Second Star by Alyssa B. Sheinmel Read Free Book Online Page A

a scavenger hunt, and I have to be a better detective than I have been so far. I missed so many clues already: I didn’t see that Pete and Belle were a couple. I kissed him and went back to Kensie to find him, when I should have been looking for my brothers. When I go back, I’ll do better. I won’t lose my focus again.
    And if the squatters and runaways in Kensington don’t exactly warm to strangers coming around and asking questions, I’ll just have to make sure I don’t stay a stranger for long.
    I get ready quickly. When I shower, I rinse off a patch of sand that’s stuck to the small of my back, just where Pete’s hand rested in my dreams. I pack a duffel bag full to overflowing with warm dark clothes for cool nights on the beach, cash I’ve gotten from relatives as graduation gifts, a notebook, a block of surf wax pilfered from the supply in my brothers’ room. I feel like I should pack a magnifying glass, a set of walkie-talkies. The prize at the end of this scavenger hunt will be John and Michael themselves.
    Nana follows me to the driveway when I load the duffel bag into the car.
    “You can’t come with me. Not this time, girl.”
    My father’s voice makes me jump. “Go with you where?”
    He’s holding a cup of coffee, his bathrobe tied loosely around his waist.
    The lie comes to me so easily, it’s shocking.
    “My road trip,” I say. “With Fiona. Remember?” Fiona and I have been talking about taking a road trip after graduation for years, since before we even had our driver’s licenses. We got our parents to agree to it when we were in the tenth grade. We were going to drive up the coast, spend some time just the two of us before moving away to our respective colleges. But ever since Fiona began dating Dax, she’d stopped talking about our trip, and I stopped bringing it up. I can’t even remember the last time we spent a full day together without him.
    But, my parents don’t know that. “I’ll just be gone a couple weeks, remember? Mom said I could take her car.”
    “Oh,” he says. “Of course. Must have slipped my mind.”
    I shrug. “It’s okay, Dad.”
    “Do you need anything?” He reaches into the pockets of his bathrobe as if he expects to find something in there for me.
    I shake my head. “Nope. I’ve got everything I need.” It’s the last lie I’ll tell him today. “Say goodbye to Mom for me when she gets up,” I add, and he nods and walks back to the house. I wait until he’s out of sight before dragging two of my brothers’ surfboards from the garage and loading them into the car. They’re so long that I have to roll down the windows in the backseat so that the ends of the boards can stick out the sides.
    Before I get in the car, I crouch down to kiss Nana goodbye. “You keep an eye on them for me, girl. I need you to take care of them this time.”
    I pull away slowly, watching the glass house recede in my rearview mirror. I turn east instead of north. Before I can head back to Kensie, I have to talk to Fiona.

10
    “Please, Fee,” I beg. “I really think I need this time.”
    We’re sitting on the terrace behind Fiona’s house, which is held up on stilts driven deep into the earth below us. Her house perches at the top of a hill, just like mine. But you can’t see the ocean from here. We’re surrounded by woods, and the air is heavy with the scent of eucalyptus trees.
    “You were right,” I say. “I just need some time by myself. I’m going to drive up the coast, check into a little hotel on the water, and…” I pause, trying to think of something that Fiona will approve of. Finally, I say, “Spend some time alone with my thoughts.”
    “Well, why didn’t you tell your parents that? Why did you have to say that you and I were going off on a road trip together?”
    “Fee, you know what my parents are like. They’d never let me go off alone, not after John and Michael…” I trail off.
    “I don’t like lying to them,” Fiona says,