with delight and flew through the air like a beach ball.
    I remembered when Dad had done that kid stuff with me. I was pretty young—maybe five—when he’d shown me how to duck dive into the waves off Cape Cod. We used to camp there sometimes. Together we would swim out past the breakers, where my feet couldn’t touch the bottom. Dad had said I must be part fish. No matter how cold it was, I would stay in the water for hours. Dad’s admiration was worth a little hypothermia.
    Now, after about an hour of swimming in the brackish water, we swam back in to check the crab nets. They came up empty, but the weird thing was that even the bait was gone. The last net, the one farthest out and closest to where I’d been swimming, was snagged. I yanked and yanked, but it wouldn’t budge.
    â€œLeave it,” Dad said, gathering up the buckets. “It’s fine if we lose one.”
    Whatever. We’d been studying pollution at school, and I was not going to be responsible for the death of the environment. Besides. I wanted to impress my father. I wanted to show him that I was strong.
    The net finally gave. It was heavy, but rising.
    And then—
    Two beady eyes attached to a brown snout peered at me from the end of my tether. My net was ensnared in the jaws of an alligator. Its jaws weren’t but two feet from my hands.
    â€œDad—”
    My voice was just a squeak. I couldn’t shout. I couldn’t move. I was frozen. Paralyzed.
    â€œI told you, Charlotte—”
    Then he saw.
    He was there in a flash, slicing the tether in two with the bait knife. The twine crackled when it broke. Bubbles arose from the gator’s snout as it sank back into the murky depths. My knees buckled. Fear washed over me in waves.
    This was by far and away the most afraid I’d ever been. It was the moment I realized my dad’s judgment wasn’t always sound.
    My dad’s judgment could hurt me.
    This was what I wrote about late into the night.
    On Friday, Miss Mason called us one by one up to her desk to discuss our essays. I wasn’t worried. The one thing I knew I was decent at was writing. The teachers at my school in Florida were always saying things to me like, “You are your father’s daughter, Charlotte. Talent runs in families.”
    The guy behind me glanced over my shoulder on his way back to his seat. “What did you write about?” he asked.
    I told him my alligator story. “How about you?”
    â€œI wrote about this time in juvie when this guy held a knife to my throat.”
    â€œYou’ve been to juvie?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “No. But it makes a good story.”
    â€œHave a seat,” Miss Mason said authoritatively, when it was my turn to talk to her. In a matter of days she’d gotten a whole lot meaner. “Your essay is certainly very creative ,” she said, making creative sound like a euphemism for inappropriate . “But I’m afraid it doesn’t follow the five-paragraph format. I’m going to have to ask you to rewrite it.”
    I suddenly understood why the kids on the regular track were always sleeping. They weren’t missing much. If anything, they were sparing themselves.
    At lunch, I couldn’t stop ranting about the stupidity of all my classes.
    â€œNo child left behind,” Mimi said, making a face at the cafeteria smell. Today’s special: spaghetti with meat loaf balls. “It means the teachers have to teach to the lowest common denominator. What can you do?”
    â€œBitch about it?” I grabbed a bottle of lukewarm orange juice and