Beware the Heartman by Shakirah Bourne

Author:Shakirah Bourne [Bourne, Shakirah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2024-09-17T00:00:00+00:00

I make a strangled noise. “Your aunt?!”

“Ahkai didn’t tell you?” Lynne gives me a perplexed look, as if I am the one who just melted out of the leaves. “I thought that’s why you took me to the tree.”

“Josephine?” Mrs. Edgecombe calls from the front door.

“Quick, let’s go.” Lynne grabs my hand, and I yank it away, flinching from her touch.

“She’ll stop us from going after Ahkai,” Lynne warns. Against all reservations, I follow her in a sprint down the road. At the junction, Lynne turns to the left, toward Fairy Vale school . . . and the sea.

This could be a trap. This most likely is a trap. Lynne is Mariss’s niece! If I wasn’t the one who planned Operation Take Out the Garbage a.k.a. Lynne, I would have thought she arranged for the steel donkey to kidnap Ahkai.

But even as I think it, I know that’s not true. There was genuine joy on her face when she stepped out of the salt circle and hugged Ahkai. She cares about him, and wants to get him back. But does this mean I can trust her?

Lynne finally slows down by the deserted rum shop, and I lean against the wall full of ripped flyers to catch my breath.

“Can’t you just teleport us to the cave?” I ask, trying to catch my breath.

She furrows her eyebrows in confusion. “Teleport?”

“You just appeared in front me,” I reply. “Unless you can turn invisible?”

Lynne flushes in embarrassment. “Sorta.” She rests against a faded poster for a fizzy juice they must have stopped making before Daddy was born. A second later, she melts into the background, like she turned herself into a clump of clear jelly. It’s only because I know she’s there that I can see the outline of her face, everything faded but her freckles.

“Camouflage,” she says, wriggling her nose. The movement makes her freckles look like insects on the wall.

Wait. A. Minute.

“That was YOU!” I yell, shaking a finger at her freckles. “You were in the yard, that time with Inkblot.” The same insects were above the sink when he was dangling in the air.

Lynne reappears, her face full of guilt.

“You did that on purpose! Made it look like the cat was floating. You were trying to freak me out!” And Inkblot is extra attached to Lynne, sticking with her even when Ahkai is in the room. “That dreaded cat is yours. You left him in the backyard.”

She gives me a wry smile. “His name is actually Urchin, but I like Inkblot better.”

“And the chain in your room!” The steel donkey’s chains are way thicker and heavier than the one I heard at the picnic. “Was that you? In the cane fields up North Point?”

Lynne winces and bites her lips. Her silence answers the question.

She sighs and starts to walk away. “We don’t have time for this.”

My patience snaps. I sit on the makeshift domino table, a piece of board balanced on a rusty steel drum, and fold my arms.

“I’m not moving until you tell me the truth.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.