The Shadow Club Rising by Neal Shusterman Read Free Book Online Page A

thing.
    Abbie stood up next. "I mean, really, Jared, you've got yourself all worked up into a panic for no reason."
    "What a waste of an afternoon," said Randall.
    "Wait a second," I said, just beginning to see how totally I had misread them. "Don't you care at all about what's happening?"
    Jason shrugged. "People were pulling pranks long beforethe Shadow Club existed," he said. "Just because they're doing it now doesn't mean we, like, inspired them or something. It probably has nothing to do with us."
    "Yeah," agreed Abbie. "Alec Smartz has made as many enemies as he has made friends."
    I looked to O. P., who had seemed to be more on my side than any of the others, but now she looked away. "I think maybe you're being too paranoid, Jared."
    I stood there watching them leave, not sure what to say that could convince them they were wrong. That, yeah, maybe I was paranoid, but sometimes that cleared your vision more than it clouded it.
    "The Shadow Club's dead," said Darren. "Let it stay that way." Then he slipped out through the hull, leaving Tyson and me alone. Tyson didn't move from his little perch way up at the bow. He must have sat in that spot when he used to come here by himself.
    "That went well," he said.
    "Oh, shut up."
    I thought the meeting was over, but when Tyson and I slipped out through the hole, we were met by an unexpected guest.
    "I could have told you they wouldn't go for it," saidCheryl. I turned to see her standing just a few yards away. I wondered whether she had been there all along, listening, or if she had just arrived in time to see everyone else desert.
    "Easy for you to say, now that they've all gone." I was a bit angry that she hadn't done anything to help, but also grateful that she decided to come after all.
    "They've got nothing to gain by helping you find the new prankster. The further away from it they stay, the better for them."
    "That's what they think, but they're wrong. It's going to come back in their faces, the way it's come back in mine."
    A wave broke on the seawall below us and sent up a burst of foam that soaked Tyson.
    "Oh, man . . . " Tyson used it as an excuse to leave, but I knew he felt uncomfortable being there—a kind of third wheel between Cheryl and me. When Tyson was gone, she took a step closer.
    "Alec thinks there ought to be a new club—one that will cancel out the Shadow Club."
    "One that he's in charge of?"
    "It could be a good thing. All right, I'll admit he's a little bit conceited, but his heart's in the right place."
    Hearing that made me suddenly feel the chill of the ocean breeze.
    "Does he know how much you stand up for him?"
    "No," answered Cheryl, "but he knows how much I stand up for you."
    That shut me up real quick. On the one hand it felt good to know that she would still stick up for me. On the other hand, Cheryl always knew the exact words to say to win a conversation with me. Lately reading her had been like looking into a one-way mirror. I could only tell what was behind her words in a certain rare light, which wasn't shining today.
    I couldn't look her in the eye, so I turned and stepped over to the ledge, where the seawall rose from below and met the flat mesa of the Ghosties. It was an unguarded precipice, and I marveled at how stupid we all were to play here when we were little. I longed for that kind of stupidity again, when I didn't know enough to see danger around me. Far off I heard the fence rattle as Tyson made his way out of the Ghosties. The sound brought me back to the here and now.
    "Maybe we'd better go," I told Cheryl.
    Another wave sprayed up over the ledge, dousing us, as if the sea itself was trying to chase us away. I heard the fence rattle again, and figured it must have just been the wind. We turned away from the tugboat, and left together, but it was painfully obvious to both of us that we were very much apart.
    The next afternoon, I went with Tyson down to the community pool. One of my many New Year's resolutions had been to