Rising Star by Karen Webb Read Free Book Online Page B

began making changes
and adding to the story, watching as Trish grew into the smart,
sassy girl from her other stories. Now this girl, Selena thought as
she typed, she could handle anything. She could solve a murder
mystery while pretending to be a model. Hmm, Selena paused as she
thought about it. Might make a good story. Trish was everything
Selena wanted to be. She was cool, confident and comfortable around
all sorts of people. She always had a snappy comeback to every
question and she didn’t take any guff from anyone. I bet she would
have taken Matthew Mason and wrapped him around her little finger.
Selena smiled in the dark as she considered it. Trish would have
been so aloof, Matt would have been chasing her down and begging
for a chance to spend time with her. Angelique and the modeling
business were all but forgotten as Selena lost herself in the world
of Trish.
     

Chapter 10
     
     
    Selena’s dad drove her to the airport on
Monday. She’d had no trouble clearing it with her teachers; her
grades were among the top of her classes and she had already
accrued enough credits to graduate. These last few days were filled
with parties and yearbook signings, as high school, for her at
least, drew to a close.
    Her father parked the red car and followed
her inside the airport to check in. He stayed by her side all the
way to the security checkpoint, where he gave her one last hug. “Be
safe, Selena. I love you.”
    “ I love you too,
dad.”
    “ Hey,” he said as she began
walking away.
    She looked back and her father winked at
her. “Break a leg,” he said.
    “ I hope not.” She smiled
and waved as she entered the line at the security checkpoint. I
probably will, she thought. I’ll probably fall all over myself and
break both my legs. I’ll be laughed out of modeling. No, I’ll be
laughed out of Hollywood; out of California, even. We don’t want no
half-breed hick girls here, she could just hear the Hollywood
people chanting at her as she moved through the line.
    Selena made her way through security and
found the correct gate, her stomach feeling queasy. She had never
been on a plane before and she was feeling a little nervous. She
was looking forward to visiting a new city. From what she’d seen on
TV, Los Angeles might be like visiting another world. She imagined
it as a different planet, as she took a seat at the gate. A
different world from another galaxy, filled with strange beings
whose language was all beeps and blips. Her stomach knotted even
more as she followed other passengers down the boarding ramp.
    She took a window seat on the plane and
watched as Albuquerque and the Sandia mountains grew smaller and
smaller, until the cars and houses looked like miniatures. As the
plane climbed higher, it passed through the fluffy white cumulus
clouds. Wow, Selena thought as she watched the fluffy clouds move
by her window. Now it’s not just my head in the clouds, but my
whole body too. She pressed her face into the glass, until she
couldn’t see the plane around her. Just her and the clouds,
drifting through them as if she were floating. She put a hand on
each side of her face, up against the window to block out the plane
and passengers even more. Just her and the clouds. Drifting above
them, now floating through one, watching as it broke up around
her—
    “ What do you
see?”
    The voice broke her reverie, bringing her
crashing back into her seat. She heard the loud hum of the plane
again and the voices of the other passengers, muffled from the
noise of the jet engines.
    “ There’s someone out
there,” Selena said loudly, turning to look at the older gentleman
in a business suit. “Out there, on the wing.” She pointed out the
window and smiled as the man leaned forward to look. She remembered
something like that from an old episode of the Twilight Zone, where
a man was seeing someone standing on the wing of the plane. Other
passengers had heard her and were leaning out the windows too.
“Where?