Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller Read Free Book Online

do you say?”
    I’ve never had a job before, unless you consider Mom’s brief stint stocking newspaper boxes. We’d drive to the loading dock, fill up the trunk of the car—I think it was an old Ford Escort that time—with string-tied bundles of newspapers, and drive around town, swapping out yesterday’s edition with the current one. She had a hard time getting up before dawn, so most of the time I did the deliveries by myself, even though I didn’t have a driver’s license.
    I don’t intend on staying in Tarpon Springs, but a job would be a better alternative to high school. Something to do. Something to occupy my brain until it’s time to leave. “I’ll think about it.”

     
    “Phoebe can take you shopping for school clothes,” Greg says later, as we walk home from the cell-phone store. One of the things he’s shared about himself is that he’s an eco-friendly type who subscribes to the philosophy that if your destination is less than a mile away, you should walk. Something about reducing his carbon footprint, he said, but I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy trying to figure out how to tell him I have no intention of going to school. “Cell phones I can handle, but I am clueless when it comes to clothes.”
    “I, um—I’m not going to school.”
    I wasn’t anticipating the direct approach, and he looks at me as if I’ve sprouted a second head. I found his high school yearbook in the bookcase when I got home from the sponge docks. Greg played varsity football, captained the baseball team, and was the student-council treasurer. There’s also a plaque on the living-room wall that commemorates the year he was the Epiphany cross retriever. I have no idea what that means, but clearly Greg is the type of guy who loved high school. He’s a participator. I’m not surprised that my refusal doesn’t even make a blip on his radar screen. “I know it would be intimidating at fir—”
    “I’m
not
intimidated.” I am annoyed that another person today presumes to know what I’m feeling. “I just don’t want to be a freak show.”
    “You’re not a freak show.”
    “Kat told me about the newspaper articles,” I say. “You don’t think everyone is going to want to come see the amazing kidnapped girl? ‘Can she talk? Can she read? Can she eat with utensils?’”
    He smiles. “It won’t be that bad.”
    “I don’t see the point,” I say. “I’m nearly eighteen and I’ve never had dreams of going to college.”
    “But that’s the thing, Callie. You can dream about college now if you want.”
    “Now?” I don’t care for the implication that being with Mom somehow limited my dreams—even though it did. Or that I now have his permission to start dreaming. “I could have dreamed about college at any time, but I didn’t.” My words have bite and his smile fades to a frown. His disappointment makes me uncomfortable and I hate feeling like I should say something to make him happy. “I mean, maybe someday I’ll change my mind, but right now …”
    He doesn’t answer right away, but he works his lower lip between his teeth, so I can tell he’s going over all the angles the same way I do.
    “I, um—Kat said Theo was looking for someone at the shop,” I say. “I could do that.”
    “I don’t know, Callie,” Greg says. “I think high school is important, not only academically, but forgetting involved and being social. I’m not saying no, but I’ll need to think about it.”
    “I’m not going.”
    He sighs at the stalemate, and we don’t talk again the rest of the way home.

Chapter 5
     
    “Callie?” Kat’s voice drifts into the Airstream as I sit on the couch, staring at my suitcase. It’s been four days since I got here, but unpacking it would feel permanent. Settled. And that unsettles me. “We’re coming in.”
    Before I can answer, the screen door swings open and my space is filled with Kat and unfamiliar boys. Two of them. One has a wide smile and black hair